[Silly Little Cars] My new Interceptor...

[Alec Bennett]

> Yup, the bread man is currently winning...

I have some inside information that Raz has an ace up his sleeve....

But as I drink my victory Belgian beer at our hotel outside Harbin
Hotsprings, a few notes about roadtripping by metermaid buggy:

R2D2 *can* drive on I-5, but its a little scary having an 18 wheeler pass
our absurd little selves. So in general we've been driving down "Historic
Route 99", which I guess is/was the north-south Route 66. An interesting
road, when it leaves the interstate its kind of frozen in the mid 60's when
all the traffic was re-routed down I5. So its got all the old hotel signs
that look like props from the Jetsons, all in much better shape than their
hotels. Lots of quality Americana like the hotel with the big "Know Jesus,
Know Peace!" signs all over it (we came pretty close to staying there), and
thriftshops everywhere, all thoroughly picked over. Then it'll head back to
I5 for a mile or two and we'll be awash in McDonalds again. But the fun
thing about travelling by Interceptor is that you see all of it, or at least
much more than I'm used to seeing from my RV.

I'm a little offended that no one thinks I'm a metermaid, it would be nice
to scare at least *someone*. But the usual reaction to R2 is "what the hell
is that thing?" Most people don't even notice us, which is also a problem,
but all the fellow goofballs figure the whole thing out at a glance. For
example earlier today we were driving down some particularly farm-road type
section of the old 99, where it does lots of right-angle turns around farms
then turns to dirt for a minute and then back, and suddenly there was the
shortest train I've ever seen driving towards us. Literally one engine car
and one cargo car, both fullsize, coming our way. He was watching us
curiously, we were watching him curiously, and when he got close enough he
gave us a big smile and a bunch of toots.

Today we left the Central Valley, driving down Route 20 towards Clear Lake
and Napa. Much more traffic driving much faster, but R2 was up to it, even
over the hills. In general its one of those situations where I have to watch
the speedo to make sure I keep it under 55. If I'm not careful it'll get up
around 65 without me even knowing it, and it feels fine, but it also feels
like if we hit the wrong bump we might wind up testing those roll bars...

Driving into Harbin Hot Springs tonight was priceless, I'm pretty sure we're
the only ones to ever arrive by metermaid buggy. Tomorrow going through wine
country should be pretty fun too. I guess I should probably spit the wine
back into that spitoon or whatever they call it since I basically have a
bumper sticker that says "I'm probably drunk".







On Fri, Apr 9, 2010 at 8:34 PM, Dan Das Mann <dandasmann at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yup, the bread man is currently winning...
>
> On Apr 8, 2010 12:42 AM, "Alec Bennett" <wrybread at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So I bought that diamond plated Interceptor that I posted about awhile ago,
> picture attached.
>
> Its a total overbuilt and over modified beast, with diamond plating and
> rhino coating (what they put on pickup truck beds, looks like powder
> coating) for no other reason than, as it was explained to me, so if someone
> slams their door into it, their door will dent and the Interceptor will be
> fine. It looks pretty cool but isn't quite my style. Those big chrome mag
> wheels on the other hand...
>
> Its a '99, was previously harassing parkers in San Francisco, and has only
> 17,000 miles on the odometer. Its pretty insane how much the previous owner
> restored everything, the engine looks brand new, has all new hoses and
> wires, and you could literally eat off the valve cover. There's all sorts of
> modifications to the brackets in the engine, new aluminum struts everywhere,
> I'll try to post some pictures if anyone's interested.
>
> One thing he did that I love is beefed up the front forks and put wipers on
> them, which are new to me but apparently standard on motorcycles, they keep
> dust from going down the fork. And he added aux fans to cool the buried and
> suffocating engine.
>
> As I type I'm in a hotel in Redding, CA, where Maxime and I just bought it.
> We took an Amtrak up here and will be driving it slowly back to San
> Francisco (about 250 miles) over the next few days, vehicle and police
> willing.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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