[Night Wolf]

:cool2:

Yup, in the 1979 Sedan DeVille d'Elegance

So, my friend was going to come down from Dec. 22nd-Jan 1st, my Christmas break, he is in NY and it was gonna be a cool time to just hang out and stuff. I *was* going to fly up to NY on my Spring break hang out and drive the Caddy down.

Well, truth is I miss driving that car.... kinda funny eh? never thought it would be this bad, but I really miss that car.

So I called up my friend to night, me and him are like brothers, always know how each other is feeling and stuff. So I ask him about the Winter break, no plane tickets were bought at the time.

So I ask him about this... I fly up the 22nd my fist day off, visit friends and family in NY and kinda enjoy the time back home and stuff, do that on the 23rd and 24th, maybe there would be a Christmas party I can go to somewhere. Christmas I will spend with family.... then the fun begins!

Dec. 26th me and my friend Chris are gonna embark on a 1,500 mile trip I first said we can drive stirght thru, switch driving and stuff, to get here sooner and spend more time down here, but before I could say "Or....." Chris was already asking about taking up to 3 days to go down, making stops along the way visitng places and making a road trip out of this

Naturally, since driving is one of my favorite things to do, and I *was* going to mention it, I agreed

So the plan is, we leave Dec. 26th, drive a bit, spend the night somewhere, drive on the 27th, spend the night then arrive in Clearwater on the 28th. The route, stops and places to see are not decided yet, we will figure that out proabbly once i get up to NY, but it dosn't matter.

So I just booked my plane ticket for the 22nd in the AM, gotta stop in D.C. for an hour, ah well... going to Albany where my mother will pick me up.

from the 28th to the 1st we will hang out in FL go to Busch gardens probably since neither of us have been there, his grand parents are in Tampa so we'll visit them. So while our time in Clearwater is cut by a day or so, the overall enjoyment of the trip will be better

The best part? I am taking the '79 DeVille .... that to me is just sooo cool. She was bought new in FL and brought up to NY in 2001 or so, now she is going back down to the sunshine state

I KNOW the car will not have an issue making the trip, with 4 new tires I feel comfortable, they are not balanced yet, and that is the only thing that I need to get done, so I'll ask my father to take it to the shop to get the wheels balanced.

Nearly everything on the car works, cruise control is a life saver... only thing that isn't working right now is AC, but my father replaced the O-ring that was bad and pulled a vaccum and said it was holding, so he is gonna shoot it up and see,. either way its going to be a great trip down.

I have the cassette adapter for XM radio, I'll have my MP3 player, Chris is bringing his laptop and iPod, all these can be hooked up to the radio via the cassette adapter... its going to be a blast this ride down, it really is.

I figured 1,500miles. a bit more then when I came down with the '93 Coupe, but we are probably gonna do more recreation stuff on the way down, I was going to use an estimate of 18mpg overall, but Chris said yeah right, try 15...so I tried 15.... basically I'll use 100 gallons of gasoline to come down, it runs on regular, right now regular is $2.20, it should go down a bit more, but at $2.20, that means the gas bill will be $220 to bring a '79 Caddy from NY - FL

I think it'll do alot better then 15mpg though. The modified 472 intake manifold is now in, the rebuilt carb and a couple other things... I really think she'll get atleast 18mpg with the cruise set around 72mph.

This is probably going to be the best roadtrip I'll be on in a loooong time, this is the ultimate road trip car..... atleast compared to my other 2 cars, floating down the highway with the music up, it'll be nice.

Right now the car is back together, my father said it runs nice. It needs an oil change that he said he'll do (I have the oil and the filter in the car) and the tires need to be balanced.....other then that, road trip material!

Man I am excited, driving, driving the '79, going back to NY, making use of my vacation.... but most of all hanging out and spending time with my best friend because I havn't been able to do that since I moved... this little road trip is perfect for both of us, and we always talked about doing a cross country road trip after HS.... not quite what we had in mind, but damn, it'll pass.

 

[eldorado99]

Sounds like fun! The only thing missing is a stopover at the Cadillac Ranch! I always love roadtrips with my friends.

 

[Bro-Ham]

Hello!

Road trips are good to clear the mind and enjoy the sights! Safe travels to you! I'm about to embark on a cross country field trip in my '79 Sedan deVille tomorrow - - let's hope these cars do the job we know they are capable of!

Dave

 

[Innovator]

Sounds like your first roadtrip... Dont worry, you will grow weary of it the first 300 miles. The thing about roadtrips is that they are overrated. There really isnt that much too see usually and if there is, its often dissapointing.

If you want to take some advice from a fellow teenager that has done a fair amount of cross country trips here it is...

Dont let your friend(s) drive, people are careless with things that arent theirs regardless how close they are. You love that car... dont let anyone crash it for you!

Do the trip in a straight shot! A couple months ago i did upstate NY to melbourne FLA in 18 hours... in a work van... i was alone... with no cruise... no A/C (it was july)... broken windows... a radio with a mind of its own and hard to hear because of the broken windows... and terribly missaligned (drove straight with a quarter turn the right). Only stops were for gas, no sleep. And to top it all off i was depressed due to the ticket i received the night before for doing 97 in a 65.
It may be obivious why i detested the trip. However the other trips i have done were from vegas, texas, detroit and iowa to upstate ny... in luxury cars... (my caddy, caprice... and 2 excursions). All of my trips are interesting for the first few hours but the conversations can only go so far and music becomes boring and monotonous. Its best just to get to your destination!

Bring a radar detector! 80-85 is the preferred speed i get the occasional 120 (with the 9c1) in there. I drive fast even for my age... but i mean your talkin 72??? Thats crawling... Anyways for myself i always set out saying im gonna be a good boy and only do 10 over... nope you get too comfortable and push your luck... it will happen!!!

I must say however my last roadtrip to detroit was fun. Haulin across canada and michigan in a police car packed with 5 college kids headed to a concert and on our way to visit more college buddies!!! Then again it was 5 guys... laptops... food... and the fact that everyone yields to my car on the road.

Oh well i guess try to have fun, but its usually not as fun as you think and with such a long trip... good luck!

 

[Night Wolf]

Sounds like your first roadtrip... Dont worry, you will grow weary of it the first 300 miles. The thing about roadtrips is that they are overrated. There really isnt that much too see usually and if there is, its often dissapointing.

If you want to take some advice from a fellow teenager that has done a fair amount of cross country trips here it is...

Dont let your friend(s) drive, people are careless with things that arent theirs regardless how close they are. You love that car... dont let anyone crash it for you!

Do the trip in a straight shot! A couple months ago i did upstate NY to melbourne FLA in 18 hours... in a work van... i was alone... with no cruise... no A/C (it was july)... broken windows... a radio with a mind of its own and hard to hear because of the broken windows... and terribly missaligned (drove straight with a quarter turn the right). Only stops were for gas, no sleep. And to top it all off i was depressed due to the ticket i received the night before for doing 97 in a 65.
It may be obivious why i detested the trip. However the other trips i have done were from vegas, texas, detroit and iowa to upstate ny... in luxury cars... (my caddy, caprice... and 2 excursions). All of my trips are interesting for the first few hours but the conversations can only go so far and music becomes boring and monotonous. Its best just to get to your destination!

Bring a radar detector! 80-85 is the preferred speed i get the occasional 120 (with the 9c1) in there. I drive fast even for my age... but i mean your talkin 72??? Thats crawling... Anyways for myself i always set out saying im gonna be a good boy and only do 10 over... nope you get too comfortable and push your luck... it will happen!!!

I must say however my last roadtrip to detroit was fun. Haulin across canada and michigan in a police car packed with 5 college kids headed to a concert and on our way to visit more college buddies!!! Then again it was 5 guys... laptops... food... and the fact that everyone yields to my car on the road.

Oh well i guess try to have fun, but its usually not as fun as you think and with such a long trip... good luck!

I didn't exactly PUSH the '93 Coupe from NY to FL, did I?

Yup, I have my radar detector... Escort Pasport 8500 X50.

I figured 72 because I am in no rush, and anything above that I can kiss any and all fuel mileage away.

the '93 Coupe was PACKED, there was ALOT of weight in that car, NO room at all for anything else... most of the way down I did 70-85, in SC we were doing 90 for a long time... I really did have alot of the weight in the car though, and nothing was held down so I didn't want to have to stop short.

At times I did start to get tired of it, but that was only for a bit, for me, I really liked it simply because i love driving, and I love music, so combine the two and I am having a great time.....plus its just so different to drive cross country instead of flying... very cool.

 

[Innovator]

Hey we all have our interests right? Well for me time is money!!!

 

[davesdeville]

Sounds like your first roadtrip... Dont worry, you will grow weary of it the first 300 miles. The thing about roadtrips is that they are overrated. There really isnt that much too see usually and if there is, its often dissapointing.

If you want to take some advice from a fellow teenager that has done a fair amount of cross country trips here it is...

Dont let your friend(s) drive, people are careless with things that arent theirs regardless how close they are. You love that car... dont let anyone crash it for you!

Do the trip in a straight shot!

I think 70 is a perfectly good speed especially when you've got a 3 speed... I'd figure 15 and I'd be a bit surprised if you got 18.

Doing it in 1 shot is good if you're just going to a destination. That's how I drove 22-23 hours straight from mid-Ohio to mid-NM, speed limit was about 65 for most of the trip, I averaged 69 with a few stops so I could eat or take a leak. I'd had a couple horrible experiances in the Mass. to Ohio part of the trip so I just wanted to get home ASAP.

But most of the time, why bother not stopping... if you see something, cool, stop. On my trip to San Antonio, we stopped and took a pic of a mountain that looked like a boob. Then again, traveling through 1600 miles of desert does get freakin boring once in awhile. Espeically when it's 100+* out in the day with no AC on the way back (in the SHO we picked up there) and no radio either.

Another thing, if the trip is longer than like 16 hours, you really want to sleep in a motel overnight anyway. Tried the 1600mi Texas trip in 1 day... got up at 6am, drove until 3:30am the next morning then we said **** it and slept in the cars at a rest stop for 3 hours and kept going (must've gone through at least a gram of caffeine that night/morning.) Oh yeah, the guy armor-all'ed the interior and didn't wipe the crap off so it was all freakin sticky and gross, so we had to buy some glass cleaner in Ft. Stockton I think it was.

Sorry that was a bit off topic... anyway have fun and if you feel tired pull over and take a nap. I'm sure the 79 is a great car if you have to sleep in it.