Trip across the country

[Phil_F_NM]

At the end of September, my friend Brad and myself are getting into my 1972 220D and pointing it west then driving out to Edgewood, New Mexico (where I grew up.)

Brad and I are college friends and both photographers so we're going to take six days to do a three day drive and we'll be shooting a lot of photos on the way. Should work out just perfect, considering the top speed of the 220D! Our goal is to not drive on any interstates, instead sticking to the old US highway system. US Route 30, 50 and 54 are the main highways we'll be driving along. The map shows we'll be taking I-40 from Tucumcari to Edgewood and it's a possibility, just depending upon how tired we are.

We're going by this route

http://goo.gl/maps/eqCag

I'd love to meet a few forum members on the way out west if anyone is close to the route and has time to grab a coffee or lunch or whatnot.

Thanks all!
Phil Forrest

[JB3]

glad you are going to take a lot of pics! should be an epic trip.

IMO there is nothing quite like a big road trip in a classic.

Ive made a lot of work style road trips in rentals or modern cars across the county, but the two that stand in my mind are the road trips where I was driving my 65 buick.

should be a blast in the 72 on a lot of back roads

[Skid Row Joe]

IIRC, since I drove one in the late '60s-early '70s, the 220Ds had a top-end of 80 mph or a tad better.

Running the Interstate and toll road systems all the way, will let you look at the back doors of 18-wheelers all day......but you'll make great time!

[Hogweed]

stop by my place in pa and i'll give you a zia license plate for the trip. i lived in albuq for years and did the I-40 route too many times. i always loved the feeling i got going down that cut on 40 just east of alb near edgewood

Originally Posted by Phil_F_NM

At the end of September, my friend Brad and myself are getting into my 1972 220D and pointing it west then driving out to Edgewood, New Mexico (where I grew up.)

Brad and I are college friends and both photographers so we're going to take six days to do a three day drive and we'll be shooting a lot of photos on the way. Should work out just perfect, considering the top speed of the 220D! Our goal is to not drive on any interstates, instead sticking to the old US highway system. US Route 30, 50 and 54 are the main highways we'll be driving along. The map shows we'll be taking I-40 from Tucumcari to Edgewood and it's a possibility, just depending upon how tired we are.

We're going by this route

http://goo.gl/maps/eqCag

I'd love to meet a few forum members on the way out west if anyone is close to the route and has time to grab a coffee or lunch or whatnot.

Thanks all!
Phil Forrest

[Phil_F_NM]

Originally Posted by Hogweed

stop by my place in pa and i'll give you a zia license plate for the trip. i lived in albuq for years and did the I-40 route too many times. i always loved the feeling i got going down that cut on 40 just east of alb near edgewood

Thanks, I've got a few Zia plates of my own from previous vehicles. The 300D I have was formerly a New Mexico car. I don't know if I can use those plates on the 220D but if I can, it'll save me a couple dollars if I decide to stay in that state. Not that I want to. I love the northeast. It's just a little too expensive to live in this area for a freelance photographer.

My 220D has enough legs in 4th gear to hit 65mph easy and I think there's still a bit of room left before red line. I still have yet to make a nice highway trip of a few hours to see how she does for extended periods on the road. Perhaps tomorrow (Saturday.) We're not going to drive on any interstates at all, if possible, so there should be far fewer truck back doors to stare at.

Phil Forrest

[Hogweed]

no, these are souvenir plates i bought. they are plain yellow w/ a red zia in the center. i have a boat load of NM tags but NM is still plate-to-owner so only i could use them. i also have an extra 75th anniv. "mayor" plate from 1987 that i bought

Originally Posted by Phil_F_NM

Thanks, I've got a few Zia plates of my own from previous vehicles. The 300D I have was formerly a New Mexico car. I don't know if I can use those plates on the 220D but if I can, it'll save me a couple dollars if I decide to stay in that state. Not that I want to. I love the northeast. It's just a little too expensive to live in this area for a freelance photographer.

My 220D has enough legs in 4th gear to hit 65mph easy and I think there's still a bit of room left before red line. I still have yet to make a nice highway trip of a few hours to see how she does for extended periods on the road. Perhaps tomorrow (Saturday.) We're not going to drive on any interstates at all, if possible, so there should be far fewer truck back doors to stare at.

Phil Forrest

[Dee8go]

So, what happened?

[Phil_F_NM]

We arrived in Albuquerque a week ago Friday then hit the ground running with shooting photos for a few days. We went to the Albuquerque International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta the following morning then explored the greater Albuquerque / Santa Fe area till Wednesday morning. My friend Brad flew back to Philadelphia Wednesday afternoon and since then I've been helping my dad with his broken Chevy Aveo. Didn't have any internet access until Wednesday. Haven't had time to really update my blog or completely go through the photos yet but I'll be posting a bunch soon.

Phil Forrest

[Phil_F_NM]

We arrived in Edgewood, New Mexico on the evening of the 4th of October then just a few hours later were at the Balloon Fiesta. Tooled around the greater Albuquerque/Santa Fe area and shot a bunch of photos while doing so.
Since then I've been busy with family stuff, fixing cars and over the last few days, my image host was down so I wasn't able to do any updates once I got the time to do so.

I haven't written up the big blog post about the trip from Philly to Edgewood, but will soon.

Until then feel free to peruse the images I've made since the day we set out from Philadelphia here. (In no particular order.)

See some of my Balloon Fiesta images.

The big blog post and the actual route we took will be posted soon.

Phil Forrest

[Phil_F_NM]

My 220D outside Brad's house in South Philadelphia. The car is fully loaded and it shows.

So, we started on the 29th of September in Philadelphia and used I-95 to get out of the Philly area. We hit Route 40 down near Delaware to avoid tolls and then turned west and drove south on Route 1 until we hit the Baltimore Beltway. We drove west on the outer Beltway to I-70 until we got to Fredrick, Maryland where we really began the "no interstates" journey. Drove southwest on US Rt 340 to Berryville, then west on 7 until it intersected US 50 and there we let the road take us for quite some time.


Looking east from the crest of one of the last higher of the Appalachian passes on our trip west.


The weather started to turn cloudy and we thought we'd get rain but only got a few sprinkles from a system that drenched and tore up the midwest.

We stopped for the night at Tygart Lake State Park just outside of Grafton, West Virginia.

Phil Forrest

[Phil_F_NM]

Second day, we got up and ate at a cafe in Grafton which seemed to be THE place to go. After breakfast, we continued west on US-50 through West Virgina and into Ohio. We stopped in Parkersburg, WV for coffee and an attempt at getting internet access.


We walked around town a bit and even though we wanted to see the Ohio River, the view was blocked by very large levees.

Once we crossed into Ohio, I took a short detour north to fill up the car with biodiesel and we got groceries for the next few days. Back-tracked to US-50 and continued west to Athens, Ohio where we had lunch.

In Athens, we got to walk around the Ohio U. campus and surrounding town quite a bit. Athens is a cool little college town and Ohio U. is known for its outstanding photography and journalism programs. (My old professor at Temple U. has strongly suggested Ohio U. for graduate studies.)


Gorgeous old Willys Wagon in Athens.

After lunch in Athens, we continued west and tried to figure out where we'd camp for the night. The Federal Government shutdown took out a large number of camping options so we were limited to State Parks and private campgrounds.

When we hit I-275 just east of Cincinnati, we cheated the route and took that south to bypass downtown traffic which US-50 would have put us right into.

About that time we decided to detour the route south through Kentucky in order to stop by a few bourbon distilleries. The extra few miles and tour on the whiskey trail was well worth it.

That night we stopped at Big Bone Lick State Park just south of Cincinnati. Yes, it's actually called that. I heard of Big Bone Lick, Kentucky ten years ago when I got my duty station with the Navy Seabees. Myself and my journalist coworker were interviewing and photographing every Seabee in the Battalion and one of them said he was from Big Bone Lick. We didn't believe him so he insisted he show us on a map.





Phil Forrest