driving 35 Auburn Speedster from MI to NM

[mikespeed35]

Mike and I are driving our 35 Auburn Speedster from MI to Santa Fe, NM. for an ACD meet to be held there. I will try to post daily to give you an update on our travels.

We waited until 9 a.m. this morning (4/13/12) to leave, (in hopes that it would warm up), for Santa Fe in the Auburn. The top was down but it was cold about high 40’s. Since tornados and thunderstorms appeared to be in a line west of IN. We decided to set the Garmin on a path toward Cape Girardeau and checked no highways. We followed “Sofie”, our Garmin, as she lead us south through MI. and on to Terra Haute, IN. The weather warmed ,and we were beginning to peel off a few layers by noon. We have traveled many of these roads on other tours so it was familiar territory. We stopped to take a couple pictures. The first picture is combine on a pole. (we didn’t see any cars on poles) the second is the fair barn where we stopped to put the top up when it began to sprinkle. It didn’t rain hard but it was still (low 60’s) cold and we didn’t want to get caught in a sudden shower. We are still very concerned about the tornadoes and storms so we will continue south toward Memphis before turning west.

[Shop Rat]

That is my DREAM car. The only one on my "bucket list" to get to ride in before, well, you know. And that one is beautiful. :cool:

[TexRiv_63]

Very nice car, thanks for sharing your trip experiences, I will follow with great interest. Good luck!

[West Peterson]

Watch out for snakes!

[mikespeed35]

It rained during the night, and was in the low 60’s this morning. We left around 9:30 this morning, traveling south toward Hayti, MO. It was cloudy and threatening rain, the top was up. As we continued to the south, the weather continues to warm. We saw many oil rigs pumping away, thought this hit and miss powered one was unique. We stopped for lunch at Subway in southern IN. It was a car show in the parking lot, then a car show in the gas station. Just after we crossed into IL we saw this “Grocery Getter” and thought it was a must have.

We had almost decided to take the top down, but the sky darkened and we decided to wait. A few drops of rain fell, but no downpour. The temperature creept up to the low 80’s and around 2 PM, we stopped at a Burger King for a bathroom break; it was time to put the top down. Not long after that we crossed the bridge to Cape Girardeau, MO. We decided to take the river walk and examine the murals along the sea wall. It is interesting to see all the Historic people from the area.

We continued south and stopped at Sikeston, MO. Dinner was at Lambert’s, “Home of throwed rolls”. We are concerned about the weather ahead, and are watching the forecast to plan our trip for tomorrow.

[mikespeed35]

Here are the photos to go with today's post 4/14/12

[Guest namvetschrysler]

The car of my dreams, i have never seen one in this part of the world.

Safe and Happy trip

[alsancle]

Mike, Didn't you do basically the same trip a couple of years ago in a L29? If so, how does the driving compare?

[mikespeed35]

The trip in the L29 was 3 years ago. Last year we drove this Auburn from MI to FL to CA and back home to MI about 9600 miles. The Auburn has radial tires and a much smoother easier ride. The Auburn is faster (about 5 MPH) and more modern, in a time period where many innovations were being made rapidly. The gears are synchronized in the Auburn, and it has a 2 speed rear end, making the mountains easier but the L29 windows roll up and the top is easier to put up. It is easier to see out of the L29 when the weather is inclement and the top is up. There is much less room in the Auburn for packing because we removed the rumbleseat cushions when we took the L29. The L29 got a lot of looks because the color and style is so beautiful. It seems like the women like the speedster better, and often say I don't know cars, but the styling of that car is WOW!

[mikespeed35]

Mike was talking to a young girl that worked at the hotel this morning. She like the car and said “If that car were a person, it would be Marilyn Monroe.” Thought that was very astute and appropriate!

The sky was overcast but the rain and storms appeared to be far enough west that we began today’s journey with the top down. We drove west on 60 but wanting to avoid the divided highways we began programming the Garmin for specific towns. This made it possible for us to drive secondary roads and wander through the Ozarks. The roses, peonies and azaleas are in full bloom. There were tree canopy covered roads and sweet little car lots. We especially thought this VW was an interesting little car. Mike thought it looked like a friend of Johnny Cash might have owned it. We didn’t get rain until 2:30 pm. It was just a sprinkle but we pulled into a shade covered street and put up the top. By the time we got the top up, the rain was stopping, but before long we had plenty of rain. It was never so bad that we needed the side curtains. We stopped early tonight, Had dinner at Lambert’s again and found a hotel.

[R W Burgess]

Well, Peterson beat me to the "Watch Snakes" warning folks!

Mike and his Auburn were on the Lake Mary, Florida tour last year when he encountered the snake in the wheel deal. It was featured in the Lake Mary report.

Thanks for keeping us updated Mike!

Wayne

[Steve Moskowitz]

Very cool and very jealous! Enjoy and thanks for sharing!

[Ben Bruce aka First Born]

Welcome to the Ozarks, Mike. Had I known you were here, I would have greeted you personally!:D I hope you were in the motel when the deluge hit yesterday afternoon.

Anyway, enjoy and we will enjoy your trip reports.

Ben

[mikespeed35]

Our attempts to navigate and miss the storms were successful. It was around 60 degrees when we took off this morning and didn’t get much warmer. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day for traveling. We are still directing our Garmin point to point to travel on secondary roads. We traveled many straight roads with little traffic. I have attached a couple of signs that we saw today; we especially enjoyed the flying manure spreader. We stopped at Walmart for lunch. A young man came excitedly up to our car. He was looking at the side pipes and said, “It reminded him of a car “Oh, I can’t think of the name of it”. What was it that it reminded him of? No, not a Cord or Duesenberg ....” An Excaliber, but yours is nice too! “We ended the day early, with a stop at Auburn Cord Parts, Inc. in Wellington, KS., and we had dinner with friends there. The local newspaper interviewed us and took pictures of the car. Repeatedly, we have been asked about the car, “What is it.” “Is it a Jaguar or a Rolls Royce.” Is that German? Most people have never heard of an Auburn, so we have been passing out lots of our cards and trying to educating the public.

[alsancle]

Mike, you've reminded me a of a story my dad tells of one of his first trips from Massachusetts to Auburn in 1956. He was driving his speedster and had stopped for gas. while he was gassing the car two guys approached on the other side and one was pointing at the side pipes. The one guy was saying that the pipes were just fakes so the other guy touched one of the pipes and burned his hand.

[trimacar]

Great trip, thanks for taking us along on it!

The comments about the car reminds me of a story I think I've told, but will repeat, about my '37 Cord phaeton.

Had it on a tour in the 1980's in South Louisiana, and at one of the stops a youngish local comes up to me.

"Hey, what kind of car is that?"

It's a Cord.

"A Ford! I didn't know Ford made a car like that!"

No, no, a CORD, it's an early front wheel drive car.

"Oh, a kit car, they just started making front wheel drive....."

No, it's an original car, made by the Auburn Cord Duesenberg company.

"Duesenberg? Oh, OK, it's a German car.........."

I gave up.........

[mikespeed35]

We drove on 160 until it ended at Coldwater, KS. The landscape changed from farming to mesas to rolling hills and farmland again. At Coldwater, we drove north and stopped at Greensburg, KS. for lunch. The town was almost totally destroyed by a tornado in 2009 and has quickly been rebuilt. There are several windmills leading into town and many nice new buildings where business is flourishing. There are large areas where you do not see a house for miles. Today, we have had several areas where traffic was halted for road construction. They were repaving large areas of highway and had only one lane open for traffic. Traffic alternated, taking turns on the lane that was open. There was not a cloud in the sky and the weather was cool.

After lunch we continued southwest on 56 to Liberty, KS. There were a couple more areas of road construction. Because of the long expanse for travel, the construction sites had their own asphalt making facilities near the sites. We ended early today. It’s wash day for both the car and our clothes.

In the 250 miles that we traveled today we did not see one fast food place!

[Amphicar BUYER]

What an awesome road trip only made more "awesome-er-er" by the Auburn! People don't seem to understand that hiways are not the way to travel unless time is a concern. If you can make the route an important part of the trip, you will have so much more fun and you never know what you may find. It isn't always the destination, but the roads on the way where the real experiences lie. This is why I love my Harley, she just loves the 2 lanes to anywhere.

I love Santa Fe! We go there quite a bit and love the people. Be sure to go to the SantaFe Plaza. There will be Indian artists sitting on the sidewalk in front of Palace of the Governors, built about 1610. That is where you want to buy any jewelry if your in the market. It is a privledge for any of them to be ther. They have to have permits, be American Indian and all are authentic hand made pieces. There is a restaurant on one corner there that has a wicked breakfast. I can't recall the name.

Edited April 18, 2012 by Amphicar BUYER (see edit history)

[The Continental]

A road trip in an 851 Speedster?!? That is incredibly amazing. I'd love to eventually have one.

[J3Studio]

Cool thread - keep posting!

I've been crazy about the 851 since I was about eight years old.

[mikespeed35]

We left around 8 AM this morning, continuing southwest . We stopped in a small town in OK for lunch at a Subway. A couple of guys from the neighboring business invited us to look at their cars. It was a nice break from a long boring drive , with straight roads, mainly flat land and nothing to see for miles. About the only things to see were us and the windmills. It was necessary to make sure we got gas and bathroom stops when they were available. We took US25 along the east side of the mountains to avoid the really steep grades. Snow capped mountains could be seen in a distance as we drove toward Santa Fe. We have arrived at our destination.

[mikespeed35]

I believe we are scheduled to park at the mall you are referring to.

[Guest brentkaiser24]

wow awesome car safe trip for you

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Chicago Postcards - PrintPlace.com

[mikespeed35]

It was a shopping day today. First, we went to Walmart. My poison ivy needs another dose of meds. So I went to check if I needed a new prescription or if they could get mine from home. After that was in motion we went to downtown Santa Fe and checked out the market place. When our time ran out at the meter, our shopping ran out. We scooted back to Walmart picked up the prescription and had lunch. We decided to check out our hotel to see if anyone else was in town yet. There were three Cords sitting with their hoods up in the parking lot, so we parked the car and joined the sidewalk mechanics.

The meet gets underway late this afternoon, but it is pretty much a free day. The women are shopping and the guys are out telling stories. Bill Hummel tried out the fit of the Auburn, so I guess that will be his next acquisition….

[West Peterson]

People don't seem to understand that hiways are not the way to travel unless time is a concern.

??? I dunno. I've driven on a LOT of highways where much could be seen, and most I would never take if time was of concern. The best and most famous ones are the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. There are a lot of highways out there that are extremely enjoyable. For me, it's the freeways that one avoids, unless time is of concern.

[Amphicar BUYER]

??? I dunno. I've driven on a LOT of highways where much could be seen, and most I would never take if time was of concern. The best and most famous ones are the Lincoln Highway and Route 66. There are a lot of highways out there that are extremely enjoyable. For me, it's the freeways that one avoids, unless time is of concern.

I agree with ya but I was using "Highway" as a generic term for higher speed, zip past small town America type routes. You are correct that there is a difference. Much like "hotel" and "motel" are different. (Hotel rooms are accessed from inside the building while motel doors lead directly to the parking lot.)

[mikespeed35]

It great weather for today’s tour, which lead us to Bandelier National Monument with a boxed lunch. We continued to the Bradbury Museum and Los Alamos National Laboratory. There are six cars on tour, two Auburns , one L29 Cord and three 810 Cords, the remainder of the group is following driving modern. The oldest car on tour is a 1930 L29Cord. There are 2 speedsters, a 1931 speedster, and our 1935 speedster. It is an awesome looking parade going down the road.

[mikespeed35]

We had breakfast this morning at Tecolote Café followed by a drive into Santa Fe, parking around the square at the plaza. Several of us went on a guided bus tour of the city showing us the Historical buildings and the art district along with some contemporary homes. Lunch was at a highly recommended café, followed by some serious shopping. Limited space does not always limit shopping: most will ship. Watching my friend negotiate the price down on the treasures we found, was a real education. We walked to the Georgia O’Keefe Museum. By the time we were finished looking through the museum, all the cars had left the square. We drove back to the hotel and got ready for a trip to a private residence and the Country Club for our banquet. The guest of honor was Denise Mc Cluggage of early auto racing and journalism (Auto Week) fame. She spoke about some of her experiences in racing. On the way home, one of the cars ran out of gas, and our gracious hosts helped us get them back by siphoning gas out of one of their cars and bringing it back to us! Then, they lead us back to the hotel. We continued the evening in the hospitality suite, recalling fond memories of the day and biding each other farewell.

[mikespeed35]

We left Santa Fe around 9:30 this morning after saying our goodbyes. We traveled north to Taos, NM. There were many familiar sites for most of the morning, adobe houses, coyote fences, and the camel mountains. As we neared Taos, there were increasing artist’s galleries and casinos. We traveled on winding, mountainous roads. Once in Taos we asked some locals at lunch what there was to do. They directed us to the nearby plaza where we shopped for a little while. We returned to our parking lot to be shoed away from our car by the guard, who wasn’t aware it was our car he was watching. After thanking us for parking there and attracting customers for him, he gave us a map and directed us to the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge (called the Bridge to Nowhere when it was built in 1965, because there was not enough funding to continue the road on the other side). This bridge is 650’ above the Rio Grande and 1200’ across. There were street vendors parked to the side of the road. It was just like a little Hershey, only they were selling Indian Jewelry instead of car parts, we negotiated for a lesser price just like Hershey.

We back tracked to Taos under angry skies, and decided to take the Enchanted Circle to the east. As we climbed and wound through the mountains, we were rained on and the temperature got drastically colder, but we continued without putting the top up. We finally approached a hotel at Eagles Nest Lake and decided we should stop for the night. There was a car at the hotel, but the door was locked, but there was a sign that said to ring the bell. We are the only ones staying at the hotel other than the attendant. (and he just left) We then backtracked to find a restaurant; that was closed as well. We saw a pizza sign and decided that would do. We entered the small restaurant, another couple was sitting at a table and there was one other table left so we sat there. The owner took our order and talked to us continuously while making our order. She let us know that the temperature drops drastically at night here in the mountains and that it would probably be in the mid twenties tonight…so Mike drained the radiator into the hotel wastebaskets as soon as we returned to our hotel. She also let us know that if we had continued to the next town we would have been at a much lower elevation and won’t have froze.

[Luv2Wrench]

Wow, what an amazing trip! Thanks so much for the updates, I almost feel like I'm there.

[R W Burgess]

Excellent diary, Mike!

"The guest of honor was Denise McCluggage of early auto racing and journalism (Auto Week) fame."

Denise is an excellent writer too. My wife used to always love reading her bylines when we were still getting that magazine.

Wayne

[old car fan]

The great thing here,is Mike and his wife, Drive there cars,and i mean drive.That is what they were made for.I love that,they were to be driven,and they do.Hats off to you both,and be safe on your return,see you at Auburn.Fantastic cars as well.

[mikespeed35]

We saw a huge variety of scenery today. We continued through the mountains and the most remainder of the scenic loop around Taos, then continued east through the farmlands of New Mexico into Texas and finally into Oklahoma. There were oil and natural gas compression wells, cattle lots and dairies, huge irrigation rigs, and a variety of crop farming. Many of the irrigation rigs were 18 to 20 sections long. They were drilling at least four new oil wells along the route. We saw crop dusting planes, and numerous cattle ranches. One dairy had 17 tanker trucks and went for miles. They were constructing some new dairy barns. We saw a variety of different crop farms. They were already bailing the first cutting of hay. We drove for miles without seeing a town and had to be very careful to get gas and bathroom breaks when available. Coincidentally we stopped a one of the same towns for lunch as we did on the way here, and stopped at the same Subway.

The weather change is drastic. Last night’s low was 26 and tonight’s low is supposed to be 64. This morning there were ice crystals on the car cover. By noon we had shed our coats. Tommorrow’s high is supposed to be 96.

I have included a picture of a plane that we saw today; Can you identify the plane? We will give the answer tomorrow.

We drove by a couple of windmill farms as well as a windmill museum. One of the windmill farms was close to the road and we were able to get close up pictures and could hear the hum of the blades.

Our stop for the night is in Woodward, OK. This is one of the towns that was hit by a tornado about a week ago. There were six people killed in it. We will be driving by the damage tomorrow on our way out of town.

[1957buickjim]

The plane is a Lockheed Electra, I think. What a great trip! What part of the Mitten State do you hail from?

[Barry Wolk]

OP, you're my hero. I drove my '33 Continental Flyer across Michigan last year without a hitch. Your thread has inspired me to drive it further.

[petri]

The plane looks like a Beech 18 to me.

Congratulations on using your car for these long trips. I read the L-29 trip daily reports on the ACD website and loved them. This is what these cars are really good for, "motoring" along the back roads of America. By the way, what speed does the Auburn like to cruise at?

Howard Petri

1932 Packard 900 Coupe-Roadster.

[keiser31]

The plane is a Lockheed Electra, I think. What a great trip! What part of the Mitten State do you hail from?

That's what I was thinking.....Amelia Earheart's plane's twin??

[Tim Wolfe]

Amelia Earheart's car is in Covington, Ohio being restored.....

[Tim Wolfe]

At least that is what they told me at the restoration shop. The owner of the car normaly has documents for his car. True or not--I don't know but I took a few pictures of it.

[ply33]

The plane is a Lockheed Electra, I think. What a great trip! What part of the Mitten State do you hail from?

That was my first guess too. But the images I came up for an Electra don't quite match.

The plane looks like a Beech 18 to me.

That looks right based on the photos I've found.

Congratulations on using your car for these long trips. I read the L-29 trip daily reports on the ACD website and loved them. This is what these cars are really good for, "motoring" along the back roads of America. By the way, what speed does the Auburn like to cruise at?

Howard Petri

1932 Packard 900 Coupe-Roadster.

I'd like to "ditto" what Howard wrote...