(Words and photos by Scott Liggett) – As I prepared for my semi annual trip to Northern California I got to thinking back to when I was a little kid taking road trips with my family. It seems that is as American as apple pie to pile into the family wagon and head down the road for vacation, or just to see family and friends. For me, some of my earliest memories are of me riding high on a custom made booster seat Mom made for me in the back of the family’s ’64 Buick Skylark Special wagon. That booster seat was little more than a block of foam upholstered in blue vinyl that very nearly matched the interior of that Buick. With that extra height I could easily see out the window as the world role by as we headed from Omaha to Kansas City to visit the grand parents for the holidays.
Rolling with the family wasn’t always pleasant. I had an annoying older sister whose only entertainment in the car was irritating her brother. My Dad had zero patience and never wanted to stop the car once we started rolling. Having a wife and two kids with tiny bladders was the bane of his existence. He was always worried about making good time. That meant stopping and checking out something cool on the side of the road was out of the question. For Dad, it was all about bragging to his brothers how fast we got from point A to point B. It was all a joke in the Liggett family because would he only go 58 mph in a 55 zone for fear of high insurance rates from speeding tickets. All the while my uncles were pretending they were entered in the Cannonball Run once they hit the road. Uncle Ron had a Cobra radar detector under a ball cap on the dash of his Dodge passenger van for years and a CB radio to get smokey reports from the truckers. Uncle Terry just used his luck and a sharp pilot’s eye to keep out of trouble. It didn’t always work.I remember every bit of those road trips. From the view through those cool sky lights of the Buick Skylark Special to the sound of the tires rolling down the highways. There was even the smell of Dad’s Parliamnents as he held it up to the cracked window and the hot coffee from his Coleman thermos.I usually just daydreamed there in the backseat, Mom and Dad’s conversation just background noise like the little 300 c.i. V8 humming or the wind whistling past Dad’s cracked open window. I would stare out those skylights dreaming I was in a space ship heading to another planet, preferably one without older siblings; or just wonder what it was like to drive one of those big rigs the truckers had.
On this trip, I decided to take my ’65 Impala SS. It’s never let me down, or left me stranded on the side of the road. That isn’t to say that she didn’t make me fix her on the side of the road. This trip would be no different, but more on that later.
For a long time, I was like Dad and hit the road with the intention of getting where I am going as quickly as possible. I would take the fastest route, an interstate, and mash the gas. But, in the last few years, I started getting bored taking the same route back and forth to NorCal on I-5. If ever was a freeway that was built in the most boring parts of a state, it’s the Golden State Freeway. (We Los Angeleans name all of our freeways.) What changed me was insane traffic on a trip on a holiday weekend. I was getting annoyed by the heavy traffic and constant braking because of one semi passing another at 57 mph. A quick look of a map showed a two lane that practically paralleled I-5, so off I went. In the three hours I cruised down State Route 33, I didn’t see more than 10 cars. And, the view was much better.
I was planning on doing the same thing on this trip and plan a route I haven’t gone before, but I did a ton of suspension work and only had an eyeball alignment on the car. I thought it best to keep the route near the crowds just in case I had a problem. So, I-5 it was.
For those of you that don’t know, this is what I did to the suspension, tubular upper and lower control arms, new springs, Koni adjustable shocks, and a huge sway bar up front.
Out back, I replaced the springs, added a sway bar, an adjustable pan hard bar, and Koni adjustable shocks as well.
On top of the suspension upgrades, I installed a Mattson aluminum radiator and wired up a pair of 12″ electric fans. The whole wiring setup was a bit sketchy at best, but at freeway speeds you don’t need the fans running anyways. I received a pair of Spal fans and a new wiring harness from them just before leaving. I tossed that stuff in the trunk for the trip. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if I had to replace the fans and rewire them in a truck stop parking lot.
I-5 does have some interesting areas during the drive. First thing you come to is the area known as the Grapevine. It’s the section that climbs into the mountains just north of Lake Castaic where the road enters Angeles National Forest. You climb up to the top of the Tejon Pass near Gorman, CA at an elevation of 4401 feet. What ever weather you had leaving Los Angeles has nothing to do with what you have an hour later up in Gorman. On this trip, I had low 50’s temps and some fog hanging around the tops of the mountains. To me, this is perfect weather for traveling.
Even though the Impala was tracking straight, I could tell it was toed out in the alignment which made the car twitchy on the curvy mountain section of I-5. I was thinking of doing something about that toe out the whole drive, but there wasn’t I could do it about mid trip. I just prayed my old front tires wouldn’t get completely wasted in the 450 miles I was driving that day.
California has a peculiar idea of what a “Vista Point” should be. I stopped at this one for the hell of it. Never stopped here before. I got a good view of the California Aqueduct. And, a good smell. PHEW!!! Oh yeah. The next town up the road is Los Banos. Grab your HS Spanish text book if you need help figuring out what that means. I guess you get to see the fields of grape vines growing too.
There was one other Vista Point along the way. I know this one because this is where I had to fish a push rod out of the lifter valley that got turned into a Z shape when a rocker arm shattered. Thankfully, I carried spare rocker arms and push rods back then because I was destroying them regularly.
I found this old caboose in the town that barely qualifies as a wide spot in the road of Brentwood, CA. Northern California and the Southern Pacific railroad have a long history. Remember the Transcontinental Railroad? The west end started right up the road in Sacramento.
I know I am almost there when I can see Mount Diablo. It’s the tallest mountain in the area and is visible from more than 100 miles away on a clear day. That’s the Sacramento River in the foreground. Hwy 160 runs literally down the levee of the Sacramento River.
Looking in the other direction is the draw bridge at Rio Visa over the Sacramento River.
I spent Friday night washing the dirt and dead bugs off the Impala because I was getting up early for car show Saturday morning in downtown Rio Vista. You can see the pics from the show by clicking on the link below.
We had breakfast at the ancient Striper Cafe. A look at the sign gives you an idea how long it’s been there. Food is still amazing including the sausage patties that were the size of pancakes. The cafe is in the lobby of the Rio Vista Hotel which dates back to the horse and buggy days.
The car is part of Rio Vista’s 65th annual Festival and Bass Derby. It’s total small town Americana. While exploring around downtown I discovered a few things I didn’t know. Rio Vista actually has a decent little museum on the history of the town and the area around it. In it are some really cool old things. There was a 1923 Model T 1/2 ton truck bought by a local farmer who used it into the ’60’s taking the crop to market. There was a 1925 Caterpillar 30 crawler, a 1929 Seagrave Firetruck and a 1929 Farmall. I also took a pic of the oldest drill press I’ve ever seen.
Next door to the museum is Craig Breedlove’s long time shop. I thought it was closed up and he went fishing because he no longer has any signs on it; but later found it was not true. Breedlove is still building land speed cars. He is deep into designing a new car to go after 800 mph. He bought the engines and is looking for local builders to help out. I also found out the fate of his Spirit of America car that attempted to break the sound barrier with. It was sold to billionaire Steve Fossett, renamed to Sonic Arrow. It was rolled out for a photo shoot in Black Rock; but Fossett disappeared in his airplane somewhere in the Nevada desert. The car was sent to a builder to make modifications for Fossett, but the builder cut up the car. Fossett’s family called Breedlove in to see if he could repair the vehicle for sale. Breedlove left heartbroken saying that it was so far gone that it couldn’t even be fixed enough to be a museum exhibit.
Rio Vista is a small town in the middle of farm country so it has a tractor dealership. The new Hollands were in, but I caught a few older models in the used tractor lot.
Sunday afternoon, I drove over to the nice part of Lodi ( Is that a contradiction in terms?) to meet up with Tim Bernandin (NAS Backyard on the forum) and hang out a bit. He showed me how his project cars are progressing. And, we took a drive in his now daily driven ’68 Firebird. Check the pics below of his badass car. It’s powered by a ’71 Catalina 400 and four speed and it hauls ass.
Tim’s son took the keys to his other project car after his pickup got mashed. His ’61 Olds Dynamic 88 got some new skirts since I last saw it. It still sports it’s original 394 with a 2 barrel carb backed by the old GM Hydramatic. Nice rides, Tim.
Later in the afternoon, I jumped back in the Impala and headed farther north to Sacramento to see one of my oldest friends, Malkeet Harrian. His 65 Mustang project is still in pieces, but making progress. We talked about my toe out problem and he suggested we check it using the old string method of taping a piece of string to the rear quarter panel, running across the rear tire and up to the front tire. If the string is touching in the front and not the back of the front tire it’s toed out. That is what I had. Bad. The left was out more than 1/4″. I loosened the bolts on the tie rod sleeves and rotated them until the string touched the front and rear of the tire equally. This is not perfect by any means, but will improve the driveability of the car……if you tighten everything back up correctly. I didn’t.
As I headed back to the freeway to go back to Rio Vista that night, I stopped at a gas station right at the freeway on ramp to get a soda. On the way out I turned the car a hard right to go around the pumps and I felt and heard something pop. As I pulled out onto the street I realized something was really wrong with the steering. The wheel was 90* to the right while I was going straight too. I stopped on the side of the on ramp next to the freeway and crawled under the car to see what broke and found the right side tie rods slipped nearly out of the adjusting sleeve knocking the tire severely toed in. Jacking up the car and lying under it on the driver’s side while 18 wheelers went whizzing by doing 70 mph is enough to get you talking to Jesus. Using the passing headlights from the trucks and my little lights I had in the trunk to see, I tightened the sleeve to straighten out the left front tire as best I could in order to limp it home. This time I made sure the bolts were tight on the adjusting sleeve before hitting the road again. I made it back to Rio Vista at 1:45 am. It was then I realized I had driven more than 600 miles without ever having the radio on which is unusual for me.
Some of us hit the power button to the car stereo the second we start the car for road trips. Some of us don’t even have a radio in their car, preferring to listen the engine, the wind, and the tires rolling down the asphalt. As I got older, Dad moved on to a ’73 Caddy Coupe de Ville with the then fancy AM/FM 8 track. He liked listening to John Denver, Johnny Cash, and Olivia Newton-John back when she was a country singer. If any of you are cringing in pain thinking my father was a cruel man he did have quite the collection of Robert Goulet and Englebert Humperdink records that he never subjected us to. I still think of that music on driving trips. I also remember hearing what I called trucker music that I used to hear on the juke boxes at the truck stops Dad liked to eat at. Songs like Ghost Riders In The Sky, Convoy, and musicians like Merle Haggard singing about being in jail or on the road. I go both ways, I sometimes listen to music, sometimes just the car’s noises. If the radio is off, it’s because I am trying to clear my head. The jokes about having an empty head can commence now.
I got up early Monday morning for the trip home. But, I was going to try to get the car aligned correctly before I drove the 450 miles back to Los Angeles. Everyone in Rio Vista said I should hit up Rio Vista Muffler, Hitch and Welding for an alignment. Even the two car dealers in town took their customer cars there. It sounded good to me. A lot better than trying to drive all the way back to L.A. with a messed up front end.
The guys over at Rio Vista Muffler took me right in that morning and got to work. In the first picture, you can see how far the tie rods had moved out of the sleeve the night before. I also had a broken caliper bolt, which isn’t that scary. But, there was also a lower ball joint ball completely missing, not to mention a lot of loose bolts and nuts here and there. I know I checked all the bolts when I rebuilt the front suspension, but it’s a good idea to go back and recheck them after a few miles of driving. Especially, before you go on a road trip like I did. I dodged several bullets on this trip any of which could have ended in a crashed car.
A $198 later for the alignment and bolt tightening, I hit the road for Los Angeles. There are literally 1000 miles of tributaries in the Sacramento River Delta area and most have levee roads to explore. I try to hit one or two on every trip. Near Brannon Island Rd and Hwy 160 I found an abandoned sail boat sitting on the shore. I have been trying to find an actual PT boat I was came across years ago one day of exploring along these levees.
The San Joaquin Valley grows just about everything we eat in California from beef to wine grapes. The Napa Valley isn’t the only place growing grapes for wine anymore thanks to the huge demand for California wines. Although Lodi has been growing grapes for years for the Gallo winery, the amount of grape vines I see now is incredible. Next to a farmer’s market at the corner of Hwy 160 and Hwy 12, I found a road going through an apple orchard. The thing about some of these levee roads is that in some areas the water is literally inches from the roadway. If you are not paying attention, you have a fifty-fifty chance of seeing if your car can float.
One of my stops is in Santa Nella at the T/A Performance truck stop. The Buckhorn Cafe has good grub as well.. I also gas up there. Dad always said it’s easy to find the truck with good food. It’s the one with a bunch of trucks parked out back. Works for me.
Dad’s favorite stop going to and from L.A. was at Kettleman City, CA. It was nothing more than a gas station and a cafe across the street. It was the next exit south of the well known Harris Ranch. Dad never liked the touristy places mainly because the of the high priced mediocre food. I hadn’t stopped by there in years and was quite let down. Mike’s Roadhouse Cafe was boarded up closed and the giant gas station that used to be filled with big rigs was now nearly empty. There were now several gas station/ food mart/ fast food joints. It was kind of sad how the times had changed.
Dad’s been gone twelve years now. Our relationship was up and down over the years; but I am thankful of those road trips the family took as I was growing up. It’s the one thing I wish I could do with him again. Hop in the big Caddy, crank up some John Denver, and hit the road.
Really cool story! Thanks for that, now I wanna go driving again… My truck doesnt appreciate Canadian roads in the winter…
Great story Scott – it made lunchtime more enjoyable, thanks.
what sort of mpg did you get
I got around 15-16 mpg doing about 80 mph. That’s blending in with traffic on the Golden State Raceway AKA as I-5.
Scott: it’s always a treat when you post one of your Impala road trip photo-journal adventures — I’m sure your old man was probably riding shotgun beside you in spirit (likley wondering “Why the heck doesn’t that kid have some Olivia N-J on the stereo?”). Thanks for taking the time to put this together and for sharing it.
Great story Scott! Enjoyed it.
Thanks for the story Scott. I’ve been craving a weekend road trip for a while, now I’ve really got to act on that craving before the weather turns too bad here in PA.
When can we expect the movie?
Great story Scott. I like road trip stories like this.
What a great read, Scott.
I lived in Rio Vista during the mid-late 90’s thru 2003 and it is a very cool little delta town. I had also gone to a few Saturday open houses at Craig’s shop, which was very cool for a speed junkie like myself….very sad to hear about the car’s disposition. I new Steve Fossett had purchased it and originally thought that would give the car the proper funding to really see it’s potential, but alas it wasn’t meant to be.
I have been talking about doing a similar trip to Los Angeles from my “new” hometown of Redding, CA in my 72′ Suburban…to go down and see the NHRA Museum and Peterson Museums etc….I may have to look you up for some advice for good routes!