This time I decided to drive my most recent acquisition, a ’73 Monte Carlo Landau, that I inherited from a friend who passed away last winter. And, like my Caprice, I just finished major work on the engine right before hitting the road. I replaced the cylinder heads and intake manifold a merea 150 miles before this 1200 mile trek. I’m pretty sure this 51,000 original mile car has never seen such a long trip in it’s entire life. And, I know it hasn’t seen more than a few freeway miles since my friend, Bill, bought it in 2006. It was nothing but short trips around West Los Angeles for Bill. I drove the car 80 miles round trip to Long Beach a week after the work I did with no problems, so I figured the car was solid. It didn’t overheat, or leak anything, so it was ready for the test. Maybe I was bit overconfident this time.

If you want to see the car and the work that I’ve done on it just follow the link to my project car thread.

I was fifty miles into the trip driving over the Grapevine on I-5 when I thought I heard something banging off the road behind me. Of course, I had to turn down the iPod in order to figure out what I was hearing. Turns out the tail pipe had fell off it’s hangars and was literally hanging on the car by just the three studs on the exhaust manifold. I did a quicky fix to get the pipe back on it’s hangar. I had lost the rubber isolator, so it rattled a bit, but that only meant I needed to turn the radio up louder. I later noticed that the tailpipe’s hangar wasn’t the only one to fall that exhaust pipe. This problem was most likely my fault caused when I to shove the pipe back in order to reconnect it to the exhaust manifold when I replaced the heads.

I’ve been driving to Northern California at least twice a year to visit friends and family since I moved to Los Angeles twelve years ago. Driving there and back on I-5 has gotten insanely boring, so lately I’ve different lines on the map. I veered off I-5 onto Hwy 99 just north of the Grapevine grade. Hwy 99 is the old way north and south, built long before I-5. It goes through every little city in the San Juaquion Valley. But, it was hot, dusty and smelled like a barnyard that day. I picked up the map again and saw this big green splotch on the page nearby that said Giant Sequoia National Forest. I always wanted to see the big trees of Cali, so I took a right and proceeded to drive completely in the wrong direction.

Why would I do such a thing? I guess it comes from road tripping with my father as a kid. For him, it was all about making great time to the destination. He drove like he had appointments to keep even on vacation. I try to completely different even if I get phone calls in route from family wondering why I taking so long to get there. This country is so beautiful and you won’t see most of hauling butt on the interstates.

Springville, CA is a town whose history goes back to the gold rush era, then serviced the cattle ranches in the valley, and for the last 70 years; it’s been a tourist stop along the way to the national forest. Just outside of town, I came across this old gas station complete with old pickup truck. The faded sign last read it was a fruit stand.

See that 6500 foot mountain ? I was told at the ranger station in Springville that all I had to do was follow the loop through the forest and I’d see big trees. I turned off Hwy 190 eastbound onto Bear Creek Rd and started up the hill. The map showed a paved road, but that was in the most general sense. It was paved at one time and it was more of logging trail than actual road. The Monte Carlo dangling, half assed fixed tailpipe was bouncing off the ‘road’ and I was worried that it would come off altogether.

Balch Park was at the summit of Black Mountain. There was this nice little pond that was stocked with fish. I love places like this for the peace and tranquility. I also made a new friend in the way of lady Mallard duck who came swam up to me to say hello.

Twenty minutes of bouncing around and cussing the bastard who built this road, I found Hidden Falls. I thought I’d be alone way the hell out in the middle nowhere, but I was wrong. There were a couple setting up camp for the weekend, or setting up a still; couldn’t tell for sure. There were also a quartet of college aged boys checking out the falls as well. One kid was being dared to dive in the crystal clear pool below the falls. He dove in and jumped out just as fast. Yes, that water was snow this morning, Mr Brilliant. The falls weren’t as big and dramatic as I wished, but still beautiful and worth the drive.

I saw on the map that I could knock some time off the drive back to Hwy 99 by heading northwest along Yokohl Valley Rd. It was 26 miles of twists and turns and pretty darn narrow through nothing but rolling hills and cattle ranches. I really gave the Monte’s suspension and handling real workout. GM designers did a great job on the second generation Monte Carlos by setting the engine very low in the chassis and almost completely behind the front axle center line, thus lowering the center of gravity and greatly improving it’s ability to takes the twisties. All in all, my little detour was only 173 miles.

At a resort and marina down the road, I came across a bunch of wooden boats motoring about. It seems a club of owners were out enjoying the day. There were a few smaller runabouts on up to larger people haulers.