SITKA, AK. TO KISSIMMEE, FL: Road Trip 2009

[spcforker]

Sept. 25 to Oct 27. 2009
5:30am Sept. 25 begin with 500 mile, 36 hour ferry trip to Prince Rupert, BC.
Get to Rupert on the 27th @ 11am. Go through the usual harassment about dismissed criminal activity in 1972,(38 frickin' years later)
On the Road by 12pm and make it to Jasper, AB by 2am.
Sleep in car. Jasper south to Yoho Nat. park then over to Sicamous and down to Kelowna. Spend the night there.
Head out on the 1st of Oct. early (6am) for Osoyoos and the US border. Again I am detained for 2 hours while they go throuh my car and search me and give me the 3rd degree.
Back on the road to Coulee Dam then down to Othello then on hiway 24 over to Yakima. Stay with friend over night in Yakima. Do oil change and hang for a while then head out for Seattle. Spend night in Federal Way and hang out till the lunch with the NW boys at FATBURGER. Inzane,BobRoss,Kingj07,Boostleak,srt1002,silvercud a. Great meet and fun time. Head out for the Oregon coast.
Down to Longview and over to Astoria then down to Depoe Bay. Sleep in car at State Park.
Back on the road headed south on 101 to Leggett and US 1 in northern Calif. Take 1 all the way to Marin City.
Into San Francisco and down San Jose on 101 then 880 to 17 to my Moms place in between Scotts Valley and Felton.

[spcforker]

Spend 5 days at Mom's. Replace front Lug Studs on both sides after breaking 3 of them on 17 coming from San Jose. Had a relaxing time at my Moms place visiting with family. Leave my moms on the 11th for Roseville and my sisters. go to dinner with my millionare cousin in Grass Valley that night. Headlights fail in Grass Valley. Sleep in parking lot of hotel in GV. Wake up next morning and headlights are working. Go to sis's house visit for 2 hours then head out for SoCal. Now the headlights won't work. Make it all the way to Indio, Ca. before I stop at NAPA and check fuses for lights. getting dark. still no lights. start freaking. Fill up the car in Indio. check lights and the go on keep driving till I get to my Aunts in Casa Grande, Az. at 11pm on the 12th. 'Bout 870 Miles of driving that day. nice visit and spend night at Aunts.
Head East on I-10 next morning with NO LIGHTS Again and make it to Junction Tx. before It gets dark and I find a rest stop to sleep. Follow a Semi for the first 2 hours the next morning cause I got no lights. Make it to Spring, Tx.
Wade is in New Orleans. Call Friend088 for help in finding a new Multifunction switch for the lights. He calls Jason (DarkSyde) who calls me and says he found one is some other city but they can overnight it to me. I get a call from Wade who sets me up with Cindy at FWDperformance. She has a MFS and can get it to me in the morning. Spend the night in a hotel in Spring. Next morning meet up with Cindy and switch out MFS. cool got lights again. Thanx Cindy:
Head out of Houston area headed to New Orleans for some good BBQ. I took I-12 at Baton Rouge so I could go over the Lake Pontchartrain bridge. That was fun. got to N.O. but couldn't locate a good BBQ place so I said "F-it" and kept driving till I got to Ponce De Leon, Fl. Slept at a rest area. Woke up at 2:30am to a thunderstorm and 85deg temp. with 100% humidity. I had to turn the car on and fire up the air conditioning. I swear it was raining in the inside of the car.

[spcforker]

Got up that morning and headed out for Kissimmee. Got there about 11am. Check-in isn't 'till 2pm. Checked in to the Seralago hotel and hung out for a while. watched football game or something. Checked out the scene at Old Town till about midnight then went to bed. Got up and did an oil change in the parking lot. met a few SRT-4 drivers then went for a drive to find a connector for the MFS. Go to drags at CFRC that night then back to hotel. Sunday is the SRT-4 meet at OLD TOWN. Had a good time met up with lots of SRT owners. Marlon,Michele and Enrique were there. We had lunch at A&W @ Old town then hung out and watch all the different cars and people and winners of the give-aways. I won a bottle of car wax and a $25 gift certificate for Best Buys. Got a mention at the end for my Farthest traveled venture. No award
Had a Nice dinner at Longhorns (a good steak place) again with Marlon, Michele, Enrique and a Caliber SRT-4 owner, his wife and Kids. Sorry I forgot your Name. Back to the hotel afterwards and to bed.
Up early the next morning so I could go to the east coast of Florida to watch the sun rise. Indialantic was the town. Got there before sunrise and walked on the cold sand to the ocean dipped my toes in the Atlantic. The water was REALLY WARM!!!!!! like 75 deg. or something. I was really surprised. Watched the sun come up then headed out going North through Jacksonville over to Lake City then up through Atlanta,Chattanooga, and Nashville. Rest area somewhere north of Nashville for more sleep. Next morn. head north through St. Louis Up to Des Moines, Ia.
Meet up with COY and have a nice Steak Dinner. We talked for about 4 hours then it was time to go. Another rest area for sleep then headed south through Kansas City,to Topeka. I stopped in Topeka cause my headlights went out again. went to a wrecking yard to see if they had another Multifunction switch. I still didn't think the connector was bad. They didn't have the MFS so I, again, looked at the connector to the MFS and saw how melted it was.
I proceeded to switch over the wires from the old connector to the new one I had bought in Florida. All the wires were good except the #16 wire which was melted to the connector. I had to splice a new plug-in to that wire that was included in the connector kit. Put everything back together and the lights worked fine. I went to the nearest Advanced Auto Parts and bought some silverstar headlights and disconnected and replaced my HID's with them.
Wow I have High-beams again.

[srt403]

Tim,
It was great seeing again even though it was short. Glad the MFS hung in there, and glad you bought that connector. I told you to change it out when you pulled the old MFS out and the connector was burnt.
Glad you had a safe trip
Later,
Cindy

[spcforker]

With headlights working and 4 hours later I said farewell to Topeka and proceeded south through Wichita to Oklahoma City then West to Tucumcari, NM. (911 miles). Rest Area for sleep then up again headed to Kingman, Az. From there up US93 to Hoover Dam. Over to Las Vegas. Spend the Night at the Excalibur. What happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas

Next morning, Bye Bye Vegas. On my way up US 93 through Alamo, Wells, Jack Pot, to Twin Falls then Over to Boise.
Did some shopping in Boise for Boise State shirts and then over to rest area on I-84 near Stanfield Or. Another almos 900 mile day of driving.
Up early and north to the Border at Osoyoos again. It was early so there was no traffic, but the border patrol still wanted to search through my car and gave me a hard time for not mentioning 2 bottles of Corona beer that i had in my luggage. Only a 20 minute delay this time. I was in Kelowna by noon for the meet with Bill (toasteroven) and a couple of other SRT-4 owners, drusrt and royd. Had lunch with Bill and his family and Roy and his family. then later got together with Andrew, Bill and family.
Oh!!!! somewhere along the way I broke another front lug stud and replaced it before meeting up with Roy.
Was escorted from Kelowna for about 30 miles into the snow/ice on 97C. said farewell to the Canada boys and on my way to Prince George and final sleep at rest stop.
Picked up a piece of razorblade somewhere between Houston and Smithers in British Columbia. It's Sunday so there is no place to fix a flat tire. I didn't want to trust "Fix-a-flat" so I put my "doughnut" on and limped the final leg of the trip from Smithers to Prince Rupert on that.
Made the Ferry with an hour to spare. No hassles going through the final Border crossing. On the ferry and 36 hours and 500 miles later, I'm back home again.


Final Mileage - 12047 miles
46 Fuel-ups
Fuel consumption - 452.14 Gallons
Cost of Fuel - $1,445.08
Average Price/Gal. - $2.973/gal
Average Price/Gal. including Canada - $3.189/ gal
Average Miles/Gal. - 26.6444 mpg
Best fuel mileage - 32.56 mpg from Indialantic, Fl. to White Spring, Fl.
Worst Fuel Mileage - 21.45 mpg from Bandon, Ore. to Redway, Calif

[spcforker]

Quote: Originally Posted by srt403

Tim,
It was great seeing again even though it was short. Glad the MFS hung in there, and glad you bought that connector. I told you to change it out when you pulled the old MFS out and the connector was burnt.
Glad you had a safe trip
Later,
Cindy

Thank You Cindy. Indeed you did tell me. So did Dave(IllegalMachine). I thought I would have to replace all the wiring 'cause I didn't know who easy it was to pull the plug-ins out of the connector.
I wish I had seen THIS link when the lights first started giving me trouble.

[BI_SRT-4]

dam. it only took me 7 mins to get to oldtown.lol
It great that you took that trip to make it out here, they should of had something for the longest travel.

[memphiselitez]

wow thats a venture. were you in an srt or what?

[spcforker]

Quote: Originally Posted by memphiselitez

wow thats a venture. were you in an srt or what?

Yes!
2003 Silver, S3r no toys, 3" Maxxfab Turboback catless/w magnaflo duel exit,S3 coilovers, hotchkis sways, Mopar tower supports, 9" X 18" TSW wheels/Fuzion Zr1 tires, Mopar Blue plate, Mopar short shift

[COY]

Good to see you Tim, stop by on the next trip.

[toasteroven]

Sorry we missed you on the way down Tim; next time we'll give you a proper reception on both passthroughs. Good to see you again too, and glad things are going well for you.

I just put the car to sleep for the winter... sad, very sad. We finally got our first snowfall in town this morning.

Great trip log; some of the things we go through, eh?