Made it back to Knoxville

After the awards, of which we did not place in the money, we headed out into the French Quarter. We went down Bourbon Street and headed over to Pat O'Brien's to get some hurricanes and some dinner. We then headed over to Cafe du Monde to get a few beignets. After that we called it a night. We could be lying or we could be lame and telling the truth, but we will never tell!

We woke up this morning for the long and boring drive back to Knoxville. The drive was uneventful, and since there were no challenges, we got to sleep a little while the other was driving. However, somewhere around Birmingham the car did develop an interesting sound in the exhaust. It is probably an exhaust leak, but right now we really aren't to concerned about it.

Now, we just need to decide what to do with the car. It is not the most comfortable, but it has been very reliable and gets awesome gas mileage. Anywhere here are a few pics from yesterday. Unfortunately, we did not get too many since we were busy snapping pics of license plates.

Here are some coming across Lake Ponchatrain:





Here are a few pics of the destruction from Katrina over on the north side of town:

We Made it to the French Quarter!!!

Not really a whole lot to post about today. We left the hotel around 9:00 and started on our way to New Orleans. The car ran well, but we did have to put in about a 1/2 can of R-134a to keep us cool down here. One thing we have really been shocked about on this trip is the lack of traffic. We figured, that it being a holiday weekend, the traffic would be really bad. Maybe the price of fuel is making some people decide to just stay home. Once we got onto the south side of Lake Ponchatrain we saw that there was still a lot of damage from hurricane Katrina.

Our challenge today was to take pictures of license plates from as many states as possible. Our strategy for this challenge was to hit up the hotel parking lots (in the morning before everyone left), rest stops, truck stops, Cracker Barrels and U-Hauls. Yes, I said U-Hauls. If you notice, every single U-Haul truck has a plate from Arizona. However, the trailers have plates from all over. We ended up with 42 states and Quebec. We did pretty well. We will have the awards ceremony at 8:00 and then we will head into the French Quarter. We probably won't be out too late because we would like to get an early start in the morning. Dave will probably post a few pictures here shortly, but there really isn't much to see between Gadsden, Alabama and here.

3rd Leg?

Dave pretty much covered it all so I will add some comments in blue.

320 miles, a little bit of refrigerant, and oil change, a tire rotation, four states (NC, TN, GA, and AL), and a fuel filter...

We picked up our stuff at Advance Auto Parts in Asheville. They didn't have a fuel filter so we ended up at a competitors store. A guy that used to come over and autocross with us was working there. So it was good to see Daniel.

Today we went from Asheville, NC to Gadsden, AL via some pretty cool roads. We left from Asheville around 9 a.m. and hit I-40 West. From there we took the first exit on the TN side (#451) and quickly ran out of road (we thought). I recognized the area because Jess and I launched a raft trip from there last year. It is paved for a very short distance and then it turns into what looks like a gravel driveway. We turned around and asked for directions and were told that the gravel road went for about 3 miles and then became a paved road that would get us into Gatlinburg. At this point we were traveling with J.D., who is also from Knoxville.















The gravel was pretty rough in a few places, but fun, and it got us to SR32 which was just as much fun as Deal's Gap but with ZERO traffic. I will definitely be taking the Miata back up there soon.












































From there we went through Gatlinburg, Cherokee, and then Bryson City. We ran Deal's Gap a few times (the Festiva held together!!!) and then headed down to my house, which was very close to the Rally Route. The Festiva got an oil change, tire rotation (the alignment is off and is wearing the tires), and a fuel filter. We also threw the wheels on a bubble balancer and found the tire that has been vibrating on the interstate. A few stick on wheel weights and we had a smoother ride.

We had some lunch at the Greenback corner and left for Alabama around 4:30. The trip down to Gadsden was uneventful and we arrived around 7:30pm.

Interesting Coincidence

Click the picture and look at the license plate. Room 223 (someone, ahem added the decimal point) was our hotel room # in H'burg. These pictures either mean something to you or they don't.

Day 3 Challenge

Today's challenge was to take a picture of the oldest vehicle that we could find. The only requirements were that it be along the challenge route and it must have four wheels (attached). Oh, they also nixed going into any of the car museums in Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge.

As we were coming down out of Deal's Gap, Tyler somehow managed to see this Model T that was hidden behind a wrecker. After stopping and taking pictures we spoke to the owner and found that it was a 1920 Model T Touring.