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05/10/03; Wilmington, North Carolina
Closing the Loop…
When we departed Fort Bragg this morning it was pleasantly warm and we could tell it would be nice, but humid on our journey to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The roads were mostly excellent as we wound our way southwest in a zigzag pattern to follow the principal US and state highways to our destination. We arrived in Myrtle Beach in mid-morning and had a photo op on the beach to capture our cars with the Atlantic Ocean in the background. This picture is much like our “starting point” picture, taken of the Pacific Ocean in Ventura, California.
Dauntless A's at Myrtle Beach
Then we parked and walked around for a couple of hours and had lunch. This is a “bikers week” in Myrtle Beach and we were reminded of our friends Dena and Jack Ogden who were also avid bikers in the past, before joining the Model A ranks.
Since there was still half a day remaining, we “mounted up” again and headed for Wilmington, where we put up for the night. Our quarters are nice and we made good use of our coupon books. (We just located the book for the Middle Atlantic States, much to our joy. We feel that these books have saved us hundreds of dollars to date and have made a good game of finding places to stay. For the most part, the accommodations have been more than adequate. There have only been a couple of exceptions to this statement.)
The drive today was extremely pleasant – not only the roads, the sights, but also the smells of the flowering bushes, that lined many of the roads. We don’t know just what the plants are, but they smell very much like jasmine or honeysuckle. Joann had a ball snapping pictures and taping sections of the road as we drove. We saw many neat little churches with tall, slim spires. The streets of the older part of Wilmington are certainly a treasure-trove of old houses and trees arching over the streets.
We found the air conditioners were extremely helpful in the heat and humidity of the afternoon. We can’t detect any real performance impact on the engines resulting from the use of the air conditioners. Temperatures are running normal and there seems to be no loss of speed on the level ground. We have not used the conditioners in the mountains as of yet. Keith notes a need to increase the idle speed a bit when in stop-and-go traffic. This is to compensate for the added load of the compressor and the need to keep the alternator charging.
Dennis and his foot-long hot dog; The Gay Dolphin
We, in the past seven days, have driven 1,160 miles and made a complete loop around the Carolinas. We started in Savannah, Georgia and drove northeastward through Spartanburg to Ashville, thence through Tennessee to southeastern Kentucky, back through Tennessee and North Carolina to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and now back northeast to Wilmington! This circuit was necessary to meet several of our goals; Keith wanted to visit his aunt near Ashville, we wanted to pick up the states of Kentucky and Tennessee and we wanted to visit Myrtle Beach. This seemed to be the most efficient way to accomplish all this. The tour was a bit longer, time-wise, than anticipated because of the stormy conditions in the Tri-state area of North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee.
After settling in, Dennis and Keith did some preventive maintenance on the cars. Dennis added air to his tires and lubricant to the overdrive. Keith needed to add some air to a couple of his tires, water to the battery and clean the positive terminal of the battery, which had some corrosion deposits on it.
There, you have today’s adventure. Stay tuned for more developments from,
The Dauntless Four
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