19 July: Looking at rentals, and watching the Blue Bombers over the Internet

My real estate agent picked Eric and I up at 9 AM on Friday, and off we went to look at rental properties for me to live in.  This condo is only temporary for a month, provided as part of the relocation package that the company gave me - so I have to find someplace real to live.

The first place was great - it was a house with a nice garage, a pool, and tons of space.  It was also filthy, and needed some repairs.  Perhaps I'd pony up to buy at a good price, because I can do some cleaning and repairs, but to rent - no thank you.

The rest of the places were various condos in beautiful gated communities, with nice pools, nice views, some with big garages.  All with lots of levels, many stairs, too much carpet.  Nice, and quite liveable, but gee, it would be nice to have more.

Oh my Lord, is it freakin' hot here!  I can't believe it!  I went for a swim after dark, and the water was still hot tub warm, just from the sun!  It's going to be a challenge for a Canadian boy from the prairie plains to get used to.  It might be fun to try though!

That evening, there was a Winnipeg Blue Bombers game on.  Well, this being the USA, CFL football isn't high on the priorities list for them.  But, it turns out, that some CFL games are broadcast on ESPN2 sports network, which the cable system in the condo gets.  However, not this one, so sad.  But, it was being broadcast on ESPN3, an Internet-only sports network, which I could get on my laptop.  I dug through my tote bins, found my DisplayPort to HDMI cable, and pumped it out through the big screen TV in the living room.  Ha ha, beer, pizza, and high definition football!!  What else could a couple of guys want???

18 July: Tour of the Cardinals football stadium

We got up, rarin' to go.  We zoomed over to the Phoenix Cardinals NFL football stadium and went on the tour.  Way cool!  It's kind of weird looking from the outside (okay, really weird), but apparently it's supposed to be modelled after a type of cactus.  Hmm, OK.

Cardinals Football Stadium, Phoenix

Inside the "skin" there is a huge logo, and pictures of all season ticket holders when the stadium opened

Inside, of course it's impressive, you know with so many big screen displays, so many concessions, the ability to convert to this use and that use, blah blah  blah.

The coolest thing is that the field is real grass - and it's on a huge portable pad that's something like 120 yards long x 60 yards wide, which rolls into the stadium when needed, on hundreds of rail wheels!  When it's out, the floor is a nice flat concrete surface with the odd steel ribbon level in the floor, for the wheels to roll on (no raised rails or anything).  Way cool!

The football field, growing happily in the Arizona sun - rolls towards us into stadium when needed

We also tried to get a tour of the Phoenix Coyotes NHL hockey stadium (Coyotes being the former pre-1995 Winnipeg Jets), but the fellow who would give the tour wasn't in, and didn't return my call in time.  Oh, well.

We did some grocery shopping, chilled, and watched a movie.  It was a good day.

17 July: Makin' a Run for Phoenix

We woke up in Las Vegas, New Mexico.  We gassed up and headed south, jumping off of Interstate 25 and heading a bit back east on highway 84.  This avoids Santa Fe and the dipsy-doodle around the mountains. 

Then on through Alburquerque, stopping briefly at a truck stop near Gallup, new Mexico, and onward into Arizona!

Overpass in Albuquerque

Wide open New Mexico

Welcome to Arizona!

Rather than continue on Interstate 40 to Flagstaff then down Interstate 17 to Phoenix, we decided to hop off onto highway 377 at Holbrook, then drive the scenic route through Payson and into Phoenix from the west.

Did I say "scenic route"?  I guess I did.  It certainly was!  And, the temperature just kept rising and rising, all the way into Phoenix.

The road was windy, twisty, up and down.  The car started to get grumpy during this last stretch - at least the transmission did.  It downshifted when it wasn't supposed to, and at one point, refused to upshift when it was supposed to.

Eric drives the last stretch, focussed intently, both hands on the wheel, 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock!

Every time we came around a mountain or over a pass, we expected to see the city.  It sure took a long time before we saw Phoenix.

Once we entered the city, Eric was like a machine - he knew exactly where he was going.  Some of his best friends' parents have units in this same complex.  We arrived around supper time.

All this photo proves is that I made it - Eric is taking the picture!

In the picture of me and the car at the complex, you can see a black Pontiac behind me.  Shortly after we arrived, and while we were still unloading our stuff, a young fellow was fussing about in the engine compartment, talking to his buddy on his iPhone and waving a part in front of the camera, asking his friend if it was important.  I wandered over and asked if I could have a look.  It was the pulley from the power steering pump, broken clean off!  Worse, everything on this engine, air conditioning, alternator, and the water pump, appears to run off of that same serpentine belt.  The fellow was some upset when I advised him that although the power steering pump wasn't all that important, some of the other stuff that the belt was driving was important, and the car should not be driven.

Eric chatted with that fellow, Darnell, later.  It turns out that he's from Los Angeles, was working in a warehouse for the Fresh-n-Easy grocery store chain, and was laid off.  He's out here at a relative's place, looking for work.  He has a little girl back in LA that he's trying to support.  Yikes.  I hope he finds something.

Anyway, we arrived, moved the junk indoors, and went out for pizza.  We got zero service at the Pizza Hut take-out store, so we just bought a bunch of fixins at Fry's and made it ourselves.  Then crashed, well past time to rest.

Postscript: a week later, that black car hasn't turned a wheel. 

16 July: Mount Rushmore and Crazy Horse, and meeting the Lincoln Highway Tour

In the morning, we set out for Mount Rushmore.  Wow, it's pretty impressive.

Dean at the entrance

Eric in front of the memorial view

Corridor of State Flags

We also saw a few old cars - hey, I heard about these guys from the "1958 Cadillac Owner's Association" mailing list - there's a guy in a 1958 Cadillac driving the tour, but didn't see him - it's a group from Europe, something like 20 or 30 cars, all driving across the USA all the month of July - the Lincoln Highway Centennial Tour.   Yes, all from Europe - cool huh?  I just got pictures of a couple of them, but there are bunch more - check out their web site.

1955 Oldsmobile convertible

1959 Cadillac Eldorado Biarritz convertible

A ragtop with air conditioning!

Onward to the Crazy Horse memorial, which isn't quite as impressive - well, it will be when it is done - man, how do they ever complete these things, so much material to blast, carve, and move?

Crazy Horse's face way off in the distance - eventually will be mounted on horse with arm outstretched

Then we blasted out on the two lane highways, off into Colorado.  We stopped for fuel & supper in Boulder, Colorado, and pushed onward.  We made it to Las Vegas!  Relax - not Nevada, but Las Vegas, New Mexico, near Albuquerque :-)

Wide open as far as you can see!

Small Town USA

Country highways - 2 lanes through rolling countryside

Back on the Interstate - wide open four lane highway for a hundred miles!

14-15 July: Quel Catastrophe!!!!

It was time to refuel the old beast in Fargo.  The de Ville would have done much further, but might as well fuel it up too.

Oh boy, as soon as we slowed down off of the freeway, I knew something was wrong with the '57.  There was a loud engine knock, and she was idling very rough.  Oh, no.

Oh my word, what is that knocking sound?

Thinking it was an overheat problem, we fuelled up anyway, then went to eat.  Nope, still there.  Very loud, and seemingly deep in the engine.  Just like Bob had found at Seven Oaks a few days before, only this time it wasn't going away.

Sigh - have to face up to the fact that Elizabeth won't be making the trip under her own steam

We checked out local area storage facilities, but the offices were all closed on Sunday.  We stopped by a local shop that happened to be open, but they only did big semi trucks.  They suggested we try some Lucas Oil Modifier, which we did, and it did not help.  Double yikes.

I wondered if the proper Engine Oil Supplement (EOS) was added when the oil was changed the week before.  Doesn't matter, whatever is done is done.

OK, so we have to stay the night in Fargo.  Oh well, I booked the hotel that I had stayed in when I was down on my TN visa trip, and we made our way to the hotel.  It was only 3 miles or so away, so I drove the '57 over.  Ugh, it sounded horrible!  And, to get enough power to go up over the Interstate, it sounded even worse, and had no power!  Eric was behind me, and said it blew a nice shade of blue out the tailpipe.  Argh.  We got to the hotel and parked it.

If you know me, you know I was stressed about the whole thing.  What I did though, was just say, "I can't do anything about it, so forget it."  And, I did.  I actually slept well - perhaps due to the lack of sleep the night before, but it felt good.

We spent Monday morning, 15 July, zooming around looking for places to store the car.  A self storage facility couldn't open its gates to us until after 5 PM, an RV centre with a large compound just said "no", but a great little company right on the main street said they would think about it.  Friends in the antique auto club got to work and found a place nearby for the car.  We heard back from the little company, Roll-A-Ramp, that they would allow me to put it in their compound, mostly because the company owner had old cars and sympathized with me.   Not free of course - nothing is, in this life - but we had a safe place to put her.  Yay!

The rain let up just long enough to allow Eric and I to empty the contents of both cars onto the parking lot behind them, then rationalize it all down.  Some tote bins were innocuous and could be left in the '57.  Some had liquids in them that really shouldn't sit too long (could leak and damage upholstery - especially when loading / unloading onto a car carrier).  Some stuff was low value and was discarded.  In the end, we cut down to the bare minimum in the 2005 de Ville, and all the stuff I don't need for a while into the '57.

AAA couldn't pick the car up for over 6 hours, ugh.  The contact from the club got us in touch with a local tow agency, and they moved the car almost immediately, yay.  Poor operator, though - he had to crawl under the car to hook it up, and got completely soaked.  We had to put wood down to ensure that the back end wouldn't drag or hang up on the tow truck.  Good thing we did, we cleared by about 1/2 an inch. 

 So we put her under the shelter in the compound, covered her up, and finally got underway in the de Ville around 2 PM, only a full day behind schedule.

There Elizabeth sits - sadly - waiting for pickup some day soon

Oh my poor "little" Cadillac!

Let's have a moment of silence for Elizabeth's grand tour - planned but not completed...

Remarkably, once we were on the road again, I felt at peace.  We did what we could, all situation stable now, let's get on with the trip.  Eric was driving, and we just rolled on down the Interstate.

We decided that, since we were in a well equipped modern car, we'd take a bit of a detour and go to Mount Rushmore.  Great idea!  So we headed west through South Dakota, to Rapid City.  There was a lot of construction on the Interstate, but then again, it was a nice open highway, and with the mountains in the far background, mmmmm.

14 July: Saddle up!

What was the line from Good Morning Vietnam?  "Oh six hundred, with the oh standing for, oh my God it's early!!"  Yup, I concur.

Eric arrived right around 06h00, and we said our final goodbyes to my mom and to Terena, and away we went.

Yeah, so you can be early but not bright, or bright but not early.  Which one is this?

I had to fill the thirsty old Fleetwood up with fuel.  I had also forgotten something, don't forget what, but Eric went back for it while I fuelled up.  He had the faster, more modern machine, after all.

Fuelling up at Flying J just outside the Perimeter

Then, off to the USA.  Don't look back, that's a trail of sobs and tears on the highway...

Getting into the USA was uneventful.  I went through first, and had to formally import the Fleetwood.  Eric was sure we'd get put into the "you sit here while we empty and search the car" garage, but we didn't.  He and I dutifully allowed the customs and immigrations officers to do their work.

It was good we were there again, because the officer on 30 June when I "imported" the 2005 de Ville said that he didn't have to sign the import form, which seemed wrong.  Sure enough, it was wrong.  This fellow was a good guy, but he wanted to inspect the car, look for the emissions certificate, find the country of origin of the car (yikes, all mainstream Cadillacs are built in Lansing, MI, USA).  It was all good, so he signed off, and we were on our way.

I had purchased a pair of long range FRS radio transceivers for Eric and I to use on the trip, and a pair of car chargers.  We chatted on and off on the way.  Kind of fun, although someone said that it wasn't really a father-son trip because we weren't in the same car.

We stopped in Grand Forks, which was fine.  It was too early to eat, but with my small middle aged bladder... enough said.  Then by Fargo, we were hungry, so we stopped for a bite, and it was time to fuel up.   [ cue ominous music again ]

06 to 13 July: Busy, busy, busy!

The week running up to our departure was a really hectic one.  I met with so many people, said my goodbyes, and shed a few tears.  You would think I was never coming back!  Well, of course I will come back, but this represents such a big change for me.  I keep telling myself, "change can be good, this change will be good!"  Somehow, the little tremor in the back of my mind is, "how well will I cope?"  Time will tell.  Of course, I've never completely crashed and burned, have always managed to survive, but there's always this little doubt...

I worked at ERLPhase up to and including 08 July.  The fact was, I was supposed to be done on Friday, 05 July, but I spent so much time dealing with move related stuff in the 2 weeks prior, that even with the extra time I spent in India, etc., I felt the need to come back for an extra day.  Which was good - I was able to finish a few important things.

I managed to have the locker empty on Sunday, 07 July, so I didn't have to pay the extra month, yay!  There were 15 bins at my mom's place now, but 13 of them were going into the cars, 1 was going to Eric, and only 1 was staying.  This was a big improvement from the 70 or so bins that were there only six weeks before!

ERLPhase management agreed to let me work with the good folks in India on a part-time "as available, as needed" basis for the next few weeks.  They would keep my E-mail account active to facilitate communications - I would use the MS-Exchange webmail client, and Skype, to keep in touch.

Unfortunately, the contract IT person didn't get the memo, and on 09 July, he cancelled my account.  I asked for it to be reinstated, which began a 3 day slow dance where reinstatement was performed using a trivial everybody-knows-it password, then failed attempts at updating to a private password.  Well, in the end, we were thwarted by a recent change to the wireless which moved it to the outside of the firewall, ugh.  Fixed, new private password implemented on Thursday, just in time, ugh.  A good way to waste a few hours and a few trips to the office.  Anyway... all fixed, all good now.

I was driving the '57 as much as possible that last week, just to give her a bit of exercise and make sure I was comfortable with the way she was running.  I had a bit of unease about the RPMs she was turning at highway speeds, and wondered if she was reaching up into 4th gear.  I just wasn't sure - it has been a long time since I put some real highway miles on a Cadillac of this vintage.  I wasn't sure about the 1-2 upshift, it seemed as though maybe it was there, maybe it wasn't - and if it wasn't, then I was in 3rd at highway speeds, which would not be cool.

Thursday morning, I took the '57 in to Bob Degraves of Seven Oaks Transmission, to have him give the transmission a quick check.  He and I took the car for a spin, and sure enough, all four gears were there.

He pulled it into the shop to pull the dipstick, and wow, the engine had a knock!  Yikes!  He snagged his stethoscope and figured that it was central in the engine - not from either side - so probably not a lifter.  It sounded low down, perhaps a crank bearing or a connecting rod bearing?  Well it sounded bad, but it went away when we stopped and restarted the engine, so I figured it might just be a transient issue.  Little did I know....  [ cue the ominous music ]

On Friday morning, I transferred the registration of the B.U.T. and the flatdeck trailer over to my mom, since when I change my driver's licence to Arizona, I won't be able to keep it registered under my name.  

Originally, I had arranged for Eric and I to leave on Sunday, 14 July.  He would drive the 2005 de Ville, I would drive the 1957 Fleetwood.  We would take our time, driving at or just under the limit, say 60 to 65 miles per hour, putting in 10 to 12 hours a day, and get to Phoenix in 3 to 4 days.

But then, we changed our minds, and arranged to leave on Friday, 12 July, so we could drive to Grand Forks and see the races that evening, stay overnight in Grand Forks, before continuing onward on Saturday.  The World of Outlaws Late Model Stock Car races were going on, and Eric really wanted to see them.

Then, it turns out that the Half Moon's 75th Anniversary celebration was on this particular weekend 13 & 14 July, and I kind of wanted to go there with the other members of the Manitoba Classic and Antique Auto Club (MCAAC) and check it out.

Also, there was a Winnipeg Blue Bomber football game on Saturday evening in Hamilton, and we certainly wouldn't be able to pick it up on radio in the U.S. while driving.   Well, I have a US T-Mobile SIM for my cell phone, and could get it using Internet radio on the data network, but no such luck for Eric.

We figured that we'd go to the races on Friday in Grand Forks, then come back late Friday night, spend Saturday back in Winnipeg, and get rolling on Sunday morning.

However, the US immigration lawyer got all out of joint with this idea, saying that I might be denied entry into the US because I would be violating the terms of my TN visa - that is, going into the US for a reason other than work.  Ugh!  I told him that if he understood how often we hop across the border for shopping and entertainment, it's ridiculous to think that it would change just because I had a TN visa.

In the end, we decided not to go to the races.   There was a lot of rain that day, and with the prospect of it causing trouble with my immigration and TN visa, we just decided against it.  So, I spent the time organizing my bins and running around with last minute stuff.

The running around continued on Saturday, as I put the B.U.T. out to pasture in Warren, dropping off some bins into the storage shelter out there, and picking up a couple of small items.  Oh yes, and then the shelter had damage from falling ice last winter, so I put a tarp over the damage.   Mom picked me up, we raced into the city, where I had a bit of banking to do at RBC, then snag the 57 Cadillac and off to the Half Moon.  I was a half hour late - ugh, I thought I was doing better than that these days!!  Oh well, it was a very busy place, lots going on, and the Caddy looked good.

I chatted with a number of folks.  Denise and two of her sons came by and checked it out.  A bunch of the antique auto club guys shook my hand and said, "see you in the wintertime!"  I was parked next to an Amphicar, which generally gives rides in the water for charity (unfortunately, the water was low so the docking wasn't suitable for it, and the current so swift that it was dangerous anyway), and we had a good chat too.

It turned out that Wayne Doherty, a good friend from high school and university, was back home for a couple of weeks, just ending a weeks' stay at Victoria Beach before heading into Winnipeg for several days.  He connected with me by text and was astounded to hear that I was leaving the next day.  He came by the Half Moon and we had a good visit.  It was great to see him before heading out.


Back to my mom's place, where I finished rationalizing the contents of the remaining bins.  Then, with a storm coming in and the threat of an early morning thunderstorm, I loaded up the cars, and made up a manifest of what was in each car, in case the folks at the US border asked.  I wanted to know exactly the nature of the contents of each bin, so they could ask and I could tell them.

I got very little sleep, up at 5:30 AM on Sunday, 14 July.  Time to move 'em out!