1/4/19 -- The Drive Home IV Team was on the road today
out of Dallas well before sunup after route instructions from Dave and a quick
Starbucks breakfast. I was nominated to drive the 1966 Ford and had the
pleasure of Arkansas native and journalist Kevin Jones of Trailer Body Builders
as my co-pilot and navigator.
It was at this point I learned that Brad
Phillips of Hagerty had cannibalized the generator from the still-trailered 55
Chevy to solve the electrical problems of the International Travelette.
Concerned
at first, I soon realized that the ol’ 55 was like an organ donor whose
harvested generator would help save the life of another of our vehicle brethren.
Besides, Brad promised to give it back by the time we reached Detroit – and returning
donated organs doesn’t often happen in the medical world, right? -- so I
chocked it up to another creative solution by our DHIV Team. Way to go, Brad.
On the road, our first “must-see” stop
was the Texas-stylized Eiffel Tower in Paris Texas, and we all agreed that everything
is big in Texas with this as the potential exception.
Moving on, we tooled through a sliver of
Oklahoma and into De Queen AR, for lunch at the Stillwell Restaurant. While
there, we attracted the attention of Meghan McMahen, president of the De Queen
Chamber who posed with some of our team in front of her office.
Speaking of our team, yesterday I
promised detail about “the Hennessey Boys” -- David Hebrank and Coleman
Kirkpatrick -- who were dispatched from Houston to join our caravan in a Jeep
Trackhawk by John Hennessey of Hennessey Peformance.
David and Coleman are porters for Hennessey
Performance, a job they describe as “doing a little bit of everything,” but in
my book they’re also the luckiest guys in the world. I mean whose boss tells
them, “Hey, why don’t you take this 1200-hp Jeep Trackhawk on a cross-country
trip with a bunch of Drive Home IV yahoos and have some fun?” That’s pretty
much the way it happened, and btw the 1200-hp is not a typo – the Trackhawk is
a smokin’, screamin’ performance marvel. Anyway, the Hennessey boys, David and
Coleman, are cool young fellas who are fun to have around, and they’ve brought
the average age of our group down by a decade and at least doubled our hipness.
Back on the road in Arkansas we tooled
through beautiful downtown Hot Springs, and after a gas stop my partner Kevin
took the wheel and led the procession to downtown Little Rock for a great
dinner at the Copper River Restaurant, where we were joined by his darling wife
Laurie.
But there was one event that left Kevin and
I a bit unsettled. When he at one point on our journey popped open the Ford glove
box, inside was a Barbie Doll in a somewhat scantily clad summer dress and a cigar. Odd, disturbing, and a bit weird, right?
I confronted Bill and he claimed – with at least a fair degree of credibility -- no knowledge; I called Dale at LeMay and he gave me a virtual shrug.
My hope is that the doll soon disappears as quickly as she showed up. More to come on that mystery
and onward for a looooong drive to Sewanee, TN tomorrow!
Cheers and Regards from Little Rock,
which bills itself as home of the cheese dog and brown-and-serve rolls, and the
only purse museum in America!
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