Day 7 (Sunday 9th October)
After our false start with the tyre blow out on the way to Niagara Falls, and oil seal leak, and returning back to New York to take the engine out and replace the seal, put the engine back in and set off again… finally, we were well and truly on our way.
Woke up in the morning on what would be our first full day driving, having covered approx. 415 miles the day before. We enjoyed the free continental breakfast, filling up as much as we could to keep costs down and set off from Youngstown, Ohio. We didn’t have any set goal today other than to just cover as much distance as we could. Some of the scenery was absolutely stunning, like the beautiful autumn trees we had left in New York, whilst others were very much dull open land for miles and miles with not much to see. As we discovered later in the trip, the more we got to the middle, the less there was around. The weather was also changeable and one minute we would have beautiful sunshine and then the next grey clouds appeared from nowhere and closed in around us quicker than you could blink.
We travelled across past Chicago. I had really wanted to stop in Chicago and explore (and look to buy some white wall tyres but this plan had gone out the window after our blow out). However because we had lost some time and we still needed to go a bit easy on the car, we made the decision not to detour and to keep going (sadly missing all Chicago has to offer… and the famous deep dish pizza)! The traffic around Chicago as we got near was complete madness, nothing like what we had experienced at home (which became a common theme on this trip…). Accidents and breakdowns galore! The US freeways are a whole different experience themselves, with sometimes upwards of 7 lanes, random lanes that just end, car pool lanes that people will suddenly swerve across the 7 lanes to take the next exit and all with more cars travelling along at the same time than we’d ever seen! We drove until it started to get dark and we pulled off to stop for the night in Princeton, Illinois. Although I love night driving (possibly my favourite time to drive), we had decided at the start of the trip to try to avoid too much driving at night for several reasons, but mainly because of the increased risk of being hit by a truck or large car if we had broken down. The trucks in the US are not speed limited and they can really fly. Pretty daunting to have these monster trucks, sometimes with several loads, flying past at 90mph… and getting clipped whilst broken down was not something we wanted to happen to say the least.
As this was our second night (or third really after the night near Niagara falls), we thought we would try just walking in to the motel to get a room and see if it was a better and cheaper way than using the hotels.com app. Turns out it wasn’t, but the motel employee was very friendly and helpful. Around the time we were travelling was the US presidential election, and it was really interesting that, being from the UK, people felt able to be very open with us. We got some very candid views that I think people were relieved to be able to share without judgement and it was definitely fascinating.
Day 8 (Monday 10th October)
In the morning we checked the oil and water, which was now completely embedded into our routine. If this lovely Mustang was going to take us around the USA, the least we could do was look after her! Everything was good except a very small oil leak. We tightened the rocker cover slightly and that seemed to sort the problem and reduce the leak.
We drove from Princeton, Illinois to Lincoln, Nebraska. It was a pretty boring day driving. Well I say boring, but I was still loving every second of driving the Mustang. One irritating thing we had found was the convertible roof frame had been slightly damaged and because of that the driver’s window at the front had a big gap which did make it very noisy and windy. We managed to make this a lot more bearable by tightening up the hood catch and we added some weather strip seal we got from an auto parts shop to block most of the window gap. This ended up holding out all the way around on our trip (like our other quick fixes such as the side indicator reflectors). We stayed in the Oak Tree Inn just off Interstate 80 which was OK but it wasn’t the nicest of places. The people seemed quiet and kept to themselves. The town itself was very rundown and industrial. But we were tired and happy to have a bed for the night ready for more miles the next day.
Day 9 (Tuesday 11th October)
We left Lincoln, Nebraska in the morning and it was another day just driving, this time heading to Laramie, Wyoming (about 30 ish miles past Cheyenne). The Mustang was still running beautifully, just the oil leaking again. We tightened the rocker cover a touch more but we now realised it would need a new gasket.
It’s truly fascinating how vast America is. Miles and miles of just nothing. It’s surreal to see endless dusty brown-green fields and run-down houses with abandoned old cars and trucks that have been taken over by nature. I knew before I came that it was very sparse but still amazing to experience it first-hand.
I had had this dream to get to see some wild mustangs whilst we were travelling and so, when I was driving along route 80 in my 1971 Mustang and I looked over to see a majestically beautiful black stallion galloping alongside the car, I thought I was dreaming. But no, it really happened and best of all, managed to catch a quick video clip of it as proof.
Because the Mustang had previously only been used as an occasional weekend car, we found that the top of the windscreen had not had the seal fitted properly, so in the first few days when it rained, it rained inside the car just as much! Even though it was October, the weather was still pretty warm, but not the rain… this was icy cold. We easily fixed this with some duct tape along the top of the frame and screen. No issues after that!
Our rest stop for the night. Nice to have her parked nearby to keep an eye!
Day 10 (Wednesday 12th October)
We left Laramie in the morning and took an easier drive through Wyoming into Utah and to Salt Lake City, our destination for the night. We came across more truly amazing views and scenery (of which we took numerous pictures). The morning started out bitterly cold for the first time as so far we had had lovely weather for the time of year (much nicer than we were used to). Our first fuel stop of the day required layers of jumpers, coats, scarves and hat it was so chilly. The petrol station (sorry – gas station) was a funny little shop, nothing else around for miles and sold lots of native American trinkets. The views as before were absolutely beautiful and stunning, especially as we got into the Salt Lake territory, where alongside the road we could see the white crystal outlines of the dried up salt lakes against the dusty light brown ground. These got more and more prominent the further along we travelled.
The previous days, and again today, we had been getting more and more changeable extreme weather… one second we would have gorgeous bright sun with blue skies and suddenly it would get dark and grey with black clouds rolling over and releasing a downpour, causing it to rain on us inside the car. Then before you knew it, it cleared again and we were back in glorious sunshine.
When we arrived in Salt Lake City, I looked up in the road food book (that I had been given as a gift – it gives alternative options to fast food places to eat whilst on the road) and there was a cool place called Hires Big H which was burger place that still offered the traditional kerbside service. Salt Lake was a surprisingly nice town and the food was delicious.
