Day One: Staten Island to Harrisonburg, VA

Thursday morning was quite the colorful scene as the cars gathers in back of the hotel to hang out before the start. We'll try to post some pictures, but are having technical difficulties so those may have to wait until we return. The participants are as colorful as the cars. Some of the highlights were the stretch limo with two couples dressed up for the prom, the sports car with a huge Union Jack flying from the back, and the car covered completely with aluminium foil.

It was another day of perfect weather. The marshals got on the bullhorn and we all jumped into our cars. On the way out the parking lot we were handed our challenge packets. Challenge one: go three miles up the road to the K-mart and buy as many individual items as you can for a total cost of $1, including tax, and get it done by 10:00 AM (20 minutes). We ended up with 7 items bought at 9:58. Challenge two was 20 obscure photographs of things to find along the way. We managed to photograph about 5 of them.

We were on the veggie oil by 10:15 and Mandy the GPS had us heading to the Friends School in Baltimore, where Richard's brother Robert was to meet us with 18 gallons of veg, some sandwiches, and a few classes of kids from the school to check out the car. At a rest stop we met up with a state trooper who let us photograph his car but not his face...the troopers were harder on the aluminum car, which by the time it got to Maryland had become a bit of a littering hazard.

We arrived at the Friends School at 13:45, Robert at the ready. Richard, chef's hat on, introduced himself to Heidi the school's PR person. She snapped away as first the middle schoolers and then the first graders checked out the car. They asked good questions and were really into the Vegginator.

At 18:05 we had gotten past DC traffic and into the pretty part of the trip in the Shennendoah valley. Unfortunately, just before the turnoff for Skyline Drive we started to hear a noise from the back, and upon inspection found a grease leak on the back axle. Prudence led us to skip Skyline Drive but we managed to find a pretty valley route into Harrisonburg on Highway 11. It was too late to get the car checked out before getting to Harrisonburg, but help was available in the Best Western parking lot when we arrived around 20.00.

The Central Square Dart duds lent us their lift, Kent put on his tyvac suit, gloves and headlamp (got to get those pictures uploaded!) and upon inspection found that the boot around the left rear axle c.v. joint was cracked, so grease wasn't getting to the joint, which eventually will ruin the joint, which will keep the car from moving, hence making it impossible to drive to New Orleans.

Wise man Joe told us that one option was a boot repair kit, that could be a decent fix without having to pull everything apart. So we bombed over to Autozone at 20:50, 10 minutes before closing, but they didn't have the repair kit, and the replacement part couldn't get here 'till Saturday. We caught up with Joe just finishing up the $8.99 all-you-can-eat BBQ special at Shoney's, and he suggested maybe buying a bunch of grease and wrapping the thing with adhesive and ... you guessed it, duck tape as a temporary fix. So we're going to try that tomorrow morning, as Autozone opens at 7:30 AM and launch isn't till 10:00 AM.

Meanwhile, the Shoney's buffet beckoned and was pretty awful, especially as they don't serve beer. We later caught up with the Marshalls at Ruby Tuesdays and saw that we had missed out on a great looking salad bar...oh well, the party is hopping in the parking lot so it's time for a few beers down there with the other Babe-heads before trying to grease up our C.V. joints tomorrow.