All seemed to be progressing well in the morning. Bags were packed, and everything on the checklist for the car seemed to be in order. Heavy duty jack, lug wrench, jumper cables, fire extinguisher – all check. A decent assortment of tools stowed in D.Donnelly’s father’s toolbox – check. A case of water, a 12 pack of unsweetened tea, two folding chairs – check. And two 12 packs of longneck Natty Boh bottles – these as a valuable and iconic representation of Baltimore, to be used for trading, in lieu of pelts, for niceties being offered by the wonderful citizens of the 16 towns we are scheduled to visit. Should nothing of significant value be offered, then we will be left to drink them ourselves as a daily prize for our significant efforts.

My neighbor Fred came by to wish me well, and to photograph the start of the great journey.

I noted the odometer mileage as reading 11,814.1, or the actual 111,814.1, as the odometers of the day only had 6 characters; after 100,000 miles, it would therefore reset to zero.

I said goodbye to the dog, Fred got some more pictures, and off I went. No more than 10 minutes away from the house, I realized I had left my umbrella and rain slicker in the house. So, after all the wonderful fanfare, I was back at home, grabbed the gear, and then other neighbors, Michele and Barney came running over for more exceptional fanfare! Because of my absent mindedness, I lost 30 minutes, starting round 2 at 8:00. But it was nice to get a second warm send-off to make up for my stupidity.

I ended day one just outside of Savannah, GA at 8:30pm – 13 hours after start #1, 5 fill-ups, 626.7 miles traveled, and averaging about 12mpg.

RAIN – It rained on and off throughout the entire trip, and I got my answer about whether there were any leaks – YES! When it rains, one obviously needs to keep the windows closed. When they are closed, the cab gets hot, because there is little to no insulation on the firewall, allowing the engine heat to migrate into the cab. The car is equipped with a nice vent, with a scoop behind the driver’s side of the front grill, that transitions to a pipe with a baffle to open and close, and then a discharge in the cabin at the driver’s left leg. I discovered the engineering of the vent was not well thought out, because when driving in a heavy rain at speeds in excess of 50mph, water blows out of the vent on the rubber mat in the footwell. This car was built before we had super highways in the US. I am sure it was rare for travelers to exceed 50mph in the early 50’s.

Another leak problem – The windows slide up and down within a U-shaped weather-stripping track. This material is 72-year-old original equipment, and it has long since exceeded its useful life. Driving at 65mph in heavy wind and rain, I would get water drops blown on my neck and left arm. So yes, the car leaks, but it could have been worse.

Part of the joy of driving antique cars is the driver and passengers become celebrities, without having the baggage of people asking you for an autograph while trying to enjoy a quiet dinner at a restaurant. For 13 hours of driving, I would get honks, smiles, waves, and one woman who was screaming with exaggerated mouth movements through her closed window, waving her arms excitedly and saying, “I LOVE YOUR CAR!” All five gas station stops had people inquiring about the car. At stop #3, somewhere in NC, a gentleman asked if he could take a picture of the car to send to his wife, then a teenage girl and her mother asked if they could take a picture, and then three teenage boys in another car asked the same. So polite! When I shared the SKU that my friend Marcus had created as a quick link to this blog, the driver of the boy’s car exclaimed, “The car has its own website?!? No way, man that’s so dope! So cool!”

DIFFERENT – There is a two lane stretch of Interstate 95 in NC that is clearly about to be widened to three lanes. Construction equipment was clearing dense forest to prepare and grade for the future roadway. In Maryland, road crews have huge pieces of equipment that will chew up massive trees and stumps into mulch. The mulch is hauled off and sold. In North Carolina, they put all the stumps and brush in 10′ high piles about 100′ apart- dozens upon dozens of huge piles for miles, and they set them ablaze. These enormous brush fires were no more than 25′ from the active roadway, billowing thick black smoke everywhere. A different way of solving a problem, and a bit of a head scratcher.

The Hippo handled herself wonderfully. There was a scare with 115 miles left for the day, while traveling at 65mph in the rain in SC, she began to sputter and wheeze. She dropped down to 40mph, coughing, and I was sure she was going to die on the side of the road. Luckily, I was close to an exit and managed to make my way into a gas station. The symptoms were similar to what happens when one gets water in the fuel. The tank still had about 4 gallons of gas, so I topped it off and added a bottle of fuel treatment. She started right up and showed no further signs of trouble. Let’s see how she does tomorrow with more rain in the forecast. Fortunately, I only have a 2 1/2 hour drive to get to St. Augustine. One down, and 9 more driving days to go!