drivetofive

Odometer:  493,049

For some reason all 4 million people from the Phoenix area decided to converge on Interstate 17 southbound near Flagstaff, Arizona today.  My 6.5 hour return trip from southern Utah ended up taking 8.5 hours.  No matter – my friend Matt and I had plenty of music to entertain us (we gave my stereo system a workout with some live Metallica tunes).  Despite the slow-downs on today’s drive, the rest of the Labor Day holiday weekend was smooth and relaxing.

My brother rolled out the red carpet for a stay at his home in St. George.  Here’s the view of my Legend along with his 2008 Ford F-250 “Big Red” as seen from the bathroom window.  Notice that I park far away from the truck with its 40″ tires and 22″ rims so that it doesn’t inadvertently roll over and crush my car, monster-truck style.

This Ford, among many other project trucks, is a creation of my brother Bentley and his company, H&S Performance.  My two brothers share the same interest in the automotive industry that I do, having grown up around cars & trucks.  H&S specializes in performance upgrades for diesel pickup trucks.  I’m fairly confident that Big Red, even with all its mass, would easily leave me in its dust at the 1/4 mile dragstrip if the opportunity arose to.

We took the opportunity today to run my friend Buck’s 2002 Acura RSX Type-S on the Mustang Dyno at the H&S shop.  His car produced a healthy 177 hp.  We had a great time wandering around the shop – huge thanks to Payton for operating the dyno and for the rest of the H&S crew’s hospitality.  Check them out at http://www.hsperformance.com.

Here, the Acura brotherhood is exemplified with a picture of some great looking rear ends.  Blair stopped by with his 2008 Acura TL Type-S that’s finished in my favorite color among “newer” Acuras:  Kinetic Blue Pearl.  And Buck’s immaculate 2002 Acura RSX Type-S has only 58,000 miles on the odometer.

Matt and I opted to change up today’s drive back to Phoenix by traversing the Vermillion Cliffs Scenic Byway in northern Arizona (also known as Highway 89A) instead of going through Las Vegas, Nevada.  This stretch of desolate road is one of my favorite, most scenic drives in the southwest.  The following few pictures were taken at a place called Marble Canyon.

Here’s a high 5 for the upcoming big 5!

Just under 7k left to go.  We had zero car related issues during this weekend’s trip.  When the wind is blowing just the right direction, I get a ton of wind noise out of my driver’s side window.  It’s been like that for years.  We hit a ton of rain near Flagstaff but the Michelins that I installed on the car at 392,000 miles are still performing well.  Though that was 100,000 miles ago, these tires were “parked” for a time while I had aftermarket wheels.  I’d guess they have between 60-65k on them, though.  The brake rotors are screaming for replacement with a reminder shimmy when I hit the brakes at highway speed, but other than that the car is moving forward stronger than ever.

This entry was posted on September 6, 2011 at 4:20 am and is filed under Legend, Road Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.