David's

6:08 pm
We’re getting close now. About 140 miles to go. Stopping one last time for fuel.

We’re 1/2 way home. Dave thinks we’re about 7 or 8 hours out. We drove off the expressway into the historic section of town and found a nice old restaurant with an outside courtyard.

Since we’re going downhill from the Alabama hills to the sealevel gulf coast our gas mileage has skyrocketed up from 8.2 mpg to 8.5 mpg. Woo Hoo!

…..getting tired

We’ve been on the road about 4 hours.
We’re outside Jackson, MS

Beautiful sunrise

We made it!

Hot, tired, sunburned, and happy, well sort of..

We pulled into Birmingham for the finish and a cold drink. We were awarded the highly sought after “Iron Butt Award” due to the length of the drive from Houston. Helen says it’s actually the “buns of steel” award.

Due to our scheduled VERY early departure we opted not to impose on the Greenwoods and grabbed a hotel room. They were so very generous in offering their home but after all they’ve done for us we just couldn’t. You won’t find kinder people anywhere.

Sadly we had to say goodbye to some people who touched our hearts. There were sad smiles that only people who’s lives have been impacted can have. A tear or 2 was shed, promises of a future meet made, and one last pat on the back.
(sigh)

More tomorrow from the road home….

After lunch Dave put the car up on the trailer to make sure everything looked okay.

Just outside Centerville,Al. Beautiful weather, great roads to travel on, nice looking cars, who could ask for more.

For the second time during the rally members of other clubs have met us on the road and driven along side us for a few miles. This time it was silver blue Jag and a blue and white Healey.

The MGB, with it’s new fuel line, thought it might be fun to spurt a leak frpm the water pump. We stopped at a Walmart and got him a can of stop-leak. Dave picked up extra gear oil while we were there.

The Birmingham Club has inducted us into their club.

On the road again. More later.

The chase truck is hauling an open car trailer. With the help of a few club members Dave was able to get the front of the 6 on the trailer while keeping the rear wheels on the ground. He was able to crawl under the transmission and managed to get a quart and 3/4 of oil into the tranny. He is suspecting that somehow a piece of dirt may have plugged the breather hole in the top of the trans. If that happened the pressure would increase inside the trans when the oil gets hot and not have an outlet. The only place it could go would be out the seals. He’ll have to pull the transmission tunnel once we get home.

One of the MGB’s cracked a fuel line as we were pulling in last night. He had a nice puddle of fuel under his car this morning. A 2 inch piece of fuel line and a new clamp fixed that problem.

The club presidents sons joined us for the drive. The 17 years old picked up a stomach bug and will have to drop out of the run and head for home.

Everyone is having lots of fun and the weather couldn’t be better. The Natchez Trace drive is the kind of road old car nuts dream of. Beautiful vistas, long sweeping curves, and the sound of British engines. Looking in the rearview mirror and seeing a long row of gleaming chrome, drivers grinning, and beautiful vintage sports cars brought a tear to Dave’s eye. He really loves these old things.

Here are a few more pictures:

Helen and I are relaxing after dinner and having a nightcap, answering emails, and the like. We just found a couple of nice photos posted on the Birmingham News site showing our car. We thought you might want to see them.