Trip to Connecticut, May 2005    Click Here for Blog

It has been over two years since our long trip to Flint, Michigan with our 1927 Buick.  We have taken a number of shorter trips with our old cars since then, but 2005 gives us another opportunity to try another long, cross country road trip. 

Several reasons draw us to New England this year:  Bill's mother wanted to attend Dad's 65th reunion at West Point with the Class of 1940.  Although Dad is no longer with us, many of his classmates are, and we all enjoy their company.  For Mom it is especially important since she met and married Dad at West Point and shares many memories and experiences with those classmates.  This reunion is scheduled for May 22-24 at the Thayer Hotel in West Point.

My brother, who lives in Hartford, decided it was a good chance to have a family reunion and birthday party for Mom.  We have several cousins from New England along with their extended families.  So a family reunion was planned for May 28 in Hartford.

Nance and I were thinking about signing up for the VMCCA Heritage Tour in Interlaken, Connecticut.  This tour will involve driving old cars around the beautiful Hudson Valley, including tours of Hyde Park, the Rinebeck Aerodrome, and several other attractions.  This tour is scheduled for June 6-9 and requires and old car (pre 1949) to participate.  There you have it,  the pretext for deciding that we needed to drive an old car over 6000 miles for our vacation in New England.

We did not seriously consider taking the '27 Buick on this trip.  Our experience with the Flint adventure showed us that the practical sustained travel limit for the Buick is about 200 miles/day.   Considering the distance from New Mexico to New England, even retired geezers like us do not have the time for such an extended trip. 

We have a 1940 LaSalle that we drove to New Hampshire in 1998.  With this car we can easily make 500 miles/day.  It cruises at 60 MPH easily and can even go 70 if needed.  This opens the trip to some interstate travel. Only problem:  the LaSalle runs great when it runs, but it has shown a propensity for road failure.  Indeed, it has broken down in some way on almost every trip we've taken it on!  Well,  this is supposed to be an adventure, and with this car it probably will be.

Another complication:.  Nance had committed earlier to a once in a lifetime trip to New Zealand with her cousin.  She would not get back from that until May 26.  Solution:  Bill will drive the LaSalle solo to New York and Hartford and meet up with Nance there.

Well, no need to bore you with too many details: Time to go to our trip blog.  If our ancient laptop keeps going along with the LaSalle, there should be close to daily updates after Bill departs NM on Monday, May 16.  See you on the road.  Remember you can talk to us via e-mail, Sullivan.W@att.net