Today turned out to be double the journey I had originally planned as I ended up cramming two day’s worth of driving into one. This will have the effect of shortening the overall trip home by one day, but also make for two very long hard back to back days.
But I’m not complaining! I’m driving an NSX across the country and seeing totally cool stuff!
I left Las Vegas this morning a little disappointed. I had hoped to get a nice shot of the car with the strip in the background, but there was just no good place to take the photo. You can’t stop on Las Vegas Boulevard because of traffic, and if the car is in the hotel valet area you can’t get much of a shot, so we just don’t have one…
The car continued to attract copious quantities of attention today. For example, while I was at the dam getting the shot 4 groups of people stopped to talk to me about it.
- A Japanese group of 4 men in suits stopped to admire and photograph it.
- 4 college aged guys in a Mustang GT came over to check it out.
- A traveling group of three middle-aged folks (I think from Mexico) wanted to talk all about it.
- One guy in his 60’s just stood there admiring it while observing and listening to all the other folks.
Once you clear the mountains 93 straightens out and begins a 50 mile gradual climb to about 4,000 feet. It’s long, straight and vacant. At one point I had a little group of sports cars that kind of piled up around me and we all got into impromptu formation and pushed it up to about 90mph for at least 30 miles.
When I hit I-40 east it really started to feel like Arizona. The landscape changed to long rolling hills sparsely covered in prairie grasses with small native brush – all surrounded by small mountains and mesas.
The roads I was on today were seriously remote. For much of the day I was without any cellular coverage at all, and you would drive for 20 or more miles at a stretch without seeing gas stations, restaurants or any other place to stop.
There were signs that warned of deer crossing “Next 50 Miles”, there was no fencing, phone, or electric wires, and needless to say, no cell coverage, gas stations or food along the way. This road is really remote for about 40 miles.
One final little shocking note about the car. Although I was driving up and down hundreds of miles of mountains today ranging from 2,000 – 8,000 feet, I averaged 30 miles per gallon! I kept the cruise control set at 82 for the vast majority of those miles (75mph speed limit) although sometimes I was pushing it up to 90 for long stretches (Probably ran 100 miles at that speed). Oh yeah, when you see the “curve ahead” signs that tell you to slow down to 50MPH, if you’re in an NSX you can ignore those. They are just plain silly.
Tomorrow I plan to sleep a little late and then hit some of the art shops in Santa Fe. After a few hours I’ll start the long journey back to Dallas and probably arrive early Wed. morning. Unless something really interesting happens tomorrow that warrants a post, this is likely the end of the saga to bring the NSX home.
(Go back to Part 1 or Part 2)
Would like to do the same trip. did you spend a lot of money?
A road trip in a beautiful car. We took ours to Yellowstone Park last year and it was the best trip of my life. Take Care
Hey!
I’ve had 4 NSX’s! Love those cars! Probably the best cars I’ve ever owned.
Enjoyed the word pictures would have loved to have been there in person. I also was wondering about the speeding tickets. Congratulations and get home safely.
Sounds like a fantastic trip! The question do you really have no speeding tickets or are you just failing to post that fact :)