Jon Stalnaker
AKA The Studebaker Dude
Editor’s note: this is a new series by California transplant Jon Stalnaker, and his attempt to drive his 1950s Bullet Nose Studebaker sedan to St. Louis. Read part one.
Our story continues with a mad dash to get to Missouri. The plan was to take about three and a half days to drive the approximately 2000 miles to get to the International Studebaker meet in St Louis. We were planning to spend more time on the Route 66 return trip, so the drive out there was more work and less play. Although it was still a kick to drive through seven states to get to Missouri, we had more of a deadline as the meet started in 4 days. Our host hotel reservations were set, and we would not be denied. The cars were ready, Mel had met up with us and we had full bellies. The road was calling with Salt Lake City, Utah as our day one goal.
People familiar with the midwest kept telling me how humid it was going to be out there at this time of year, so I didn’t even bring long pants. I should have known better as I was watching the weather reports and hoping the rainstorms would be gone before we set out on the road. While I was a little concerned about tornados and hailstorms that come along with them, I really never considered that we might incur heavy rain along the way. We got our first rain in Nevada, and it was considerable. Now, I didn’t really think that rain would be a problem as I could always wash the car. It was a fresh rebuild with all new weather-stripping and seals, so I had no reason to suspect the car was anything other than watertight. The rain subsided until we reached the Utah state border and another downpour. Having gone through a drought in California for the past couple of years, I wasn’t expecting a lot of rain.
We drove 683 miles on the first day and stayed the night in a hotel in Salt Lake City. On day two we got an early start and headed east to Wyoming. We spent most of the day traversing that state and yes, we got rained on there too. We weren’t sure how far we would go and didn’t really have a clear destination goal for the day. After driving 560 miles, we settled down for the night in Sidney, Nebraska. That being our fifth state, I was beginning to notice that each state had its own look when we crossed the borders. I would find that consistent throughout the entire 13 state excursion.
Our original plan had us spending the second night in Wyoming and we had exceeded that, so our next soft goal of Nebraska City was a little too close for the next leg. We were just going to see how far we could get. Making it all the way to St Louis was a bit much so we knew that our last segment would be a short one. We drove all the way through Nebraska and caught the very southwest tip of Iowa before reaching Missouri. We were only in Iowa for about 10 to 15 minutes and the whole time we were on the road there, we did not see one Iowa plate on the cars around us on the road. And we were looking for one. I thought that was rather strange. Oh yeah, and did I also mention that it rained on us in Nebraska and Iowa too?
So now it’s Sunday night, we made it to Missouri, but we had the entire width of the state to travel. It would be a short trip on Monday morning so I thought it would make sense to stop in St. Joseph for the night. Carlene (being smarter than me) realized that we would be driving through Kansas City during Monday morning rush hour, so it was an easy decision to get through Kansas City before stopping. We drove to Blue Springs for the night after another 570 miles of driving. The parking lot at the hotel was alive with the buzzing of cicadas and we took a little walk to stretch out our legs after 3 days cooped up in the car.
In the morning we had a little breakfast and hit the road for the last measly 221-mile segment. We arrived at the International Meet before noon and luckily, our room was already available. Stay tuned, the real drama happens in St Louis. Read all about it next time.
