Story By: Jon Stalnaker AKA The Studebaker Dude
As I mentioned previously, my goal was to, at least, drive through all of the towns listed in the chorus of the Route 66 song. So far, we had driven through most of them. The only ones left were Barstow and San Bernardino. As I expressed earlier, considering the car troubles we were having, San Bernardino was a big “maybe not”. We were steadily approaching decision time. Mel was our security blanket, and he would be heading home at Barstow. Decisions, decisions.
There wasn’t much excitement when we got back to our home state. The biggest memory I have about the road to Barstow was the closed roadside rests. Now when you get to be our age, a roadside rest area is something that becomes more and more important. We could see by the maps that there was a roadside rest coming up and we should have no serious difficulty making it there. When we approached the rest area, I could see signs indicating it was closed. NOOOOOOOOO. I was seriously looking for large desert foliage but that wouldn’t have helped Carlene. So, we toughed it out another several hours until we finally made it to a truck stop. How do you spell relief?
The last bit of desert took us into Barstow. I knew tonight was decision night about San Bernardino. Not only did I want to go through all the towns in the song, but our plans included going to our daughter’s house in Corona to spend a few days with family before we headed back to Dixon. I suppose we both knew what the decision should be but just didn’t want to say it. With Mel heading home at Barstow, and our confidence level in the car being what it was, we really had no choice. We couldn’t lock the car and certainly didn’t want to break down in crazy Southern California freeway traffic. So, we made the hard decision and skipped San Bernardino.
In the morning, we chowed down and headed over to Bakersfield for an easy trip up the valley to home. I was worn out physically and mentally by this point and I just wanted to make it back in one piece. My last view of Mel in the rear-view mirror was on the Freeway in Sacramento as he prepared to exit to Interstate 5 towards Yuba City. Carlene and I made the last 20-minute jaunt to Dixon.
We made it home after 4354 miles of adventure. At just under 23 mpg fuel consumption for the trip, I was pleased with the performance of the car. There were still some serious issues that needed to be addressed so I parked it until my mechanic, Wayne, was ready to take it on again. Several months passed and I hadn’t even washed the road dirt off the car. Finally, Wayne’s calendar opened up and the repairs began.
We found that the windshield was leaking as the new seal was not tight around the glass. I figured if he was going to fix that, I might as well get a new windshield. After all, I lost 2 points in the judging because it was scratched and beginning to delaminate. I had the new glass in a week. Who says you can’t get parts for Studebakers?
It was time to face the music on the wiring problem. This time I bit the bullet, and had the car completely rewired. While he was at it, he also cleaned up a few other issues that surfaced as a result of the trip. He re-did the power windows and door locks, fixed the fuel gauge, and created a better functioning hood opening latch that can be accessed from the outside of the car when it is locked. I also had a battery shut-off switch installed with outside access.
Since then, I have driven the car on another multi-state adventure through Northern California, Oregon, and across Washington to add another two states to my 49 State goal. That’s only 15 of 49 but most of the states were big ones that I would have had to drive though again to get to the smaller ones. Now that we live in Oklahoma, we are more centrally located to get the other 34 states. That remains on my bucket list and will be crossed off in the future, God willing.
