Here's something I had written up on another forum I use, but thought you guys might like a read as well. It's getting very close to getting here so it's all getting exciting now:yellowpepper:
Sorry if some of it is repeated from earlier posts.
This was our first night in LA, our room overlooking LAX
First thing the following morning flew back out to Houston, Texas. This is the mountain range that Los Angeles is right next to.
Waited in Houston airport for a few hours for our connecting flight. That airport is something else. It makes LAX look tiny and LAX makes Sydney look small.
Grabbed a hire car when we arrived in Alexandria, Louisiana. It was a new Chev Malibu. It was their version of a full sized family car. Pretty close to the size of a Falcon but was front wheel drive. No idea what motor it had in it but driving on the left was weird. Especially with only a handful of hours sleep over the last 3 days. I had no idea what time or day it was. I don't think I've ever been so tired or disorientated.
It was dark by the time we got to the motel and straight away we had organised to go look at the car. We couldn't find the address so we went back to the hotel and got them to call for us. The owner was a great guy, came straight over and picked us up in his Harley Davidson supercharged F150. That was a cool car. His place was only 2 minutes away. We had a good look over the Mustang but it was very dark as we were very tired. So we went back to the motel to grab some sleep.
Woke up to it being pretty damn cold. The week when we left Aus, was the week we had that crazy heat wave. In the US, they had an insane winter storm just before we got there which closed down roads and schools. We missed that but it was still cold.
This is the Chev hire car and the truck was someone else's. They were everywhere. They are like seeing Falcons or Commodores here.
Got out to look at the Mustang again, by this time the fog had lifted and the sun was out.
So off we went for a drive. First time I've ever driven a Mustang, first time I've ever driven a left hand drive manual, and first time I've ever driven a big block and the first time I've ever used a 3000 pound clutch. I stalled it 3 times. It was like learning to drive again. I kept selecting 3rd instead of 1st and the clutch was just plain heavy. Got the hang of it once I got down the road.
And coming back
I didn't get to give it a real good run as it broke a rocker shaft the day before we arrived. He managed to get another original one of a mate nearby to get it going but also had to put back in the original rockers and push-rods. So it was tapping like a bitch but I have the new parts to sort that out once it arrives here.
Even only running a part of its potential, I have to say, it makes 351's look quite sad. It is nothing but a pure animal.
So made the deal, handed over many many green backs. And went to the local bank to sign over the title. The bank was something else, it was more like a country style house then the McDonald's style banks we are use to. Everyone thought we were weird for flying half way around the world to buy a car. No one could understand our accents.
We went and had some lunch, the owner took us out. We were soon realising that no-one eats at home. The majority of meals are eaten at diners or restaurants. Everything was deep fried and everything was huge. A small drink, was larger then our large.
That afternoon the owner loaded up the car onto his car trailer. We had to take it 2 hours south to meet the truck which was taking it back to Los Angeles. We couldn't drive it there for a few reasons. The engine wasn't up for it, it only gets 6mpg and it has 3.91 diff gears so sitting on 70mph wasn't going to be nice to a new engine. Also in Louisiana, once a vehicle is sold, the plates have to be handed in and the registration is cancelled. The new owner has to start a new rego and buy new plates. Since we weren't US citizens, we couldn't do that.
The next morning it was foggy again but we left early to make the trip south to Lafayette.
Once we arrived, we had some true Southern food for lunch. Got to eat some boudin balls and some alligator cakes. The meals were once again massive but absolutely beautiful. I loved it, real good home style cooking.
We were only meant to wait about an hour before truck arrived. So we waited in a Walmart carpark until it got there. What a shithole! There were drug deal after drug deal going on about 50m from us in a carwash/servo. But it was like that everywhere. We just sat with the car and waited. A stack of people pulled up to check out the car and take photos. Even over there it was appreciated as a nice car.
4 hours later......
We only had an hour to get to our plane to fly back to LA. The owner took us to the airport and dropped us off. I can honestly say, he was a truly good guy. He went out of his way so much to help us. He didn't have to take us south and tow the car, didn't have to wait with us for 4 hours for the truck and didn't have to take us to the airport. He wouldn't take anything in return and I've said thank you so many times. There are good people out there and I knew I had a good car from an honest person. He even told my Dad, he wasn't keen to sell it, it wasn't even advertised. But he said he knew it was going to a good home.
So we flew back to LA, via Houston again. One thing about flying in America, is it is much cheaper to take two flights to where you want to go, then to take one. Which of course means where ever you want to go, it takes 3 times as long as you also have to have a period of time waiting for your next flight.
But we arrived late, I think it was 11 and we had already organised a place to stay the next two nights. We thought we try somewhere else to see what it was like. We found a place to stay in West Hollywood.
Well.....
The front desk was like a night club, lights and doof doof and all. We were
[Censored A]ing exhausted and that was the last thing I felt like hearing or experiencing.
Then we got to our room. I picked the boob bed and Dad got the crutch bed. I've never slept under a pair of boobs that big before. The bathroom even had a "for your convenience, oxygen in a can" What a wank!
The next day we tried to get a hire car, a cab cost 30 bucks or so to go a few blocks and we needed to get out of Hollywood. It truly is a shit hole. I managed to find a Mustang I could get for 3 days so we made our way over. When we got there, apparently the people who had it decided to extend their time with it. Which of course meant there were no other cars to chose from. We walked around for an hour or so and get no where except feeling quite unsafe. So we found a computer at the front desk of a motel and scanned the net again for something else. Ended up finding a place that had a few spare cars so we went there. Apparently there was the Golden Globes or Grammies or some shit going on that weekend so hire cars were mostly booked out.
Managed to get our hands on a fairly new Dodge truck. Had about 20 thousand miles on it and felt like a building to drive, it was huge compared to what we are use to here. But for a V6, it went awesome!! Was really comfy, cruised great and was really smooth. Took a bit to get the hand of parking but was a nice car to drive.
We got the censored A out of Hollywood for the remainder of the day. It was about 4 now and we had been trying to get a car since 10.
We found a Harbour Freight store, its a cheap tool store. We went nuts. I had so much stuff in my hands I had to put things back as it was either too heavy for my bag or I "really" didn't need them.
I got some pivoting head 1/4 and 1/2 inch socket wrenches for $9.99 and $13.99. Awesome quality too! Got a little multimeter for $3.99, a gravity feed spray gun for $24.99 and this 3000 pound electric winch for $80. Will be awesome for my car trailer so it went in the car to go into the Mustang boot for a boat ride home. Got some more hand tools and some clamps and bits and bobs.
We left the store before we we found anything else we didn't need. We cruised around a bit more then grabbed some tea. Had some nice Mexican food, a couple of Corona's and then found the BIG stores. Dad bought a DSLR for about half of what they are here. I bought a Kindle for the wife, some clothes and some ice fishing rods for the kids. They were cool cause they are really short and only $12 each. Everything, anything and everything was cheap compared to here. You could get a 52inch plasma in top brand stuff starting around $299.
Ended up forcing ourselves to head back to the toilet, I mean Hollywood. As the valet was taking our car, we watched some knob in a Ferrari launch his front bumper up on a gutter, nose down, in the rain. It wasn't going anywhere. Some people had to give it a bit of a push to get some traction. Old mate didn't even get out to check the damage, just drove off.
The next morning we made our way towards Vegas. Not to go to Vegas but to go to a Woodworkers place. Don't know if anyone knows who Sam Maloof is but if you do, you know why you would go. his place is historically listed and some of his chairs sold for the 100 thousand dollar mark.
Anyway, his place was amazing. We weren't allowed to look at anything as we dropped in and the next tour wouldn't be until that afternoon. About 10 minutes later they asked where we were from and they said since we came all that way we could tag along with the school group that was just starting their tour. It was amazing, no camera's allowed inside though and we got to go through the workshop which they never allow. For some reason they did today.
After that we headed back. Went to California Mustang on the way. Bought some bits for the new car. Then went to pick up the Mustang, the hire one. It was a 2007 model auto in the V6. It was a bit rough, needed a service and a left hand front wheel bearing. It was cool to get the chance to hire one but it wasn't long until we were regretting giving the Dodge back.
We cruised around a bit that arvo, made our way to Malibu, got stuck in sh#t loads of traffic and then found a Harley store to buy a mate a shirt. It was huge and it was almost knock off time so they weren't real interested in helping some Aussies out.
We got up early and aimed ourselves in the direction of DISNEYLAND,
[Censored A] yeah!! We were back staying at LAX which almost made a direct route through some of the major roads but we knew the traffic could be bad, even with 7 lanes or express way. We didn't know an exact time the truck was to turn up but the GPS said it was about an hour to Anaheim so we just decided to make our way and wait for the phone call.
We had a good run and traffic wasn't that bad. I needed to stop and get some cash along the way which ended up taking a few stops to find an ATM. About 10 minutes from the exporters, we got a phone call, "Where are you, you were meant to be there to meet the truck to pay him". We weren't far so we were able to get there to sort it out. A few angry phone calls, not from me, and again in what you would have thought was an English speaking country, more language barriers, we did get it sorted. We were meant to get a phone call from the truck company to tell us a time, we never heard from them. The lady who organised the truck, she was more then helpful throughout the whole process, she hadn't heard from them either. And the truck driver, a mexican who I don't think could speak at all. had no idea who was meant to pay him. Lincoln, who runs the business of exporting from the US side, wasn't there and had bad phone reception, wasn't sure what car it was and said he wasn't expecting it. Lucky we were so close as my car was a bees dick away from being loaded back up and sent away. I paid for the truck, made some calls to sort it out and all was sweet. One phone call from the trucking company would have fixed the situation but they
[Censored A]ed up, again.
Here it was waiting.
We had a good chat to Lincoln, was great to be speaking to another Aussie. He was top bloke and again more then helpful. He showed us around and we did the paperwork and had a look at a few of the cars sitting there waiting to go.
These were sitting outside and the blue one was very cool.
Inside there was a 2011 corvette ZR1, brand new. Was very cool. Was getting loaded up that day to come to Aus and my car was going to sit in its spot till it was ready to go. The warehouse was full to the roof, literally so parking space was hard to find. Am just glad it was parked inside and not our where most were.
Before we left we gave it a good scrub. It covered in all sorts of crap from being on the back of the truck.
We then parked it up, said goodbye, and left. Wasn't easy walking away from the car and leaving it there but John and Lincoln Cain both have a very good reputation, along with seeing it delivered myself, helped being reassured it would be ok.
We made our way to Huntington Beach and had lunch out on the end of the pier in this cool 60's rock style cafe. The beach itself was huge and the pier was massive but all pretty bland compared to our beaches at home.
This is it here anyway:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HB_Pier_Photo_D_Ramey_Logan.jpgThe day was getting on by now so we headed back, sat in the bar for a while, had tea then went to bed.
In the morning we headed back to California Mustang to grab a few minor parts along with some shirts and books. Had a bit more of a drive around then went back to the motel to pack, shower up then check out. We had to check out by 3 but our flight didn't leave until 8. There was only 1 bar and very little to do, it was boring as
[Censored A]. I drank too much, talked sh#t to another Aussie going home then got on the plane where I would sit for 15 hours. I watched all but 2 episodes of the Underbelly, Golden mile series. Got about an hour sleep throughout the whole trip. Then arrived in Sydney where I was met surprisingly by my wife and two kids. One of the best moments ever, it was my birthday and they both came running over with cards they had made. Best birthday present ever!
Not quite the end as I still don't have my car. But that's the end of the story so far. Hopefully it wont be far away now.
