Maryland 40 Ford Coupe Find

Hey honey let’s go to Memphis, Indiana, and Michigan and after that Pittsburg, Maryland, D.C., North Carolina, Georgia, and lastly Shreveport. This is where a trip for one car, which ended up in being a rust bucket turned into a potential 40 car purchase, a 40 coupe, a Vespa, and a stolen gas pump begins. The plan started out with a mission to buy a car in Three Rivers, Michigan. I had never been so; we packed our bags and took off. Everyone warned us that there was a snow vortex coming in later that week. David said we would beat it and I believed him.

We took off and made it to Memphis, TN for the night. We booked a room at the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid Hotel. This might be one of my most favorite hotels I’ve ever stayed at.

Each room has a balcony overlooking the sporting goods store. No detail went unnoticed from the tree light that shined down on the Jacuzzi bathtub to the stained glass light up armoire doors.

You receive a ticket upon checking in for the tallest free standing elevator in America. We used it to take ourselves to a romantic rooftop dinner with our baby.

My husband always gets the most exotic wild game on the menu so, he ordered the elk chops which, he loved, I the steak which was amazing.

After a good night’s rest in our lodge room we made it to Champaign, IL before signs of heavy snow fall began. It was lunch time and C needed a break. Lucky for us there was a mall, Market Place Mall, perfect for C because it had a Ferris wheel and playground also, perfect for us because it had a Giordano’s Restaurant in the same mall that serves a famous deep dish pizza. The blizzard had already begun by the time we left the mall and circled the freeway a couple of times to find our way towards Indiana.

We made it to Michigan City, IN come night fall to our destination, The Blue Chip Casino and Hotel. I was so glad to be in a room safe away from the cold, cold, icy winds and slick roads. The temperature in the morning was 10 degrees! We warmed up the car, scraped off the ice, and took off towards Michigan. It was a beautiful drive past the Indiana sand dunes. This beach looking town was pretty rad to see all the way in Northern Indiana! I would love to check it out in the summer.

Out of Indiana and into Michigan we drove in a winter wonderland of snow falling hard passing Kalamazoo and making it to Three Rivers, MI. We then arrived and pulled up to the most beautiful snow covered property of the Father Son team Chip and Chip.

Only problem was their car was too rusty for us. Devastated we searched for other plan.
Backup plan B – Head to Maryland, try and beat the snow vortex that would be following us, look at, and hopefully pickup a 40 coupe.

We needed to recuperate and take a lunch break. We found Tony Pocho’s hot dog joint along the highway in Toledo, OH. We got their Hungarian hot dog, stuff cabbage, dumplings, and strudel for dessert, YUM what a treat.

After refueling we pushed ourselves to Pittsburg, PA for the night. We posted up at the Distrikt Hotel Downtown. It was an old hotel that was previously a woman’s shelter and Salvation Army before that. The staff led us to believe it was haunted. The guest elevators broke down on us at the 11th floor forcing us to take the service elevators. The housekeeper was even too scared to ride down with us as she had experienced multiple problems riding it. 911 was called to the scene to rescue the innocent victims stranded in the elevator. Finally we made it out alive and where able to tour the city. It was a sight to see. The mountains and snow set a beautiful landscape for the impressive bridges and architecture.

We drove to Maryland jamming out to Hank III radio the whole way. We check out the 40 coupe at a towing company’s parking lot.

It was good to go but, we had to wait until the morning to load it on the trailer because of all the other cars in its way. This meant we were able to tour D.C. for the rest of the day. So, we thought. We tried driving our truck and trailer along to narrow roads to find a spot to park but, that turned out to be impossible! After no food or fun we parked at a mall within close proximity to the coupe. We ate in the busy food court and did a little shopping before checking into our hotel room.

We didn’t have far to drive that morning to get to the tow company. Then we did it. We picked up a car finally!

I would like to say this is where it ends and we went home but, this is just half of the trip.

The second half begins with a failed attempt to buy two awesome 69’ corvettes. Followed by us accidently buying stolen property, “you see what had happened was” we went to meet a guy off of Facebook to buy what we thought was his antique gas pump in Spring Lake, NC. Little did we realize until we were backing out of the driveway that the house was not his. All the signs came together after he fled the scene before we even managed to escape the busy exit. The house had no electricity and his excuse of just moving in seemed suspect as he was smoking pot telling us he had a gun with him. Yikes. Not sure what to do we drove to Fayetteville, NC to find a place that might welcome us outlaws for the night. The next day we managed to pick up a really cool 1961 Vespa from an honest working man. He is a leather crafter and did the cow hide seat on the baby blue Vespa. I would love to get it running so I can take it down to our lake on a mommy cruise to catch some fish or read book.

On ward and out ward we made it to Augusta, GA. We were excited to pass the Augusta Country Club that hosts the masters annually. We then checked into The Partridge Inn, a colonial style hotel nearby. By this time in the excursion I was looking and feeling a little gross. My hair needed washed and my grays were starting to show. Still a good distance from home I booked a hair appointment because, “when in Augusta” get a southern doo so I thought… David watched C at the hotel and I began to get pampered. The only problem was it took longer than the two hours I had promised my crew. My stylist first attempt didn’t cover the grays and the second attempt landed me with blue hair yes, BLUE hair. The stylist did manage to fix it before I left the salon. I strutted out looking like a newscaster ready to chow down some supper at The Partridge’s upstairs restaurant like planned before I had derailed the poor prisoners waiting on me in our room. They have a lovely restaurant and I am sure it’s great but, it was too expensive for us and we order the most amazing stuff crust pizza from Pizza Hut!

The next morning we were able to reach a man that we had tried to speak to about some cars so, instead of driving straight to Atlanta we made a pit stop in Athens, GA.

Athens, GA home of the Bulldogs and the undisclosed site we are still working on with the owners to buy a barn full of cars.

Wanting to make the most of our stay in this college town we booked The Graduate Hotel, a boutique college themed hotel, within walking distance of the restaurants and shopping near campus.

We walked to a BBQ joint for dinner that was kid friendly and hit the spot but, we needed to head towards Texas so we took off to Atlanta.

Reader beware there is no more car talk after this point.

Atlanta, GA just so happened to be the home of Super Bowl 2019 at the time we arrived. The game was of course on Sunday and we were in Atlanta on that Friday. We stayed at a Wyndham off highway 20, home of the wedge bootie shoe thieves! (RIP my good companions). The hotel just so happened to have a fashion show going on that night. I did not attend but what I saw at the bar was a little shocking. It wasn’t a Big D fashion show it was a Hot-Lanta show and oh gurrrrl. The models were dressed like Rocky Horror Picture Show. I failed miserably to get any food at the hotel. I went back to the room with my report of failure and David then attempted to wrestle up some food. He had quite some problems with it being so busy in the city but, managed to bring back some Hooter’s for his girls. Our night ended morning came we were ready to see a new state.

Louisiana never does us wrong. The roads however do need a little fixing. I drove in hot pulling into Shreveport at the Margaritaville Hotel and Casino like I owned the joint. I had big plans of taking Jimmy Buffett’s money. We had been revving up the whole hour before arriving playing Nikki Lanes, “Jackpot” song and The Killers, “The Man” and anything else we could think of to get us hyped. Sadly I am a notorious over hyper when it comes to trips and I seem to pre party a little too early. I did this and after dinner at the river front restaurant of Margaritaville never made it back out of our room and into the casino floor.

We made it home the next morning to unload, unpack, and clean.