As I was preparing for a two-week road trip in my Z, I saw a couple of new threads asking about shorter road trips, so I am posting my recent experience.
"Sometimes I get this crazy dream
That I just take off in my car
But you can travel on ten thousand miles and still stay where you are"
W*O*L*D--Harry Chapin
Like the late, great Chapin's beleaguered DJ, my fantasized road trip has always been just to load up and go with no destination(s) in mind and no time constraints. This trip was the closest I've been to realizing that dream.
My wife and I have talked for years about taking an extended fall road-trip to New England. A year or two ago we decided 2015 would be the year. When I got my Z 18 months ago, she immediately decided that would be the vehicle. Since she planned to trade for a new car this year, I agreed thinking we could re-evaluate when she got her new car. Her plans changed, so the Z it was!
The trip was a blast! We spent two full days just getting to the "target area." Once there, we spent most of our time seeing the country-side, avoiding large cities, and not pursuing any specific sites. I had done enough advance planning to find some drives that should be scenic as well as providing a fun driving experience. Our trip consisted of only one- or two-night stays in any given location. After getting a healthy dose of New England, we spent two and a half days driving south on Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Other than figuring out how to pack our two weeks' changes of clothes, there were absolutely no issues with traveling in the Z. We put on interstate miles, rural highway miles, slow winding mountain miles, and stop-and-go miles through towns and villages. We drove it to the top of Mt Washington in New Hampshire even though one mile of the drive is unpaved. I was surprised how bad some of the roads in New England are and was happy I don't have to drive my Z on them regularly.
I stopped at a Nissan dealership about halfway through the trip for an oil change. Apparently that dealership doesn't get a lot of Z traffic as most of the mechanics stopped by to take a look at it. Or maybe they were wondering how in the hell we crammed all that stuff in there. When they were done, the service manager himself brought the car around. Nice folks. And they charged about a third less for an oil change than my local dealer. My local dealership will hear about that from me on my next visit.
The trip-meter on the odometer in the image below is carport-to-carport.
Now to get to removing the dirt and bug-guts
