Umm, a lot more than that several times thanks, Bob. A number of times we'd leave Ottawa and head down to Key West, then catch Carlisle on the way home. The real long trip to Carlisle was in about 2011 or 12 when we shipped the Speedster to Dave Mitchell's place in Sacramento, Cali. ( and thanks for hosting that one Dave ) and then we drove to the wine district in Napa, down the PCH and found a landslide which put us up the Nacimento / Furgeson Highway up right past Fort Leggat Hunter. The GI's were jumping around and waving like crazy like they've never seen a Speedster before. Little did I know at that moment but they were actually celebrating the killing of Bin Laden that day....so May, 2011 ? We got down the PCH to LA, up thru Malibu, then across LA up to Vegas, the Dam, down to Kingman, AZ and backtracked into Oatman, AZ, saw the donkeys and back out again and did old Route 66 East for a while then around Gallup, NM headed North up to Cortez, East to Durango, over to Taos, NM to visit a friend then back down to 66 in Albuquerque. East then and spent the night at the Blue Swallow Motel in Tucumcari, then East to Amarillo, OK city , Memphis, Nashville, ( Francine saw Elvis somewhere in there ) and on East to 81 then up to Carlisle.
That ride did over 5,000 miles driven including sightseeing, back trips, beer runs etc.....just total miles driven on that trip. ( not as Mapquest would show as Sac direct to Carlisle as Rich Drewek said would be more proper ). Having said all that, I'd like to thank my excellent Wife, Francine who enjoyed the whole trip along with me, the excellent mechanical advice and encouragement I was given by some very capable SOC members daily as I reported our progress along the way. There were many minor, but hilarious side "events" along the way that I probably never mentioned. Lacking much spare time we couldn't find a quick stop for a traditional Mexican lunch in Santa Fe, NM and finally pulled over a Cop for advice. He quickly took us to his Mother's place nearby, a little takeout place....a couple of burritos later, maybe one or two cervezas and we were on the road.
Next morning at the hotel in Alberqurque Francine was packing up stuff in the hotel room and I was stuffing more of it into the Speedster. Down the walkway walking towards me was a mid 30's very well built and attractive woman in high heels and a skirt a bit shorter than normal. She stopped and said what nice car I have. Want to spend some time, she asked ? Not thinking about much more than todays planned ride, I said " what are you talking about ? " She said $75, 20 minutes anything you want....at which time Francine appeared with the last baggage and the "lady" said...."oops got to get off to work. " It was hilarious at the time, but sadly when we got on the road we passed her standing on the corner, just about 7 am...at work. We had the pleasure of a trip like this and look what she's going thru.
All in all it was really a trip of a lifetime. Jack Crosby and Musbjim probably are the record holders of high time mileage but Francine and I probably hold multiple long distance records that will likely never be matched. I'm proud of that...memories that cannot be any better. My thanks to the many SOC friends for their support and encouragement. Without that support, we'd not likely taken on such an adventure.
Come to think of it, I'd give a personal shout out and thanks to Edsnova for his help with us both going thru a steep learning curve of how to put a Soob engine onto a VW tranny....mine Speedster and his MG. Ericson and I put our heads together many times late at night right against the wall several times but came up with good solutions. We both learned and we both won. Thanks, Ed.
PS....in 2010 we bought the Speedster in Boise, Idaho for $6,500. Drove that bugger across the USA in about 8 days driving with a bone stock 1600 cc motor. Spent a long weekend in Spanish Fork, Utah while waiting for four new tires at the Big O Tire shop. They gave us a loaner and we discovered Park City and Sundance. Needed a break near Denver and stopped at Buffalo Bill's gravesite. The travel permit was supposed to be stuck on the inside of the windshield but it was blocking much of my vision so I stuffed it under the seat. Coming down a big hill over Denver a big Harley Biker type pulled up behind us for a looksee. No plates on my car front or back. He looked at the back, pulled up and looked at us, pulled ahead and looked back at the front and just shook his head. I looked at his BoB ( a nice one too ) and blew her a kiss and got one right back. You can't get that stuff sitting behind a computer and once again, I apologize to no person for the number of dead bugs on the front of my car.