HRPT 2019 - Gettin' There: June 6-7- Orlando, FL to Concord (Charlotte), NC (981 miles)

Our Power Tour excitement started the day before we left when Don finally diagnosed and eliminated the Acadian front end squeak we've been chasing for more than a year.  It was a bad front spring perch.  Fortunately, since Don just recently restored a 1967 Nova, he had a new one on his shelf and swapped it out.

One last tweak to end the squeak

Even though the Power Tour starts in Charlotte and is a day's drive, we hit the road bright and early on Thursday, June 6 with a plan to visit close family friends near Burnsville.  Tara, my parents and I met up with our friend and famed automotive photographer Russ Muller and his 1971 Pontiac Grand Prix and headed out of town.

St. John's Sunrise

We managed to beat Jacksonville rush hour traffic before making our first of nearly countless gas stops.  The Acadian averages about 15 mpg and the gas gauge reads about 3 gallons low, so how far we can actually go ends up being part gas gauge, part logic and a lot of "yeah, I think we can go 20 more miles before we stop."  That plan's worked for the last 8 years why change.  This year's a bit different since we took I-95 rather than I-75 like we've done on the majority of Power Tour trips.  I had the gas stops down to a science all the way to Chattanooga.

After the first gas stop, we hit Cracker Barrel for breakfast.  This should be the only stop at a chain restaurant.  From here on out, it's all one of a kind dining adventures.  With a few limited exceptions, the "no chain restaurants on the Power Tour" rule has served us well.

Once we got back on the highway, we picked up a late model yellow Camaro who honked and gave us the thumb's up.  He followed us to our next gas stop and we found out he was on his way to Charlotte for his first ever Power Tour, but was visiting friends in South Carolina first.  He joined our modest 3-car group and stuck with us until we split off at I-26.  We split with Russ a little further down the road and headed west to Asheville.

Y'all better get used to the "rear view" camera angle

For dinner, we stopped at the Sierra Nevada Brewery Taproom.  I had heard it was a neat place and it certainly did not disappoint.  The drive into the brewery is beautiful.  It's lined with rock walls, has a wood bridge and is very tranquil.  At the brewery itself, the Taproom is huge and there's a wide open back porch and patio.  It was an ideal spot to have dinner, a beer, and walk around for a bit.  Tara, of course, found the gardens in back and even spotted a type of butterfly she'd never seen before.

Beer, Glorious Beer!

It's called a Diana Fritillary (we looked it up). This one's a male, the females are black and blue and completely different.- [This concludes the nature portion of this blog entry...sort of]

We had managed to avoid ugly weather all of Thursday, but out luck ran out this morning.  It was gray and rainy.  Instead of trudging to the cars, the hotel shuttle took us to and from our breakfast spot.  We ate at a restaurant called the Cornerstone.  The food was great and freshly made in-house.  My dad had the "build your own" omelet with extra Chorizo.  It was the most expensive breakfast ever.  His bill was over $1,000.  Apparently, the first Chorizo is $0.50 and the second helping was $999.00.

Seems reasonable.

After getting the bill corrected, we went back to the hotel, loaded up the cars and drove into the mountains near Burnsville to visit family friends the Petersons.  The weather cleared up and we spent some time catching up.  Nick drove us up the road a bit and showed us a waterfall right near the road that, had he not told us it was there, we would have missed it.  There was a rope swing, but Tara stubbornly refused to demonstrate.  Nick also mentioned the water was about 40 degrees.

A little more nature

Our planned gas stop in Burnsville didn't work out (the BP gas station's pumps were shut off and they had a small old pump with just 87 octane).   We managed to make it back to the highway and a bigger gas station with high octane fuel.  The Acadian will run on 87 octane (last year I found out it'll also run on part diesel), but my Corvette needs 93 octane.

We stopped for dinner at The Trailhead in Black Mountain, NC.  The food was great.  I had a jerk chicken sandwich with some of the best onion rings I've ever eaten.  Tara pretended she was a healthy eater and ordered a grilled kale salad.

Our luck with the weather didn't hold and we drove most of the way from Black Mountain to the hotel in Concord in some pretty heavy rain.

Two hours of this...

When we finally got to the hotel, the parking lot was slammed.  In addition to the Power Tour, there's a Republican Party meeting or convention going on.    They have set up "hospitality" suites on many of the floors and everyone in the lobby, elevators, and in the halls had at least one drink in their hands.  Now I know why they call them political parties.

We managed to find a spot under the hotel awning and right in front of our friend Lori's Monte Carlo.  Tomorrow, we have to pick up our credentials and then on to the ZMax Raceway for Day 1.

All tucked in for the night.