7 months later...

Well fuck.
Once again I find myself playing catchup. I last left you all in Maine with some details of Chicago and Cleveland. Well since then we completed our road trip around America and made it all the way back to LA, our original starting point. I'll start by giving you a summarized overview of the totals accumulated along the way...

Road Trip Totals:
Milage: 11,500 miles(from point to point, not counting commuting or cruising around)
State Tally: 33 States
Time Driving: 200+ hours(once again not counting anything more than point to point driving)
Gas Cost: $3,500.00 roughly
Start to Finish Overall Time: 6 months
Breakdowns: Clutch slave cylinder in Deadwood South Dakota, blown out 1st gear in Boston Massachusetts, rear axle bearing and seal in Memphis Tennessee, ignition failure in Austin Texas
Road Kill: Only a couple of low flying birds
Traffic Violations: Got out of a speeding ticket in Indiana and another in New Hampshire

Truck Info:
Built in 3 months...
1957 Ford F100 Longbed
Stock 9" rear axle
302 mill with a Comp Cams mild cam, fresh top end, honed cylinders, 4 barrel Edelbrock carb on top of an Edelbrock intake, one wire HEI(trash) ignition and alternator, Headman headers with reverse Smithy's glass packs through Belflower tips
Chevy T5, manual 5-speed trans
Front disc brake conversion
16" Ford stockers with fresh rubbers
Shaved handles & badges
'50 Pontiac tail lights
Custom mixed and sprayed satin white
Rattle can Rustoleum "Night Tide" gloss blue

Before

Before

After

Glory shot

Along the way we met some cool mother fuckers and caught up with some old friends. We drank copious amounts of whiskey and beer, bet on which square chickens would shit on in Texas, celebrated the end of the world with REAL moonshine, molotov cocktails and shot guns, drank in Ernest Hemingway's old haunt in the Keys, honky tonked up and down Broadway, saw 6-toed cats, ate gator in Florida, froze our asses off driving in New Mexico's winter, sweated our balls off driving through South Dakotas summer, got taken care of by the mob in Boston, got stared at in Wyoming, ate Hershey's in Hershey, passed over the Smokies, almost got arrested in DC, saw Old Faithful blow her stack, and had the best BBQ EVER in South Carolina.

Once again, this is only a summary of the greatness of being a nomad for 6 months and some of the things painted along the way...

Trans America Building, SF.
Thanks to Steven and Jason.

Yosemite, every picture you take looks like a God damn postcard.

Had to, Redwood.

Total score, Old Crow Reserve for $9 and Olympia for $6!

Oregon Caves, well worth the coupla bucks.

Storm and pool, Yellowstone.

This fucker was huge, he's on a bit 4' lower than the
 truck and was still a giant, Yellowstone.

She's grumpy, was hotter than fuck. You're correct, NO AC.
Devils Tower, Wyoming.

Aces & Eights, Dead Mans Hand.

Crazy Horse monument in process, Black Hills, South Dakota.

Dead Presidents.

Chicago is one of the best cities, EVER.
Thanks to Amanda, Drew, and the 8/10.

Money box done up for Chuck in Chicago.

Lux Deville bag I did for my girl.

Parked at Voodoo Larry's open house.
Chicago Chris' spray work.

Tyler the Barber of Joe's Barber Shop in Chicago.

103 floors above the city, Sears Tower, Chi.

Old Ironsides, the American oak kept her afloat while we sunk the British.
Boston.
Thanks to A.J. and the Mob.

Harley Dyna

Boston loves their farings.

Captain America, that was his literal self given
nick name...Boston.
I refused to paint the comic character on his engine hood.

Another big fucker, friends trophy room in Mass.
We later went shooting illegal weapons in the woods.

Outlined some flames for the Kingpins C.C.
Boston.

Fuck yeah another pointy pic, get over it.

See above

Homage.

DC at night is a total stunner. Loved the city.

Once again, DC in the evening.

South Bound thru West Virginia

Mileage. You don't notice it when you drive through West Virginia
in the fall.

Storms rolling in over Autumn foliage.

Four Roses Rick House.

The sweet smell of mash. Four Roses Distillery. Kentucky.

Heaven Hill Rick House

These two beauties create all the Makers the world over...

Couldn't pass up the opportunity to
dip our own bottles.

Honky Tonkin, Nashville.

I love that you can still burn smokes inside the
majority of places in Nashville, added bonus.
Thanks to Brice and Chelsea.

After the Opery tour we went to see a program there,
Chuck Daniels decided to burn thru 4 bows
 playing the "Devil Went Down To Georgia"

Santa's Pub, BEST local in Tennessee!

Swap meet find 

Graceland.

All the King's gold.

Still recording to this day.

Blew out the rear axle seal and bearing, Memphis.

Smokies and south again, dodging winters clutches.

BEST BBQ, period. South Carolina.
Thanks to Cassandra and Chuck.

Cape Canaveral, God's waiting room.

Came in handy being able to get a gator
head in Florida.

South again

After seeing Hemingway's pad in the Keys we had to head
to his old haunt of course...

On the road, somewhere in God's waiting room.

The Big Easy

When in Rome, Sazerac in New Orleans.

Kung Fu Jesus, New Orleans.

Plantation home in Lousianna.

Texas.

Good fried chicken, even better deep
fried deviled eggs.
Austin

Mike and the Moonpies, Ginny's Little
Long Horn.

Chicken shit bingo, Ginny's Little Long Horn,
Austin.

Striping acoustics in Tejas.

Caught a Junior Brown gig whilst in town.

Another bag, for Drew in Tejas.

Collab piece with my good friend Mr. Oz deep in the heart of Texas.

Thanks to Mr. Oz and Sam.

On the road wear and tear, New Mexico.

Roswell, get in and get out. Alien Museum.

Souvenirs of New Mexico.

The rest of the trip was fairly straight forward. We spent X-Mas in Texas in shorts and Tee-Shirts and New Years in Gallup New Mexico freezing our asses off since the heater core in the truck sprung a leak during the summer part of our journey...

We ran a straight shot back out to LA to get the fuck out of the frozen desert after that. Money was low and after putting about four years of wear and tear on the truck in only 6 months it was time to give the old '57 a break. She faired better than expected over the milage accumulation but doesn't do well in the cold like myself. A bit of money saved over the next month and back out to London we came in the beginning of February. This year is shaping up to be a good one so stay tuned, I swear I'll update more often than every 7 months next time...

  

Did some work for an old friend, as well as others, when we got back.
Have a peek, Kott Motorcycles.