Drew, we're talking about Minnesotans here, they're basically Canadians with permanent green cards, so anything above freezing is hot
That really sucks about the green Galaxie, but it was a '66, not a '65. It was the only other Galaxie there. I talked to those 2 for a while and it turned out they only live 20 minutes from me in Ohio. It was a father/son team, with the son driving.
Kevin, I'm home now. Here's the story; my Son lives on the NC coast, right where Hurricane Florence is slated to hit. They were having mandatory evacuations, so he had to leave. He has a family with 2 boys, so he made the right call. I had talked to Keith, the race director, and he was going to allow Randy to follow me in his truck, in case he had to leave. Things took a turn for the worse as far as Florence was concerned, so that's when he made the decision to head home. Initial plans were that this years Drag Week would be my son, my wife and me. That was the major driving incentive to get the Galaxie going. Even though she put in for the vacation MONTHS ago, they would not let her have the whole week off, so she was going to drive down on Wednesday to meet us at Bristol, and just tag along, but at a distance. I took off by myself yesterday after the days events and was driving to the first check point. The rain was so horrible that I couldn't see the road, and that was with good wipers! I pulled off and let it subside, then hit the road again. Again, the rain hit and I had to pull off again.
Sitting in a gas station parking lot, and knowing what was coming with the hurricane, I did not want my wife making the 9-10 hour trip down, only to most likely be washed out the last 2-3 days. I gave it much thought and decided that the wise thing to do would be to just call it a successful trip with the car and head home. I waited for the rain to let up and headed back. I got home at 3:45 am today. It was actually a beautiful trip through the Smokey Mountain Bi-way, and the car ran perfect all the way home. Even though I'm bummed that I did not complete Drag Week, I'm very happy with how the car performed (on the highway, not the track). I have a few leaks to take care of (I also had an axle seal that started leaking and saturated one of my rear brakes), but I also found that I have a rock solid car that could easily go cross country without so much as a grunt, fully loaded. And I now have another FE added to my driving stable, with another to come here shortly, but that's another story.
On a side note, my son got home, but there is no gas to be found anywhere, so he's not even sure how they're going to evacuate. Right now, he's my major concern.