I recently relocated from St. Louis, Missouri to Seattle, Washington for my job and opted to do a road trip with two of my buddies instead of shipping my car with all my other belongings. I think out of all my expensive vacations nothing came close to beating this road trip, it really was an amazing experience. If you ever get the chance to make a road trip like this just do it.

Due to weather we had to travel the lower states and up through California and Oregon which turned out well because the west coast is simply amazing especially route 1 which is right on the coast of California and Oregon.

I cant imagine having any other car for this trip. The 8 just blew me away on route 1 and its many curves and the straight aways on the highway. Having an 8 in Winning Blue I thought I would stick out like a sore thumb and get a nice collection of speeding tickets. So I opted for the Beltronics STi and a Uniden scanner which turned out to be an unstoppable force, saved us a good two dozen times.

Well anyway I thought I'd share a few pictures I took of the 8 along the way. I'm already looking forward to the next road trip, I miss being on the road already. Anyway the pictures are hosted on my FaceBook so quality isn't that great. Enjoy!

 

 

Nice pics. That last one looks like a hose is in order. I'm from St. Louis too. Well I live in VA now (I hate it). Hopefully, I'll be making a road trip myself to Texas through the mountains. Get a little touge action.

How was the 8 though? How much gas/oil? I'm sure she held up nicely.

 

how long did it take you? i would probably average bout 120 mph for the trip

 

wow!!! that's crazy~ how many tanks of gas did you go through??

 

I'm also planning a long roadtrip with three of my friends for spring break. The only difference is that I won't be taking my 8 but we'll be on motorcycles instead.

 

Nothing like a good road trip. I know what you mean about already wanting to take another one. I took a 2000 mile round trip at Christmas time thru CO, NM, TX and it was a blast (despite some of the weather conditions). Everyone thought we were crazy and kept asking us why we didn't fly. I'm ready to go somewhere else. Nothing like the 8 on an open road. Radar detector is a must. It's tempting to just nail the throttle and fly on the wide open roads. Nice pics.

 

wow nice trip. the longest i ever drove was just 1000 miles from california to canada. so which state do you like the best? (driving wise)

 

looks like a lot of fun for sure, great pics man!

 

That does look fun. The last long road trip I took was driving out to northern NY from CO and back a couple of summers ago. That put 3400 miles on the Mazda6 I was driving at the time.

 

Looks like a lot of fun! I wish I could do the same right about now!

 

DAmn thats a lot of driving

 

I'm confused. You took two buddies of yours on a 3000 mile road trip in the 8? How did you fit all of your overnight bags and not be unbelievably cramped at the same time? how did your friends get back if you drove there to relocate? How did the rest of your stuff get there?

Sounds incredibly cramped and uncomfortable, if you ask me.

 

you dont need any gear to go in a cross-country trip with your buddies! Just cash for gas and food and the rotary and the clothes you're wearing... you're good to go!

 

The 8 did amazing, before I left St. Louis I made sure that everything was up to date (rotation, alignment, fresh oil, etc). We went through about 15 tanks worth of gas, we did a bit of exploring in some of the towns/cities we said at. No problems with oil at all, the light came on about 3/4 into the trip and I made sure to put some in and all was good.

It probably was a good 3 days worth of driving. We spent one day in LA and plus made many stops during our trip. We left St. Louis on the 1st and made it to Seattle 6th. Our first day we did 18 hours of straight driving left St. Louis at 2am on New Years day and stopped in Alberque New Mexico. We took shifts in driving so it ended up working out well.

15 tanks!

We are all midwest boys so none of us had been on the west coast. We were all blown away by the coast of California and Oregon so much so that both have decided to move out here within the year.

We all brought enough clothes for a week so most everything fit in the trunk (spare tire and all) and whatever didn't fit was thrown in the empty backseat. I had a company pack all my things and furniture and have it shipped freight, damn cheap. Once we got to Seattle they flew back home!

Believe it or not riding in the backseat was not as bad as I thought it would be. We had a bunch of our bags packed into the empty seat so it provided a nice setup to rest your head on and sleep. We took turns driving and just kept rotating seats, wasn't bad at all.

 

A few non 8 pix to get you guys planning your very own road trip.
































My buddy after a good 10 hours of driving that day!

 

Pretty sweet trip you've got there...taken two in the 8 one from San Antonio Texas to Monterey California and the other from Dallas Texas to Fort Carson Colorado.........great stuff infact the trip to Colorado was around the same time you were taking your trip....however gas out in Colorado is cheap ........just don't ever take Texas through Oklahoma and Kansas to get to Colorado.....worst scenic view ever.....

However being someone born in California I can definately appreciate someone's first experience on Highway 1

 

that looks like a lot of fun, something youd have to do with friends tho, not the mrs

 

Awesome, glad you like the 1, it's an incredible drive pretty much anywhere. Did you get a chance to stop in like Carmel or anywhere in Monterey County? I always make a point to stop there going up to San Fran because it's just so damn gorgeous. And did you get ANY tickets?

 

whoa, is that a Toyota Camry next to that Ferrari???? Nice!!

 

Road trips are definitely a ton of fun, but depends on which route you take. I recently drove out to Colorado with my sister, and I gotta say Iowa and Nebraska were two of the longest, most boring states in the country. I will never take that route again.

 

Many people complain about the midwest states.

 

Yep, the 8 is definitely made for road tripping. I've gone from Alaska to Indiana in 4 days, then spent about 2 weeks driving back. My favorite drives were the stretches through Baniff and Glacier Nat Parks. Another great trip is driving down the California coast and over to Colorado. HW 1 in northern Cali with all it's twists was built for this car!
Texak

 

I totally agree with the idea of there being NO other car than an 8 to go on a long road trip.Just last year i went from northern new hampshire to amarillo texas and then back in 11 day..Three days and 2400 miles and i finally got there.Spent 5
days with family and headed back the same way..Average 22 mpg and probably around 90 mph..Traveled all interstates from i-91 south to i-84 in pa then i-81 so to i-40 west..Burned only a quart of oil out there..Plan on doing it again this summer,but also planning on going all the way to the west coast.Then up to seattle and then across the top of the country back to NH..Great car for great trips..
ps----and no speeding tickets..stopped 3 times though,my beee-itch has great legs..ha ha

 

woooow!! i want to do that. only id move to a southern state so i could put a kit on my car and not worry about destroying it when i drive