The following is the story of a cross-country trip in Earnest, a 1978 Alfa Romeo Alfetta Sedan. The story was posted to the Alfa digest on October 19, 1998, right after the trip was completed, and was picked up by more than one club newsletter.

A Ride Home in Earnest

Brian Shorey, Oct 1998

Following is the account of the procurement and retrieval of a car named Earnest. Set the wayback clock to last March, as I'm doing my winter commute in the wife’s ex-Camry. One day, on the way to work, I woke up to find myself in the right lane, doing about 60 mph, feeling like I had been castrated. Although I probably had a cup of coffee in the cup holder, there was just no excitement in the commute anymore. Sure, it started every day, and had heat, but what's the fun in that? I swore then and there that I'd be driving something a little more fun next winter.

Right around that time a 1978 Alfetta sedan was posted for sale on the Alfa digest. Having owned four or five of them in the past, I responded immediately.

Why an Alfetta? Well, for the uninformed, an Alfetta sedan represents the single best value in used automobiles today. This is a car that has the same basic layout as a Milano, but with a lighter engine up front. They are wonderfully nimble to drive, make excellent winter drivers, and can usually be had for about what you'd pay for the Spica pump that's under the hood.

This car was perfect - it had just enough rust so that I wouldn't feel guilty about driving it in the winter. I have a pretty bad track record of picking up un-rusted southern or western cars and then feeling too guilty to subject them to road salt, but not with this one! It’s also located in the bay area of California, and having just taken a job (again) with Cisco, I could visit it on a regular basis, drive it throughout the summer, and drive it home in the fall.

Everything on the car worked, although it needed a head gasket. A verbal deal was struck with the owner, which included use of his garage and tools for me to change the head gasket.

Next trip out I brought my head puller and Spica injection line tool, and went about changing the head gasket. MG-boy came along, and we had a great time. In addition to the euro headers, after we pulled the head we found what looked to be high lift cams and big valves! The biggest problem with that job was the exhaust flange gaskets - the ones that came off the car disintegrated, and we couldn't find anything close at an auto parts store. A call to the digest and Tom Sahines came through with nice metal ones, and some new hardware to boot.

I left the car in the Cisco parking lot, and got permission from security to leave it there for a while. I left the keys with a friend, just in case something came up and it needed to be moved.

This is where things start to get fun. First, there are some problems with the title - the PO 'apparently' never correctly changed over the registration, and the Mass dept of motor vehicles won't take the forms with changes on the back of them. The PO works diligently with the PPO, who no longer seems to be interested in the car, to try to correct things. To his credit the PO offers to buy the car back (more than once), but I’m willing to keep trying to work things out. We set a deadline of a couple of weeks before the Monterey event, as a good friend will be attending with me, we figure we can win first place in the midnight concours then drive the car back together.

Looks like I’ve chosen the wrong lot-boy, however. I get a second hand e-mail notification that the car is about to be towed so they can set up for an event in the parking lot. I happen to be out there so I drive by to check things out. They’ve already towed it, but just to the other side of the lot.

A week and a half later is the Monterey event. The PO frantically works to get me updated paperwork, which finally arrives at 9:40 the morning I’m due to fly out (12:30 flight). Luck is with me, however, and I’m able to make it to the insurance company, the registry, *and* make my flight. Upon arriving in California, however, we find that the keys are not in my

Lot-boys desk, and he's in India! This will turn out to cause major headaches - not only are we forced to take a rental car to Monterey, but we miss the opportunity to drive home, and it's to be my last trip to California for a couple of months.

Things get really interesting when the lot-boy shows up here in Mass for a meeting, and casually mentions that he doesn't think my car is there anymore.

WHAT! You’re my lot-boy, you're supposed to be watching it, what do you mean you 'don't think' it's there anymore?

A call to Cisco security reveals the worst. Not only has it been towed, but it was towed right after my last visit, has rung up more in impound charges than I paid for it, and if I don't retrieve it in person in another week the impound lot takes legal ownership. I point out that I had permission to leave it there (and a witness), and they end up having it towed back (and pick up all the charges). In return, my lot-boy promises to have the car moved by the following Monday.

Two weeks later I get a call from security, the car’s still there. I promise to move it myself the following Monday.

I pack jumper cables and no more - digester Alan Lambert has offered the use of tools to retorque the head and tighten the header nuts. Lot-boy and myself jump it and it starts right up. It dies in traffic, complete loss of electrics. We jump it again, let it run for a bit, and again it dies in traffic. Lot-boy has a AAA card, so off it goes to continental motors for a new battery and alternator.

I pick it up the next day and it's running fine. Looks like the trip home might actually happen. I take it through a car wash, and stop at the Cisco home/parking lot auto body supply shop for some scotch tape and paper. There are two spots around the rear window that had some improper rust repair and are left in primer, and the PO has left a couple of cans of touch up paint in the trunk. I tape off the rear window and spray away in the Marriott parking lot, under the lights. I apologize if I got any over spray on anybody's rental car.. I also spend some time on the right rear directional light, a little cleaning of the contacts and wiggling of the bulb and it seems to work.

The ride home will start the following day. I’ve got one stop to make, to drop off a couple of radios with Michael Williams (Alfa digest comic relief) in Sacramento. I mention to Michael that I’m hoping to make it to Reno, then begin the drive home Friday morning in earnest, and he feels that would make a good name for the car. It ends up taking almost an hour to get out of San Jose. I love California traffic. I spot my first Alfa, another Alfetta sedan, surely this is a good omen for the trip home.

I find Michaels house in spite of his directions. Michael Williams has an Alfa Romeo doorbell. This man is truly a fanatic. I wonder who I might have told that I’m stopping here, so in case I end up in a freezer in Michaels basement they'll know where to look for my remains. The taillight has crapped out again, we end up drilling and riveting the bulb socket, which seems to work. I make it to Reno before 10:00, and rather than drive on for another hour and camp in the desert I decide to stop early and get an early start the following morning.

Late night tail light repair at the Williams residence

In the morning there's frost everywhere, and all I’ve got is short sleeve shirts. Earnest starts right up, I top off the gas, and plan on driving 100 mph until Chicago. As luck would have it, I stop right away to pick up some breakfast. Not to offend any Europeans, but I do take-out and eat in the car - if you're not moving, you're not making progress. As I walk back to the car I see a puddle of coolant under the front. Nothing major, but enough to cause concern. It’s coming from the water pump. I borrow a wrench and loosen the belt a little, and decide to cruise at 90 instead of 100. I’d like to make it to Salt Lake City before evening, there's an Alfa dealer there. Otherwise, the PO has left a couple of boxes of new (!) parts in the trunk, one of which happens to be a water pump, so if worse comes to worse I can change it in the parking lot of an auto parts store..

As I drive along I can't help thinking about how remote my brother must have felt a month ago, when his Spider broke on the same stretch of road.

Earnest runs like a champ. The most annoying thing is that somebody mounted 225/60 tires on the 6" wheels, and aside from the fact that it's like driving on bubbles, they make a loud groaning sound at speeds over 10 mph. Earnest continues to piddle coolant, and I continue to top it up, but the temp is constant so I press forward. I love driving in the mid west, the scenery is awesome and you can see where it's raining from pretty far away. My goal that night is Cheyenne Wyoming, but by the time I get to Laramie (about 40 miles from Cheyenne) it's snowing so hard that I consider stopping. The bridges really do freeze up first, and the 225 tires don't grip that well on sheer ice with high crosswinds when you're traveling at 80 mph. I top up the petrol in Laramie, and decide to press on. As soon as I’m back on the road the temp shoots up, and we're in near whiteout conditions. I somehow make it to Cheyenne, which turns out to be a good thing, as they end up getting 5-10 inches of snow in Laramie and only a couple of inches in Cheyenne.

I stop at a place called Little America, which has a 24-hour garage. I consider leaving Earnest with them and waking up to a car with a fresh water pump, but then I also consider waking up to a long walk home. I decide to get a good nights sleep and deal with it in the morning.

I awake to driving snow, with 25-degree temperatures. After check out I drop by the garage, and meet Curtis. Curtis informs me that he can't get a water pump for my car, which I kind of suspected, what with it being a Saturday, and it being Wyoming, but I inform him that I already have one. Curtis tells me to go back to my room, or to the restaurant, and come back in an hour. I give him all the tech tips, but he just seems to want me to go away, so I enjoy a European style (sit down) breakfast.

Fifty-five minutes later I’m back. Curtis has double nutted and removed all of the studs *except* the two bottom ones, and he's in the process of throwing his vice grips down to the floor. Sensing that something might be wrong, and that it might have something to do with my car, I attempt to calm him down by offering to buy him a cup of coffee. He lightens up a little and informs me that he'll have to bolt it back up and send me on my way, he can't deal with this.

It’s 25 degrees out, snowing, and I’m in a short sleeve shirt 2,000 miles from home. Move over Curtis, we'll deal with it.

Curtis and I manage to get the water pump replaced. Thank you Les Singh, for the double-nut-remove-the-two-lower-studs water pump trick I picked up on the digest years ago. Curtis charges me a token amount for the job (heated garage and tool rental, plus coolant), and I’m on my way. Curtis informs me how lucky I am, they once had a Peugeot that needed an alternator and it took three weeks to get one from Italy. I’ve lost a couple of hours, but now that I can drive with confidence at 100 mph again I should make it up.

Except for my first navigational error. You see, here in the USA we have a concept of letting different route numbers share the same piece of actual tarmac on occasion. In Mass, for example, there is a single stretch of road where you can actually be driving on route 95 heading south and route 93 heading north, at the same time!

So, in Wyoming, as I’m traveling east on route 80, I’m really traveling south on route 24 (I think), and don't realize that I should be paying attention to the fact that I need to take an exit from the route 80 I think I’m traveling on to get to the route 80 I want to be traveling on.

To compound this lunacy, there are no signs to the effect of "hey, you're not on route 80 anymore". So it wasn't until I crept closer and closer to Denver that I realized my error. I only lost an hour, but when you've just lost two hours and are looking forward to making some of it up, it's pretty demoralizing. I take route 76 northeast back to route 80 (nice of them to put that little diagonal interstate there, apparently I’m not the only one to make that mistake).

Late in the afternoon I start to weigh whether to drive through the night and arrive home Sunday afternoon, or stop for the night and arrive Sunday night, late. I’m leaning toward driving through the night.

It’s raining through most of Iowa, and quite late on Saturday I make it to Illinois. This marks the end of the big, horizontal states, and the beginning of the little vertical ones. Major cities that used to be 400 miles apart are now measured by an hour or two, and tollbooths spring up. Not that I mind paying tolls, but if I’m paying to drive on your roads you should do two things for me - first, keep them in good condition, and second, let me drive as fast as I can do so, safely. The other thing that changes when you get to Illinois is that the law enforcement steps up.

It’s quite late, and the rain is coming down in torrents. Five or more inches, I’m told, and although the wipers aren't keeping up and the 225 tires are hydroplaning in the truck ruts even at speeds as low as 50 mph, I might have kept going had I not glanced down to see the temp had shot up again. Drats! I pull over and top up the radiator, no sign of coolant anywhere. I expected to pour oil into a car with 175k miles on it, instead I’m pouring in antifreeze. In fact, oil consumption is remarkably low, somebody obviously took care of Earnest in the engine dept, I only use two quarts during the entire trip home. I decide that trying to continue on at low speeds in dangerous conditions while tired is probably not the wisest thing, so one more time I pull in for some sleep.

Day four, up again at the crack of dawn. As I check out I’m told that the weather has broken, the rain has moved off to the east! Lucky me, at least I’ll be facing it during daylight, and after a good nights sleep.

States are passing faster and faster. Indiana, "it's not just corn". The state that gives you meaningful highway signs like "emergency use only – 2 hour maximum". Please plan your emergencies accordingly.

The right taillight that we fixed in Sacramento is now working intermittently, the left one not at all. I no longer care.

In Ohio I’m faced with another choice - stay with i80, through Pennsylvania, take i90 through New York, or take a smaller road through New York. I end up making my second navigational error, opting for i80 through Pennsylvania. I’m not worried about the more than $20 in tolls I’ll pay in New York and Mass, I’m more concerned with minimizing my road miles in Mass, since the car doesn't have an inspection sticker. Besides, Cisco is funding the trip, since I saved them so much money by getting weekend airfares they'll pick up hotels and expenses for the trip home.

Remember the comment about the end of the big, horizontal states? Well, I forgot to mention Pennsylvania. Not that it's a big, *manly* horizontal state, like Nebraska, but they try to make up for it by blocking off half of the lanes, forcing you to spend twice as much time going through it.

Nothing is more frustrating than having just driven 3000 miles, just a few hundred miles from home, and sitting in traffic. Half of the lanes are blocked off for miles on end, with no apparent reason. On a Sunday, no less. I did see one worker, who was driving down the section of road that was blocked off to the rest of us, stopping occasionally to straighten out a marker. Why can't they just pick one section of road, *finish* it, then move on to the next? ARRRGGHHHH!

I spot my second Alfa of the trip, a green 164.

I finally arrive home at around 1:30 am. Other than the water pump, and a thirst for coolant, Earnest has run flawlessly. We’ve tackled minor problems, and overcome some truly nasty weather conditions. We’ve bonded.

The morning after, Boxborough

I walked into the house to find frantic messages from MasterCard, somebody's been making charges all across the country. Nothing east to west, I hope..

Also, sincere thanks to the digesters who responded to my post that I was about to leave, with Wyoming weather reports and even an offer of lodging. Unfortunately, when I said I was about to leave I was really about to leave, and I didn't check e-mail again until last night, er, uh, this morning.