Coming to America

Hi yall. Me and Mrs Manky are planing a vacation in the USA, we come from Australia. I'm looking for ideas on things to do. Stuff that we like doing seeing Hot rod / muscle car shows. Swap meets and flea markets, drag racing. It won't be till around May or June of 2010 but you need to plan well ahead for these things. The plan so far is to start in California then head east through Arizona and New Mexico then north through to North Dakota. We are going to try and get to Yellow stone and work our way back to California before going home. So any ideas are welcome. Even if you can point me to some good web sites.
Cheers Manky:cool:

Sounds like fun, Manky!!! When you're coming through South Dakota, I live over on the Eastern side of the state, stop by if you're in the neighborhood!!!!!

I haven't looked at the 2010 NHRA Schedule, but I'm sure it's up on the NHRA.com site....

I'd think that the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles would be a must-see for a gearhead.

I think the "Back to the 50's" is a must see in Minnesota, in june.

----> http://www.msra.com/

Pat

that time frame is perfect for about any place in the U.S you would wish to visit .. you mite even check into the hotrod power tour .. in think it heads back down south in 2010 .. even if it does`nt ya`ll are welcome to drop by alabama .. it will be smoking hot in june.

4,700,000 sq miles of fun in the sun. Something to see or do every 100 feet. Sure, do some of the tourist traps, but don't forget the natural part. See the Grand Canyon and Devil's Tower. Skip the Interstates and go state highways. Stop at Sam's winery and the RailPark at Scottsdale. Flop on the salt at Bonneville. View the world from the top of Pikes Peak and the bottom of the world from Jewel cave. Skip rocks at Oahe reservoir or canoe down the Belle Fourche river. There is a natural or man made wonder at nearly every turn. A request to the USA Dept of Tourism will get you a sensory overload of things to see and do here. If you want to do automotive things, just stop and ask any good looking car you see and they will give you the local happenings.

Arizona car activities start moving to the evening hours in the early summer. You might check the Firebird Raceway (Phoenix) calendar, or the Southwestern International Raceway (Tucson) calendar in the late Spring to see what is going on. Tucson has the Fuel Altereds and Jet car nationals ...and Phoenix has an NHRA national event ... and they take turns with Super Chevy, nostalgia drag events, and other special attractions.

There is the big "Run To The Pines" streetrod cuise in, located in the high country a few hours northeast of Phoenix. You might check the date on that one.

A good source for car shows and such is a site called "Cruisin Arizona", which has not only a general event calendar, but also links to many car and bike organizations, and their calendars.

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Originally Posted by 61bone

4,700,000 sq miles of fun in the sun. Something to see or do every 100 feet. Sure, do some of the tourist traps, but don't forget the natural part. See the Grand Canyon and Devil's Tower. Skip the Interstates and go state highways. Stop at Sam's winery and the RailPark at Scottsdale. Flop on the salt at Bonneville. View the world from the top of Pikes Peak and the bottom of the world from Jewel cave. Skip rocks at Oahe reservoir or canoe down the Belle Fourche river. There is a natural or man made wonder at nearly every turn. A request to the USA Dept of Tourism will get you a sensory overload of things to see and do here. If you want to do automotive things, just stop and ask any good looking car you see and they will give you the local happenings.

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This is the scariest part of your continent,,where to go,what to see first...
This is a small [?] issue that we will have to contend with one day..:D Ahh,worry about it when it happens..:eek:

Things in Arizona are pretty dead that time of year,temps are over 100+ unless you are up north.That kind of heat will keep you in the A/C instead of outside.Most car related events are October to April.

AHA, the crux of the problem. I've lived here for 63 years or all my life. I've traveled a lot and have seen all of the USA and practically none of it. Best advice- You know how long you have to get where your going. Stop and explore accordingly. Made a trip to the East coast a few years ago. Had 3 weeks to do it. About a 3,000 mile round trip or about 6 days of driving. Covered 900 miles last day going out and over a thousand last day coming back. We saw- Palisades park (we were the only people there, lovely park),
Wisconsin Dells. Swam in the Mississippi River, Drove through the Southside of Chicago (not recommended), Saw the Dayton Air Muesum, Niagara Falls, the worlds largest ball of string and had a glass of wine in a Vermont gay bar. Missed the house built like a shoe, bummer. On the way back, Saw the lighthouse on the tip of Cape Cod, Picked a Lobster out of the pound on the Vermont coast and had it steamed and ate it on the beach, Bought maple syrup straight out of the cooker,Watched a Revolutionary war cannon being fired, Got threw out of a Burger King in Canada, drove down the St. Lawerance Seaway, rode a ferry across one of the great lakes, drove through downtown Chicago ( not recommended) Saw a cardboard sign the said "cheese ->" and bought some Cheddar that had been in this cave so long it had a coating of calcite on the top of it. Said it was over 20 years old. Delicious.
Anyway, there is so much to see and do that the best way to travel is to go where your heart takes you. Just make sure you can cover the remaining miles on the last day. I'd love to see The Sydney Opera house, but I wouldn't want to miss seeing a Opal miners house if the opportunity presented itself.

For Car events in California, The Good-Guys Summer Get Together is Jun 6-10 in Pleasanton, CA. (http://www.good-guys.com/events/even...aspx?year=2009) That is in the San Francisco Bay area and not too far from Yosemite. Yosemite is beautiful in late spring early summer as the water falls are really flowing. Then if you are back in Northern Nevada by the first week in August, come to Reno for Hot August Nights. (http://www.hotaugustnights.net/) Will be over 6000 cars there, it takes over the whole city for a solid week. If you plan to come to that drop me a note and we can meet up and I'll take you guys for a ride in the Studebaker! And there you are very close to Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There is so much to see and do, How long will you be staying?

Pat

Ditto what Stu said, and if your up for a sip of wine, give me a hollar, I live in the heart of wine country.

For nice country to see when you leave yellow stone take the n/e highway after tower jct that leads to cooke city, brings you out on I 90 the pass is amazing go play in the snow on top of the mountains. the roads remind me of the coyote roadrunner cartoons,try to get to deadwood and the badlands if going through the Dakotas too beautiful country to see

As above there is tons to see and do,you just need to figure out what interests you.If you want a Kiwi perspective of travel etc over here just let me know,we live up in the mountains of Lake Tahoe CA and are always up for showing off our beautiful area.:3dSMILE:

I'll try and make it so we can take you up on that ride, I like Studebakers. Don't see many around here.

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Originally Posted by Stu Cool

For Car events in California, The Good-Guys Summer Get Together is Jun 6-10 in Pleasanton, CA. (http://www.good-guys.com/events/even...aspx?year=2009) That is in the San Francisco Bay area and not too far from Yosemite. Yosemite is beautiful in late spring early summer as the water falls are really flowing. Then if you are back in Northern Nevada by the first week in August, come to Reno for Hot August Nights. (http://www.hotaugustnights.net/) Will be over 6000 cars there, it takes over the whole city for a solid week. If you plan to come to that drop me a note and we can meet up and I'll take you guys for a ride in the Studebaker! And there you are very close to Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevada Mountains. There is so much to see and do, How long will you be staying?

Pat

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