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When I woke up it was still raining. I decided to slab it out of the Little Rock area and then decide. I headed West on I40; shortly after I got out of town I looked at the map; I really should have taken I30. Looking at the map it looked like Route 9 would be a nice little road that would eventually hook up with I30. Shortly before I took the exit I saw a sign for an Automobile Museum at the same exit. While driving I didn't have time to read the whole sign. When I got to the exit there was no sign to tell me which way to go for the museum so I just headed south on 9. A few miles later I saw another sign for the museum so I figured I must be going the right way. A little bit later there was a sign that told me to turn right, so I did. That is a nice little road, plenty of curves. More than once I figured I'd gone too far; I decided that I would go to Petit Jean park and then turn around if I hadn't seen any information by then. As I got to Petit Jean park I saw the museum on my right. As it happens the sign on the interstate said to follow the signs to Petit Jean park.

That's a cool museum; it was created by <> Rockefeller, grandson of John D. Sr. and former governor of Arkansas - it's on property that he used to own. Many of the cars they have are on loan so the collection changes from time to time. Quite a few cars I saw there were cars I'd never seen before. One line is the Climber. The Climber car company was created in Arkansas; like thousands of other US car makers they eventually went under.

The architecture of the building is very cool. Each of the 4 corners is elevated and there are cables that run down from the top of the pillars to the beams that bisect the building. (it's easier to see than describe; look at the frontal picture and the inside view of one of the pillars to see what I mean).

After a very pleasant tour of the museum (when I got there I was the only customer there) I headed on. I returned to 9 and continued south. That's a fun road; however after the second major rain burst (where I couldn't see very far ahead and slowed by ~30 MPH so I could see comfortably forward a reasonable distance, only to become nervous of a car or truck coming up on me from behind) I decided to pull off for lunch and to seek the quickest route to the interstate. Lunch was pleasant, a salad and a personal sized pizza. After lunch and a visit to the store next door I got directions for the quickest way to I30. A few miles further down 9 I took a left onto 128; this ran into US route 70. I headed east on this a few miles to catch up to I30. Of course by the time I got to the interstate the rain had lightened up. Oh well.

I was not able to get a hold of Angela (Iatrou) Simon. The phone number I had for her was disconnected. When I called information for that city (Missouri City, Texas) there was not an Eric Simon or Angela Simon listed there. I called Wendy and asked her to send email to the address I had for Angela; that email bounced. I then asked Wendy to send mail to several other variations of the email address; these also bounced. Oh well, I guess I won't see Angela on this trip.

I didn't have any problems finding Deb Furey. When I was having trouble getting a hold of Angela I started aiming for College Station. This was a pleasant enough trip. The moment I hit the magic 1,000 miles on the odometer I revved the engine nearly to redline, and then dropped it into some lower gears and ran it nearly up to redline. Boy, what a sweet sound that engine makes. It was fine below ~3800 RPM; it is great above it. I can still see replacing the exhaust to give it an even better exhaust note but at this time I don't see myself spending the money to improve the power output. My motorcycle (BMW K1200RS) is still a lot quicker than this car would be (0-60 in 3.6 seconds, ~640 lb. w/ 130 HP vs. ~3,000 lb. w/ 345 HP).

I got to Deb's place a little after 9 PM. We unloaded part of my car (mostly so she could sit down) and then headed off to Bennigans for dinner and to meet a friend of hers (Kim?). I brought the album my family put together of the aftermath of my motorcycle accident. We had a good time catching up. After returning to her place I quickly prepared for bed and quickly fell asleep.

The next morning I woke up and showered. I made plans w/ Tom Little Chevrolet to get my oil changed. According to several people the LS-1 doesn't need the oil to be changed immediately after break-in but to me 3,000 miles on that oil would be pushing it. I'll take the peace of mind the oil change would afford me.

We are also going to hit Harvey Washbangers for lunch; after describing the insanely hot wings I made for my August 1998 party, it was mentioned that someone at the newspaper that Deb is working at had been looking for suckers/volunteers to eat some of the insanely hot wings that this place made. I'm more than game.

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