Fujimi's 1:24 Escudo 3-door hardtop.

Suzuki's Escudo is also known as the Vitara, Sidekick, and Geo/Chevy Tracker.

$22.61, free shipping from Japan, via Amazon.

Box was kind of squashed top-to-bottom, but heavily bubble-wrapped. There's plenty of space inside the box, so no damage there.

Molded in bright fire engine red; clear headlights, windows, taillights; satin silver wheels. Rubber tires. 1 small sheet of decals (Suzuki Escudo and Vitara emblems and dashboard).

Looks like an easy build. The plastic's of good quality, not soapy looking.

Very nicely molded--no flash on the body, which is bagged separately from the main parts trees.

Low parts count. All the interior detail is in the dash (radio & other controls and dials), seats, and shifters. But there's no floor or sidewall detail at all. There's a big pit behind the back seat where the fuel tank is. If there was no center console, you'd have a gaping hole over the transmission, as well.

No engine detail. The entire interior and underbody are molded in one piece with separate suspension components.

Can be built as left- or right-hand drive--just a matter of which dash you put in. Thought that was a nice touch.

About the only moving parts are the steering and wheels, which press on with little rubber bushings so the car can roll.

4/5 for lack of engine and interior detail--but only the one point off because I knew what I was getting ahead of time. A few hours with some sheet styrene and felt can take care of the lack of interior detail. Adding something like an engine compartment and opening hood would be much more ambitious than I'm prepared to be.

I do plan to paint it to match my own Tracker, inside and out. Too bad the kit's not a convertible.

Road Trip: "If You Want It Done Right Tour" ends...

...and it only took me 6-1/2 months.

Ever since I took to the highways of Florida, Alabama, and Georgia to get my own damn engine thanks to a less-than-helpful...acquaintance, I've had that engine tied down in the back of the Tracker.

It's been entertaining. The tail-dragging Tracker was skittish and threatened to bottom out on every bump.

The original plan was to get the engine out the morning after I got back from Atlanta. Medical stuff and too-cold March weather became medical stuff and too-wet April weather, then I went to San Francisco for a week. All the airport walking kicked my ass...and then it was too hot outside.

It was too hot outside yesterday morning, too, when I finally had enough and dragged myself out to finish the job.

The most difficult part: my new, unused engine hoist was still in pieces, still boxed up, and still in the cellar from the morning I bought it in mid-2011. No way I was going to be able to haul the thing myself, but I'm a pretty smart guy--and modest. Used the Tracker and a tow strap to pull it up.

It might have taken a half-hour without all the medical stuff. Took 2 hours to get this far, with frequent rest breaks. As soon as it was on the ground, I quit and sat in front of a fan for a few hours.

It only took 30 minutes to put the crane together and just a few to spot the Tracker into position.

Picked it up and drove the Tracker out from under it. Finally!

I'll need to get that blue beast on a stand and safe from the weather in the next day or so. From there I'll be able to start figuring out just what engine I've got.

I'm just glad that road trip's over.

Pic of the Day: Bagged a Deer!

It happened in April of '07, so it might have been out of season.

I was out on a delivery run and one of the shops was throwing this monster away. I nabbed it to put into storage for a few months, thinking that Toys for Tots would be getting one big donation from me that year.

When I got back to the store, I left it on the back of the truck. Went inside and told everyone I'd hit a deer. Broke its leg and neck.

Made it easier to fit into the Tracker, though!

I don't know whether the thing ever made it to a kid once I dropped it off at Goodwill. If not, I don't want to know. I'd rather think that there's a kid somewhere with a big, dopey red-nosed Rudolph to play with.

Road Trip: The "If You Want It Done Right..." Tour

Back in November, I got a line on an X-11 engine just northeast of Atlanta. The guy only wanted $200. I thought about it for a few days, trying to figure out how to get it to Pensacola.

I could take a bus up, rent a U-Haul or something, and drive back.

I could risk driving the X-11, but with the clutch making scary noises on the last road trip, I didn't see that happening.

I could try making the run in the Tracker, which has been sitting more than driving in the last few years. I've been running around in it the last month while I try to find an electrical problem in the X. I couldn't see the little critter making it close to 800 miles, even after it's been from New Orleans to Jacksonville over several runs. The engine needs a complete rebuild and some machine work, the brakes have been locking up (note to self: don't drive in salt water anymore), and it needed tires.

I finally bought the engine in late January and emailed a sort-of acquaintance to see if he'd be willing to make the 180-mile round trip from his place and hold the thing for me. I emphasized that it needed to be picked up "yesterday," time was a factor, gotta be done soon. I'd pay for his gas and time. He agreed, saying he'd try the "beginning of next month."

The beginning of February came and went, with no word from him. Once the middle arrived, he wrote saying he'd be headed up "beginning of next week." This was three weeks ago. There's been another "beginning."

The guy I bought the engine from wrote me March 4, wondering when the pickup was going to happen. Neither of us had heard from Mr. Pickup. I decided that I was going to have to do it myself--the seller needed the engine out of the way and had it hanging on a borrowed chain hoist.

Dammit. "If you want it done right, you gotta do it yourself."

The X-11 is still offline; I haven't found the electrical problem, the clutch is dodgy, and she needs a couple of tires out back. Fast and fun, but that clutch could strand me and I can't walk to Atlanta.

That left the Tracker. The engine's more dodgy than the X-11's clutch. I did a partial rebuild in 2007, but the thing needs a new crankshaft, main bearings, con rod bearings, maybe an oil pump, water pump...the cylinders are only a few thousandths of an inch from needing to be bored out--and then it'll need new pistons and rings. The only thing that doesn't really need work is the head, which I rebuilt in '07. There must have been a pound of carbon crusted on the pistons and valves.

Still, he pulls strong, doesn't burn much oil, and gets 35 mph on the highway when he's in a good mood. Starts right up on its 6-1/2 year old battery even after sitting (ignored by an X-11 driving bastard) for months.

Two used tires...top up coolant, add Stop Leak...load up...wire up a cheap stereo...head out at 10 am. I screamed along with Chris Cornell in Audioslave and Soundgarden...top up coolant...took 4 hours to get to Montgomery (no need to rush)...top up coolant...another 90 minutes and I'm in Georgia...top up coolant...do I smell Republicans, or is that just cow pastures?...several pauses along the way, buy more coolant, top up, look for leak and hope I can outrun it...finally hit Atlanta sometime after dark...spend half an hour with several hundred other cars using I-85 as a parking lot...wonder about coolant level...it's around 8 pm by the time I get to Roswell and the Atlanta Hotel. Ten freaking hours.

Compared to the Ashtray Hilton, this place was palatial! A small fridge and microwave, a stove and sink. King-sized bed. Clean, and not even a whiff of ashtray. I only saw one roach the entire night.

Of course it was on the third floor, but there was an elevator, so my messed-up legs and back were saved a lot of walking. I grabbed a luggage cart and emptied the Tracker of anything of value, anything that could be stolen, right down to the jack handle. Took the coil wire so it couldn't be started. Left it unlocked and the rear window unzipped.

Plopped into the most comfortable chair, watched "House" reruns, and crawled into bed by midnight, but my farking cellphone woke me up at 2:30 to let me know it was now 3:30 (Daylight Savings)--and tired as I was I couldn't get back to sleep until 7. I wanted to be up at 8. Watched the last hour of "The Invasion" (Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig) and an old "Law & Order," read a car magazine, and failed at sleep.

Dammit, again. Up at 8 (man, did my legs ache), go looking for the luggage cart (almost right where I'd left it a few hours before)...load the Tracker...top up coolant...let's get this over with! Find the seller's house, load the engine, hang out with they guy and his father...don't wanna drive. I stall. Finally left at noon, their time.

The way it's squatting makes me look fatter.

Holy crap, was the Tracker skittish with 400 pounds of iron engine out back. I could feel the back end waddling every time I made a turn or hit a bump. I-285 South was a minefield of potholes and sunken pavement that had me imagining the Tracker's back end bottoming out, breaking a spring, and flipping that engine over the back seat and into my lap. The random 24 mph gusts coming from the south didn't help. All the way to Montgomery, those gusts whacked the Tracker's nose and nudged it toward the emergency lane. Once I got past Montgomery, I was headed more southward, so the gusts were hitting from the right and pushing me toward passing semis. I stopped every few hours, topped up the coolant, dumped the rest of the Stop Leak into the radiator, and kept hoping I could outrun the leak. I didn't bother with the radio the entire way back South.

If the coolant problem was the drama on the way to Atlanta (every road trip needs drama, whether it's an ashtray-scented motel or a kid's plastic playhouse that self-destructs right in front of you at 65 mph), my idiot body's refusal to go back to sleep was the drama for the ride south. I was running on maybe 3 hours' sleep by mid-afternoon, and of course I couldn't sleep anytime I hit a rest area or parking lot, just while I was roaring along at 65 mph, holding onto the wheel with both hands to keep the damn Tracker from whipping sideways, and just blinking only to find the Tracker headed for the emergency lane. It only got worse once I hit Highway 29 South, the final leg of the trip, the last 40 miles, all in the dark. It was 9ish when I finally peeled myself out of the Tracker for the last time. Man, did my legs ache.

Ten hours up, ten back, little sleep, $90 or so in gas, $32 for the hotel, $24 for the two gallons of coolant, $100 for the tires, a quart and a half of oil, cramped hands from gripping the steering wheel...if the engine had been a plain-Jane "X" engine instead of a high-output "Z" I'd never have bought it, let alone made a run to get it. The only difference is a somewhat hotter cam, domed pistons, and bigger valves. It's only good for 20 horsepower over the stock 115, and I've already got one in the X-11, but I can freshen the "new" one up and have it ready to drop in when the "old" one is ready for a rest. Or I could drop it into the Tracker (the front end, this time) to almost double its horsepower and halve its gas mileage!

I've also got a 4-barrel carb and matching intake for it. All I have to do is make an 822 mile round trip to Inverness, FL, and back....

No. Effing. Way.

Road Trip: Jacksonville, Pt. 3 (May, 2008)--Part 3: Fort Clinch, then homeward

"Park campgrounds are full on Memorial Day."

Well, crap. I hadn't thought of that during my planning; I never go anywhere.

It's nearly night and I've got camping gear all ready to set up--and nowhere to set it up.

I backtracked through Fernandina Beach and stopped for dinner before calling a few campsites on the list I'd been given at Fort Clinch Park. No, sorry. No, we're full. No vacancy. You might try so-and-so, just up the road from you.

Back on the road toward Yulee. By now it was pitch black and drizzling. The campsite was easy to find. I pulled up in front of the office; there must have been a sign sending customers around back (I don't remember), so I swung around behind the building. The rain was falling harder as I squished over to the open back door.

"Sorry, we're full-up--and we only allow RV's and trailers--no tents."

That's not a campground. That's a PARKING LOT.

Hell with this.

I asked about motels; there was one in Yulee at the next light, turn right.

Squished back to the Tracker and found my way to the dinky motel's office. Thirty-five bucks, don't care whether it's smoking or non-smoking. Park and open the door to my room.

Imagine every loaded ashtray you've ever seen, and the ghosts of every ashtray you've never seen, all trapped in a dinky motel room. They all greeted me at the door, then flowed around me and enveloped me. If I hadn't been worn down to the dregs, I'd have gone to ask for another room, but I could barely even think straight. It was after 10 and I'd been up and running since at least 6 am.

I unloaded the Tracker, found the air conditioner in the back corner of the room, cranked it all the way up.

The place was reasonably clean, painted a shade of Institutional Green. To the right of the door there was a dent in the drywall that looked like the imprint of a fist and forearm. A single table lamp with no shade, TV, microwave, mini-fridge, wobbly table with two chairs. The bathroom was clean enough, but water trickled out of the faucets like someone had a tourniquet on the pipes somewhere.

All those ashtrays curled up around me on the bed and relaxed with me.

Tired as I was, sleep didn't come easily. The ashtray stink permeated the bedding; the only escape would be out in the rain, which didn't let up all night. I heard what might have been a fight outside around 3am, yelling and slamming doors.

By 4 am I was feeling nauseous. I could taste the ashtrays. The next hour lasted a week, and it was puffing on menthols the entire time.

I gave up on sleep and took a trickle (can't call it a "shower"--I'm not that generous), loaded the Tracker, and bailed out of the Ashtray Hilton, headed for Fernandina Beach.

The fort wouldn't open for several more hours, so I drove through town, past the park and its lucky campers to the end of Atlantic Avenue and parked to watch the sunrise over the Atlantic. There were plenty of clouds, some rain to the north, a single dolphin and a handful of surf-casters. Very peaceful, even the waves subdued, just the fresh smell of salt air.

I headed back through town past the first "Dog Bakery and Boutique" I'd ever seen and took my time on breakfast at a Huddle House.

The park opened before the fort, so I drove along a narrow winding road bordered by thick woods. The parking lot was nearly empty. I hiked a short woodland trail round the fort's western flank, stopping to look at a garden spider weaving her web before making my way to the shore of the St. Marys River and the border with Georgia. Not a soul in sight, the sky much clearer than even an hour before.

Another trail led past the fort's westmost bastion, along the south wall, past the latrine well, and looped around the south bastion, bringing me to the long southwest wall. The top half of this wall (and the upper parts of the bastion I'd just passed) is built of dark red brick. I didn't think much of it at the time, but it turns out that while the fort was under construction before the Civil War, the crews were supplied with buff-colored southern bricks. Once hostilities began, the Feds were stuck with two completed bastions and two walls; they lost the partly-built fort until 1862 (the Rebs abandoned it). They couldn't get southern bricks to finish the job, so dark-red northern bricks were brought in.



This little fort is a must-see--especially if you've visited Fort Gaines, its twin on Dauphin Island, Alabama. Its five walls form a clipped hexagon with a bastion at each corner. The longest wall--the gorge--has the only entrance, protected by a drawbridge.

Where most Third-System forts had guns protected by casemates built into thick solid-brick walls, Forts Clinch and Gaines had relatively thin walls, no casemates (except for storage along a single wall), and an earthen embankment ringing the parade ground. The forts' main armament would be mounted atop these embankments and on top of the bastions.

For all their similarities, Clinch and Gaines aren't identical twins; Clinch has that two-tone brickwork; some pretty hurried-looking masonry (wider mortar joints, less precision in placement); brick laid down where stone should have been; and a functional drawbridge.

It's also much closer to original condition than Gaines, which received a pair of large concrete gun emplacements in the late 1890s. Clinch only got a single (much less extensive) emplacement behind its northeast wall.

Another thing Clinch offers is a view. Climb on top and look around, and all you see is nature in any direction. Fernandina Beach is very close by, but thanks to the dense forest of the park you'd never know it. To the north is the river; to the east, the Atlantic. Gaines has plenty of water and trees around it, but there must be a dozen gas rigs near the mouth of Mobile Bay and out in the Gulf of Mexico.

I spent most of the morning exploring, taking pictures, shooting video. The wrap-up was a big group of WW2 reenactors demonstrating period firearms.

I didn't want to leave, but knew it was time. After a few minutes in the tiny bookstore (more of a camp store) and a dip in the Atlantic (and watching a surf-fisher bring in a 5-foot hammerhead shark), I headed south. Man, I could have used a nap, especially after the Ashtray Hilton the night before.

All the same things as on the ride to Jacksonville a few days earlier: long stretches of roadway that all looks the same bordered by trees that all look the same, passed by the same cars and trucks, passing the same exits in reverse.

The only excitement was a yellowfly biting me while I was trying to take a nap at a rest area (holy CRAP did it hurt). The little shit followed me out of my car and almost all the way to the restrooms. Maybe it found someone more tasty while I was in there; I never saw it again.

I usually stop in Tallahassee on any trip headed that way, but by the time I got to the Monroe Street exit, all I wanted to do was get the trip over with so I could sleep for a few weeks.

I made it to the house well after dark and abandoned the Tracker.

Never even got to use my damn tent.

Road Trip: Jacksonville, Pt. 2 (May, 2008)--St. Augustine & Fernandina Beach

As I rolled down US-1 toward St. Augustine, the clouds rolled in. By the time I made it to the parking lot in front of the Castillo de San Marcos, things were looking ugly to the west.

I didn't care about rain; I was more concerned about someone dropping the Tracker's plastic rear window and stealing my stuff. Didn't let that stop me from going into the fort.

Gorgeous place, well-preserved by the National Park Service. It's right on the waterfront of Matanzas Bay, bordered on the south and west by US-A1A. Across the bay is Anastasia Island, where the coquina stone for the fort was quarried. If you squint just right to the east you can see a sliver of the Atlantic.

It's not a big fort, but there's plenty to see. The entrance is protected by a ticket booth (I imagine British invaders shelling out five bucks a head to get in) and a pair of drawbridges joined by a ravelin in the moat before the south wall.

Once you're inside, you'll find a modest gift shop, plenty of centuries-old Spanish-style guns and architecture, and lots of room on top to wander around and enjoy the view. I spent most of an hour exploring the towers topping each corner and the arch-ceilinged rooms, snapping photo after photo [lost all but 4 in a computer crash a few months later]. Those clouds kept rolling in from the west, ever darker, and the winds rose. Thunder grumbled louder and louder.

By the time I got back to the Tracker, fat, cold drops of rain were falling; I had to pause, though, for one of the best pics I've ever taken--the Castillo behind its hill, crowned by clouds.



Then the bottom fell out of those clouds; I retreated to the car.

Time to head back north, to Fort Clinch near Fernandina Beach. The rain cleared as I got closer to Jacksonville. I knew better than to try getting onto I-95; it was close to rush hour and I didn't feel like playing "parking lot" with the other commuters. I'd planned ahead (once I found a store that sold freaking MAPS a few days earlier) and swung onto 9A north. I almost had the Dames Point Bridge to myself. The worst of the rain had blown past, but the skies were still gray.

I traded 9A for 17B, 2 lanes passing small communities and big marshes and places like Reni's Redneck Yacht Club. I barely noticed Yulee on the way through. All I wanted now was to get to Fort Clinch State Park, set up camp, and get some sleep before seeing the fort bright and early the next morning. My mind's eye imagining brick walls and graceful arches, I turned east on to FL A1A. It seemed like a long drive from there; but the road finally became 8th Street, took a hard left, and took me to Atlantic Avenue.

Almost there!

I got stuck behind someone who seemed to be sneaking up on her destination. Why, yes, there was oncoming traffic, so I couldn't go around her--how'd you guess?

When you're going slow enough for a Tracker to tailgate you in 3rd gear, you're going too slow. Just saying.

Then she stopped almost in the middle of the lane to let her kid out near a ballpark. I swear the kid was running faster than she'd been driving.

The folks in the westbound lane finally left enough of a gap for me to get past her.

Almost there! Over a causeway...past a stand of trees a few blocks long, on my left...missed the damn park entrance!

Got myself sorted out...and in short order, I was talking to the guy at the park entrance.

Remember that I'd planned to camp somewhere in the park--and remember that I mentioned a slight snag?

"I'm sorry, sir, all the campsites are full because of the Memorial Day weekend. But here's a list of other places that might have openings."

Road Trip: Jacksonville, Pt. 1 (May, 2008)

When I got picked to be on a store setup team in May of 2008, I was all over it. Not because I'd been dying to see Jacksonville--and not because I wanted to drive almost 400 miles to the other end of I-10. There are several forts close by--the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, and Fort clinch up in Fernandina Beach.

The store setup would take a week; I had to be in Jacksonville Sunday to check into the hotel, make it through to Friday, and then the weekend was mine!

I planned out the trip, made note of several campsites, and waited for Departure Day, May 18th.

Yeah, there was a slight snag to that plan. There always is, but I won't spoil it just now.

The 18th brought clear skies and plenty of heat. I was driving the Tracker with all the windows open and all my crap packed in back. The trip was a big test for the little truck; I'd rebuilt the engine the year before, bringing it from "ready for the scrap pile" to "slightly less ready for the scrap pile." For all the stuff I'd been able to fix, there were some more expensive things wrong with the engine.

For its part, though, there were no problems. I pulled 35 miles to the gallon the entire trip--and gas was around four bucks. Forty-four bucks to fill up a Tracker.

So anyway, I howled along I-10 (at 55 mph--the howling was the Tracker's engine and gears; it's a truck), made it to Tallahassee in late afternoon, stopped for dinner, took a short tour around my former home town, and got back to it. Nothing but miles of the same scene: gray concrete road, trees clear-cut way off to the sides, and clear blue sky. No radio, either. Man, that engine only seemed to get louder and louder until it was the only sound in the world.

It was close to 10 at night by the time I made Jacksonville, found the hotel, and got checked in. I was numb from hours in the seat and hours of engine noise. Waffle House first (across the parking lot; I walked), then bed.

May 19th was another bright, clear day. When I found the new store (several miles from the hotel in rush-hour traffic), it was already a beehive of activity, with boxes and shelving stacked everywhere, guys from the phone company trying to finish up their wiring, pallet-loads of car parts staged in the parking lot, and several big trash containers.

We had five days: the store would open for business on Saturday the 24th.

Most of the work is tedious; once the shelves had been set up, we started stocking them. Clutch kits, brake pads, brake hardware kits (holy crap, there was a lot of that), brake shoes, batteries, tune-up parts, air filters, oil filters, transmission filters, anything that's kept behind the counter. By Wednesday, we had knocked out almost all of that and started filtering out onto the sales floor to help the other crew. Cleaning products, air fresheners, light bulbs, more air filters, more oil filters, more batteries, jacks, tire repair, tools, signs, and floor displays. By late Thursday, the guys handling the boss end of things were acting nervous--holy crap, we're not going to be done in time!

If the days were hectic, the time after work was quiet. I spent some time in the pool, or just watching TV, too tired to explore Jacksonville or go very far afield for dinner. I had a room all to myself (my roommate never showed).

Friday morning brought some clouds and the threat of rain, but we only cared about pushing to get everything done. Nearly everything had been stocked, but there were little details, things that hadn't been accounted for, things that hadn't been stocked properly. We went up and down the aisles several times apiece, occasionally having to fix something, sometimes having to reset an entire 4-foot section because some numbskull had screwed it up. I pushed a broom around, then a dustmop, hoping it would finally be over soon.

They let us go a little after noon. We had filled the store (and several trash containers) and had emptied several loaded semi-trailers of parts and fixtures each day, dulled our knives on shrink-wrap, inhaled several pounds of warehouse dust, and somehow had the place ready to go.

Now I was ready to go. I'd loaded up the Tracker and checked out of the hotel, so I found my way over to US-1 and ran south to St. Augustine.

Road Trip: Stennis-Pike #1, part 3

(the final part of my Dec. 8, 2006 drive to Stennis Space Center and forts Pike and Macomb).

The setting sun lit my rear view mirrors in orange and pink as I bumped and juddered eastward on US-90. I was hoping at first to take it all the way to Biloxi, potholes or no, but I didn't make it far past the Mississippi line: it stopped at St. Louis Bay, where Hurricane Katrina's surge had toppled the US-90 bridge.

Oh, well. I found a little barbeque joint, had a damn good dinner, then went to K-Mart to look for something to close up the Tracker's rear window. Remember in part one, when I described how I was using fish hooks and bungee cord to hold the window up? Here's where that's important.

Remember that it was in the upper 20's when I left Pensacola, wind chill around zero, winds out of the west. That was daytime. Now the temperature was dropping and that wind was coming from behind. There were sizable gaps between the window and the rest of the Tracker's convertible top. Before I was even over the Mississippi line, I had my coat zipped up to my chin and was wearing my gloves. The truck's heater was full-on, but the heat wasn't going very far out of the vents before its own ass got cold.

So I went shopping. My inner MacGyver led me to get a map, some cheap shoelaces, and a pair of yellow terrycloth towels (the Tracker's yellow, that's why). I rolled the towels into long cylinders, bound them, and then tied them to the bungee cords so that they blocked the gaps as much as possible. Worked pretty well! [look in the Pike-Macomb group] Still cold as hell.

The map? Duh. Used it to find a way to I-10.

I made a short stop in Biloxi. Wanted to see the lighthouse. It's not very tall, but it's right in the middle of US-90, a short distance from the casinos and clubs. By now it was 9 p.m., but Biloxi was still working to recover from the enormous damage wrought by Katrina a year before. In the short distance along Highway 90 between the lighthouse and the wrecked bay bridge, I could see blocks and blocks of damaged or demolished homes and businesses. But right up on the waterfront, there were some open casinos with their attendant nightlife.

I headed back up to I-10, stopped briefly at Mobile's Battleship Park, took a few more pictures, and headed home.

Some Biloxi and Battleship pics are in the "Nighttime" group at my Flickr page.

Road Trip: Stennis-Pike #1, Part 2

Yup. I missed the last bus out to Stennis. Shrug. I hopped back in the Tracker after getting some pictures of the LEM display. Time to go to Fort Pike.

The Stennis exit from I-10 is only a few miles from the Louisiana border. A little further on, it bends southward...left on 190...wrecked boats, wrecked homes, a boat sitting upside down in a field...happy-looking homes to my right, families seemingly untouched by the hurricane a year past...dead-end into US-90, go right. At the time, there was an old, narrow steel bridge across the Rigolets (the southeast pass into Lake Pontchartrain) and a slowly-growing concrete flyover bridge that has since been completed. I was about halfway across the span when I spotted Fort Pike.

Pike's a small pie-slice of a fort--much smaller than Fort Pickens, but it's really all about location. If you look at this Fort Wiki page, you can see that there's no room for a larger structure on the tip of St. Catherine Island. Pike was intended to block the channel to the east between Lake Borgne (and the Gulf of Mexico) and Lake Pontchartrain.

It was in pretty bad shape. Hurricane Katrina's eye (2005) had rolled almost directly over the fort (just slightly east of it--but Mississippi and Alabama caught the worst of the storm in the teeth). There was a wide section of wall near the north corner that looked ready to fall out, plainly-visible damage to the bricks facing on the water (from boat wakes?), stagnant water in the landward moat. The place was still closed, pending repairs and cleaning. It reopened some 2-1/2 years after Katrina, only to be closed again by Hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008. It re-reopened in 2009, and since I've never been inside, it's time for another road trip!

I spent maybe an hour walking around outside, exploring and taking pictures (look for Pike & Macomb group). Aside from the sound of occasional cars, it was quiet and peaceful--one of the main things I like about these old buildings. A single pelican watched me from the water, which was calm despite the brisk wind. There was hardly a reminder of Katrina's violence, if I stood in the right place.

There were plenty of reminders, though, once I got back in the Tracker and rolled west along US-90 toward my next stop, Fort Macomb, just a few miles away at the other end of St. Catherine Island. Just a few hundred feet from the fort's parking lot, there were concrete slabs where houses had been...Maucle, Chagnard, Touche, Jacobs, Hassler, the streets were there, and the private boat slips, branches from a canal running south from the fort; we have a snapshot in Google Maps at Pike's Fort Wiki of the days and months after those houses were wiped and scraped and crushed into kindling. The entire length of the island looked like this...a standing house here, pilings sticking up like a convention of phone poles there...a burned-up excavator...portable toilets standing or scattered...boats seemingly parked on the side of the road, boats upturned or smashed in yards...downed trees...another narrow steel bridge ahead: Chef Menteur Pass. Across this is Fort Macomb.

This is another pie-slice-shaped fort, built along the same lines as Fort Pike, but it hasn't weathered the decades since its abandonment nearly as well. I couldn't get close enough to see much of its condition; there's a parking area between US-90 and the fort, but it was fenced off and I'm too much of a conformist to just hop or climb and go (maybe next time!). There used to be a marina along the south front; you can see the roof of it in the Google Map embedded in the fort's Wiki page. The entire ground-level of the building was torn out and half the slips contained sunken or half sunken boats hanging from their moorings. The marina lot had bits and pieces of other boats and--weirdest of all--the roof of a car. I still wonder if there was a car buried there and (this being Louisiana) who was in it.

I wandered around and took more pictures (remember--Pike & Macomb group)...and then there was the long drive home, coming in Part 3!

Road Trip: Stennis Space Center & Fort Pike, #1, part 1

This was the second-coldest day I've spent (second only to that bicycle ride to work) on the road as far as temperature, but this one seemed colder at times.

It was December of 2006; I'd been hoping to drive down to Kennedy Space Center to see the night-time shuttle launch sceduled for early that month. But things fell through with the other 3 guys who were supposed to be going, and I was the only one able to go--assuming I was willing to drive my '92 Tracker and camp in the damn thing.

If it were a hardtop, maybe. But it's a ragtop--and that zip-up rear window never zipped back after the one time I was able to get the zipper loose. I tried several things to at least make the window close up, if only to keep the neighbor's cats from shedding hair all over my seats. I ended up sewing bungee cords around the three free sides (the bottom is held to the tailgate by clips), then sewing fish-hooks with the barbs cut off to places around the opening.

Cats can't get in...but the weather isn't bothered. I have a tarp for that, but I can't drive the thing with the tarp up. That's an important detail.

Kennedy was out. I decided that I was going somewhere, but I didn't want to go to Fort Gaines or Fort Morgan. Had to be something new and reasonably close, so I picked Fort Pike in Louisiana and Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, just because it was on the way.

Dec. 8th dawned freaking cold, something like 27F with a wind chill below zero and 15-20 mile per hour winds gusting to 25 to 30 out of the west. I loaded up the Tracker, hit the highway, and cranked that heater all the way up.

Good thing I had a coat and gloves. The heat felt good right at the vent, but from where I was sitting it might as well have been off. At least I was driving into the wind--but every time an 18-wheeler passed me, covering me in shadow, the temperature in the Tracker went down 20 degrees.

Interstate 10 is dead boring, an endless double-ribbon stretched between metropoli (or what passes for them in Florida), with little to catch the eye. The most interesting sight is probably the approach to Mobile, Alabama, as you're coming across the bay. This was a year and change after Hurricane Katrina sent a sizable storm surge up Mobile Bay. There used to be restaurants, gas stations, and such at the mid-bay interchange between I-10 and Highway 90, but most of those were reduced to skeletal steel or pilings and loose planks. The battleship USS Alabama had been rocked a noticeable amount, and one of the interchange ramps was knocked off its pilings. Through the Wallace Tunnel, through Mobile, past the I-65 interchange, and I-10 settles back down to its boring gray sleep-inducing self. Across the line into Mississippi, remembering a bumper sticker--"Paddle faster! I hear banjos!"...over the Pascagula River...amusement at the ever-present casino billboards: "Welcome to Mississippi...now GAMBLE! GAMBLE! G A M B L E!!!!! Are you gambling yet?!"...interesting whisps of cloud, high up, catching my eye, and I try to get pictures, only to later realize that the camera was more interested in the Tracker's dirty window glass...Stennis is 11 miles away, now a mile...exit, a left, a right, winding access road to rest area.

Stennis Space Center's welcome center is part of the rest area. Not much there, aside from an impressive Apollo Lunar Module display, complete with the boot prints and signature of Apollo 13's Fred Haise.

The LEM looks pretty big when it's mounted several feet above your head. But it looks pretty small for something that took men down to the surface of an unfriendly moon much colder than I was feeling that day.

I was looking forward to seeing more and went to ask about the next bus to the Space Center itself.

Would you believe I missed the last farking bus? Yup. It left for the Center at 2:30 p.m. I probably passed it on the way into the rest area parking lot.

To Be Continued...

Pic of the Day: Saturn V at Michoud

This is what a '92 Tracker looks like when it's parked in front of the biggest, baddest, coolest rocket ever.

That's S-IC #15, the last one built at the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans, Louisiana, where it's on permanent display. If you follow the map link, click on "Satellite" view and move the view slightly down and left so you can see the facility's main gate (Michoud Facility Rd.). From there you can zoom in on the rocket stage itself.

The S-IC was just the first stage of the massive Saturn V launch vehicle. It makes up nearly half of the 365-foot total height of the rocket: 138 feet long, 33 feet in diameter. Each of those engine bells is about 14 feet wide at the mouth!

Michoud will soon produce its final External Tank for the Space Shuttle. Supposedly, the facility will be used for the Orion Command Module and Ares rocket system (the Shuttle's replacements--together they're a sort of Apollo II), but those don't seem to be moving along very well.