Update 7/28 8:37a: We’ve repurposed the trip into the most epic beer run ever.

Update 7/27: Flew into Jacksonville and picked up the minivan which is a light blue Chrysler Caravan. We’re calling it the Blue Beauty. Got the CB/WX radio installed for maximum information consumption as we make out trip northward. Here’s an image taken from the air, plus some HD footage taken from the plane:

The events this summer include a road trip from Jacksonville Florida to Bangor Maine to attend Jeff’s wedding. 6 of us are piling into a mini van for this epic 2,700 mile drive over the course of a week or so. I’m going to be adding updates to this post. Photos, video, etc. Our progress can also be tracked on the embedded Latitude module above. You can also follow along on twitter.

The fun starts tomorrow afternoon when I fly out to Jacksonville. Check back often!

There seems to be a bit of sludgy debris in the cooling system which was probably stirred up with the replacement of the water pump. The temperature read a bit high during the first 50 miles or so of driving, but has normalized since then. A flush may need to happen soon. That seems to be the only major issue. At 38,000 miles, the Acclaim should have some good driving time left in it.

Update 9:00p: We have a long drive ahead of us tomorrow. The car has been driven around town off and on today. It feels strong. We’ll be stopping about half-way in Johnson City to visit a friend. Hopefully we’ll make it back home before dark.

Update 11:30a: The Acclaim is in hand. It needs a good scrubbing, but everything runs smooth. The location we picked the car up from had a Tesla Roadster sitting in one of the bays. Very cool. That’s te closest I’ve been to a Tesla. I think it’s presence is a good sign for the Acclaim acquisition.

The Acclaim is without spare tire and locating a spare wheel on a Saturday is a challenge. May hit up a junk yard. More to come.

Update 6:30a: The plane awaits: http://twitpic.com/16xmrp An Acclaim fun fact: The Acclaim was rated third in reliability behind Accord and Camry in 1995.

We’re flying up to Baltimore in the morning to pick-up and turn right back around with a 1995 Plymouth Acclaim with only 38,000 miles on the odo.

It’s a unique find, but ultimately will extend the life of the Mooth fleet as all three of our vehicles are at the 150,000 mile mark. The Taurus will likely be retired.

Hopefully updates to this post will be frequent as we make our way to Baltor and back with our new old car.

Unfortunately, Nissan wasn’t showing off the motor or the battery pack tonight. That will have to remain a mystery for the time being.

We’ll be camping without access to the power grid, so I’m working on a solar setup to charge batteries and maybe power a small electrical device or two. We’ve got a 100 watt solar panel tied to a cigarette/car outlet for plugging in DC devices. I have a 100 watt DC to AC inverter that will be tested. So far, the solar panel will power the inverter, but with a lack of sun this past week, I haven’t been able to draw enough energy to power an AC device off the inverter. With the way the weather forecast looks, we may not see any sun while we’re down there.

Last year, with several thousand people at the track, AT&T’s data network was very spotty. So updates are all dependent on AT&T having gotten their network together. But weather and crappy networks aside, the race will be lots of fun!

More to come with pics of our setup once we get to Road Atlanta.

Driving distance using a car is 15 miles leaving at 8:10am taking roughly 25-30 minutes in the morning, 30-45 minutes in the afternoon. (Leaving around 5:30pm.)

The bus requires driving my car 3 miles to get to the nearest stop in the morning. Once on the bus, one transfer in downtown Nashville is required, adding on an extra 5 miles for a total of 20 miles one way. I would have to be at the stop at 6:30am in order to get to my final stop at 8:15am then add another 10 minute walk after that, putting me at work at my normal time of 8:30am.

To get home I would have to leave work at 4:00pm to catch the last run back to La Vergne arriving at my final stop at 5:45pm. This results in a 6.5 hour work day.

So, riding the bus results in a much longer commute, and assuming my calculations are correct, fare costs nearly twice as much compared to driving. $3.50/day vs. $6.13/day. That’s using a 31 day pass for the route in Nashville, plus the special fare to ride the Murfreesboro/Nashville line(96X) from La Vergne into downtown. The 96X fare isn’t included in the 31 day pass.

The cars had Tennessee Manufacturer/Dealer plates and judging by their route I’d guess they must have been shipped to the Nissan plant in Smyrna and were being driven up to Nissan North America Headquarters in downtown Nashville.

What amazing looking cars. The large diameter on the exhausts is unexpected, but noticeably imposing. The cars were being driven ultra conservatively (40mph in a 45) so I was unable to hear much from the engines.

I caught just a brief glimpse of the front of the red one, but not enough to really form an opinion. I followed behind them for several miles but ultimately had to turn off as they continued into downtown.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have my good Nikon with me, but here are a couple shots from my camera phone.

The last few weeks I’ve been consciously trying to limit diving time. Planning out errands more carefully and trying to let up on the accelerator after coming to a stop.

Prices are brutal. Another dollar, maybe two per gallon, and I think we’ll really start to see some noticeable effects. Prices of goods climbing even higher, maybe even less people on the road.

A lot of people keep pointing to the high prices in Europe as a way of saying “We don’t have it that bad at all!” I know European fuel prices have always been higher than U.S. prices. My question is, have their prices tripled in the last few years like ours have or have European prices stayed level?

Regardless, even though Europe pays more, they also consume differently. A very large percentage of cars sold in Europe have diesel engines, which automatically doubles(or more) your fuel economy. Supposedly public transportation is also far, far more advanced than what we offer ourselves here.

This morning, dude in front of me in a Caddy decided to whip around from the far-right lane into the far-left lane cutting people off in the process. All for no real reason, of course. Metro just happened to be the car behind me at the time. The police car slowly and calmly made its way from the right lane over to the far-left and proceeded to pull the Caddy over.

A couple weeks ago in the same stretch I was riding with the flow of traffic when someone flew by at about 70 (45mph speed limit on a six lane highway). At the bottom of the hill was Metro(not running radar) but saw what was happening and proceeded to bust the guy.

This instant vindication is quite nice.

Anyone in the Murfreesboro/Nashville area looking to have work done on German autos should give European Automotive a call.

They were the third place I took the Jetta trying to get an exhaust issue taken care of. (Third time is a charm.) They were able to diagnose and fix the problem quickly and the Jetta has never run so well. Seriously, it feels better at 127,000 miles than it did at 36,000 when I bought it.

EA was super knowledgeable and several weeks later everything is still as it should be!