New HD Dash Cam & An Upgrade Under The Hood

AAAAHH! The great outdoors. I absolutely LOVE this time of year! The weather starts to turn cool & crisp. The leaves start to change color. We start to get a little more rain. I just love it!

It’s so nice out, it’s almost worth recording video where ever I go. That’s what got me thinking about dash cams. You know what I’m talking about. We’ve all seen the video footage coming out of Russia with all the Road Rage fights & car crash compilations. If I’m not mistaken, I think that just about every car in Russia has a dash cam. Not because they are mandatory, unless of coarse you want to protect yourself from the crooked police. People think the police out here are bad? If you don’t have video proof of what happened, who knows what could happen over there. That’s what I’m told anyway…

So I thought it might be cool to get one. I think it’s a great idea to have one for multiple reasons. But I had almost no knowledge about them. So off to google & Amazon for some research. It became quickly apparent that I would be getting one as they were well within my financial limitations. I did a little research and decided on the Rexing V1 with a 2.4″ screen. It had all the features that appealed to me & when Mounted up behind the rear view mirror, you don’t even remember it’s there. I made a quick review style video show actual footage & audio from the Rexing V1 itself. You can check it out here…

Sorry if it seems like I’m repeating myself a lot in the video. I shot the footage at different times & I’ve never edited video before. I’m hoping to share more of the interesting things I see while on the road with this new addition. Hopefully nothing too exciting…

I finally got around to doing a little updating under the hood. No, it’s the Stock Life for me. So I didn’t drop a turbo or supercharger in it, or anything of the sort. While I was filming the undercarriage video I noticed how bad the hood insulator looked. While Chris wrapped up my service, I went over to the parts department & ordered a new one with all new clips. Not pretty at all. Once it was off, it looked better. But not good enough to douse my OCD. So a spray bottle of Simple Green & my scrub brush & a hose down, I went from this…To this…Of course all that cleaning the underside of the hood just transferred the mess to the motor, so I did a quick clean off of the engine bay as well…And the finished product….A little over exposed, but you get the idea. I read that some people put sound deadening pad on the underside of their hoods to keep engine noise down. I admit, I thought about it  for about 10 seconds. But my TSX is already pretty quiet inside, & besides, who doesn’t want to hear when the Vtec kicks in?

Short & sweet guys. The Eagle Eye viewers may have an idea of the next upgrade for the TSX, as it’s in plain sight in the video at the 11:35 mark. It’s visible all around this time.

So I hope everyone has a wonderful & safe weekend & we’ll see you again real soon!

510,000 Mile Undercarriage Walk Around & More

It’s been over a month since my last update, so it’s over due to let you guys know what’s been going on. Basically just more work. But I did have another oil change done. I was thinking it was also time to replace the spark plugs, since they’re 100k platinum plugs, but after looking into it, they didn’t need replacing last time until 460k & when Acura Tech Chris Downs pulled them for the compression test, they still looked pretty good. So no plugs needed for now. I’ve been slacking off on getting the most recent service invoices up on here. So lets catch up on that first.

First up is the last of the 400k era…

495k-oil-change

I was extremely busy around this time, so I went as long as 7,500 miles before the next oil change. It was also time for rear brakes again. We turned the rotors, but they ended up being too thin, So I had to replace them for the first time. So this time in was a little bit spendy. But a dude needs to stop, right?

tsx-rear-brake-rotors

After another 7,500 miles, it was time for the most recent oil change…

While it was up in the air, I thought it might be a good idea to check out the undercarriage & see what we could find after half a million miles. Chris Downs was once again performing the maintenance on my car, so I took advantage to get some questions from readers answered from Chris Downs, Acura Master Tech (A.K.A. Beard Sexy). Here’s the video…

Please forgive the quick movements & jerky camera work. This was also done in one take. I didn’t want to keep Chris’s rack occupied any longer longer than I had too. He had 4 or 5 vehicle to work on after mine. So I’m afraid the video (after review) is less than awesome. But I do want to clarify one thing in the video. When I’m talking about not having a rust issue like those back East, I’m referring to body rust. Obviously not the exhaust. I’m sure I’ll get tons of comments on that from people that just found the video online & don’t read my blog.

On a sad note, Part of my favorite stretch of road had recently succumb to fire. The one hour stretch from Idaho City to Lowman on State Hwy 21 has been crawling with Firefighters doing their best to contain the fires. Here are some pics from the area.It was a bunch of small fires spread out all over the place. Which I found quite bizarre. But I’m no fire expert for sure. But the aftermath sure is sad…There were also sections of road stained red from the fire retardant being dropped by the fire planes & helicopters… Luckily, the fires were just along this one stretch of road. About 15 minutes north of Lowman, things went back to the usual beautiful scenic awesomeness!

I’ve been getting antsy lately & been thinking of all kinds of things. From getting another car, to a new pet, to even buying a new house. I think I just need a change of pace, or a hobby or something. So I decided to start doing some upgrades & additions to the TSX on the weekends now that I have time for such projects. These will follow in future blogs & videos. I personally am not a fan of people posting cool things that they’ve done to their cars, but not sharing what they got & how. So I’ll be teaching myself some basic video editing so that I’ll be able to share the projects I undertake & how I did them. Unless they’re extremely simple and a brief explanation will do. So look for those in the future.

To end this update, I just wanted to let you know that the TSX is keeping some famous company…Anybody recognize this Hummer? This particular Hummer’s owner, is the one responsible for giving civilians the opportunity to own these awesome vehicles. It belongs to Arnold Schwarzenegger. I was up in the Ketchum, ID area looking at a vehicle at a tow yard in this small & beautiful town. There are actually quite a few celebrities that have homes in this small ski town. Bruce Willis, Demi Moore, Tom Hanks, Arnie & more.

I’ve seen this Hummer H1 in pictures before in articles about the Governator. I also know that the owner of this particular tow yard/ mechanic shop & Arnie have been friends for a long time. I was at this same place years ago in the winter & saw a x-mas card with a picture of Arnies entire family on the shelf (you don’t see that every day). So when I pulled into the lot I was almost certain it was his. I knew for sure when I was inside. The keys were sitting on the counter & I turned the tag over, snuck a peek & sure enough, there was the mans name. Pretty cool. It will likely be the closest I ever come to meeting some one that famous. It sure was a clean ride. I wish I could afford one. But I’d still rather have my ’97 Spa Yellow on Black NSX. I guess I should start polishing my Pennies either way.

Oh, one last thing. The Princesses RDX had another service a little while ago.

rdx-35k-oil-change

She’s since surpassed the 40,000 mark.

I’m also happy to report that the RDX has been trouble free so far. She still loves it!

That wraps it up for this update. I hope everyone is doing well out there & Thanks for stopping by!

The Heeltoe Difference

Some of my long time readers know that I struggle with work load. It can be overwhelming sometimes. People need their cars or property inspected and reports have to be completed so these people can get back to their lives. So I end up working evenings and weekends… a lot! In this line of work, it can be hard to find balance in life. But recently I’ve decided that I’m tired of living to work. So I will only work up to 1 hour extra per weekday above the regular 8-5, & no more working weekends!

The reason I bring this up, is so that my readers know why it sometimes takes weeks to update this blog. Life is hectic & sometimes more than others. But now that I’m taking weekends off, I finally had time to clean the interior of the TSX & Good Gravy, did it need it!I’ve been living in the car again & it showed. The last time I clean the inside was months ago, & I only cleaned the front (Oh the Humanity!) So the back was horrible. Especially considering that no one ever sits back there. To illustrate how rarely anyone is ever in the back seats, I just recently ( a few months ago at Lowe’s) discovered that the rear seats fold down with the turn of the key in the package tray. How sad is that? But on the flip side, even after 11 years, my car still has some surprises for me!

However, when I let the seats down in the Lowe’s parking lot, this is what I found… I never thought of myself as OCD, but I’ll admit, I had an impulse to march right back into Lowe’s & buy some rags & cleaning supplies right then & there. But it quickly passed and a couple months later, here we are. A bucket of clean warm water, a plastic brush, a bottle of Simple Green, & 3 hours later, the interior was again squeaky clean. I think next time I’ll take the front seats out & have my brother shampoo the carpet complete. Maybe even take the package tray out and give that a good blast as well. but that’s for another day.

It is now finally time to show you what I got from Heeltoeauto.

After the interior was cleaned up, I was finally able to install it. What is “it”? I bought the Basic OEM Wood Grain Dash Kit. I always liked the way they looked. The “Full” kit seems way too busy for me, as likely most will agree…I appreciate the contrast in the TSX interior. Dark on top & Lite on the bottom, & I wanted to stick with that.

I was a little worried if I would be able to get my hands on one of these kits. They are after all, an 11 year old OEM accessory kit. I looked around online & they are out of stock on just about every site I found. Even on the sites that said they had them, after calling or emailing produced the same results…don’t have them/can’t get them. I even called my local Acura Dealer (which I have a wholesale account with in the parts department) & they said they would be hard pressed to find one for me. But Marcus at Heeltoeauto said he could get one, & he delivered. I even got the kit for less than I would have thru my wholesale account at Acura. I only waited about a week or so before it showed up on my doorstep. I want you to consider that for a second… everywhere else was out of stock, or would need several weeks just to “try” to locate this out of production OEM kit. Heeltoeauto found one, had it shipped to their location, repackaged it, & shipped it to me all within about a week and a half! Needless to say I was impressed. It’s no wonder there’s so much good word on the internet about Marcus & his people at Heeltoeauto from all the Acura/Honda fans.  BOOM! Just like that, They Nailed It!

Since the kit did not come with any instructions, I watched a couple YouTube videos for some tips, & went to work. First it was suggested that I clean the soon to be, covered surface with some rubbing alcohol. Even tho I just cleaned the inside, I did anyways, & I’m glad I did…I went over the area 3 times to be sure everything was up so I would get a nice strong adhesion.  I took my time & did it right the first time. I started with the back doors as no one would ever be back there to criticize any screw ups. I’m pleased as to how it came out. I like the new look. Here are some before & after pics.

Rear Doors…

 

Front Doors…

Center Console…

I love the way the kit looks installed. But I’ll admit, the basic kit appears to be unfinished missing this one piece above the shift knob…You’ll notice that the lower cubby door cover has been installed crooked. That’s because The Princess & Little Man came home from errands as I was installing the last few pieces. Luke wanted to sit in the car & watch as I finished up, Which I was fine with. As I was installing the lower cubby door, my right arm was blocking his view & he apparently couldn’t see all the action, so right as I was laying it in place, instead of just leaning forward for a better view, he grabbed my arm to move it out of his way. I tried re-positioning it, but the 2 sided tape had already taken hold enough to where I didn’t want to chance it. I was extremely irritated at the time, but now looking at this picture I can’t help but smile. Luke has once again made his mark on one of my projects. I’m willing to bet that this wont be the last time either. My eye tends to gravitate to this misalignment, but now when ever it does, I’ll think of my son & I can’t help but love that little man.

Many thanks to Heeltoeauto.com for getting this rare kit for me to celebrate the rolling of 500,000 miles. I’ve since decided that for every major milestone henceforth, I’ll be ordering something from Heeltoeauto to celebrate the occasion! The next milestone will be the surpassing of Tyson Hugies Legend Coupe which is currently at 544,457. I may have to get something for Tyson that day as well, for it will be a sad day in Hugieville for sure! But at least he’ll have his new 5 car garage to cry the blues in. Haha…

Next week I’ll be updating maintenance & sharing what happened to my favorite stretch of road recently.

Shout out to Instagram follower xprehnz from British Columbia. Rolling hard in a ’08 TSX & a ’05 RSX. The Silver Bullets!

Thanks for stopping by!

500,000 Mile Compression & Dyno Test Results

FINALLY!!!

I’ve been so busy with work lately I haven’t had time for anything else. I’ve been trying to update this blog for weeks, with no luck. I still in fact have 2 reports to write up & 3 more I saw today. But it’s Friday night & it’s ME time. At least for now.

So it’s time to share the results from my recent compression test & dyno test on the TSX. We’ll start with the compression test. I’ve never had one done before, which would have been nice for a comparison, but, well….hind sight & all. So I’m told by my tech that for my TSX, optimum compression should be between 170psi (lowest) to 210psi (highest). Here’s the results…compression test

As you can see, Chris, during testing wrote in 175psi for cylinders 1&2, & 180psi for cylinders 3&4. Not bad. He said he was pretty surprised by the outcome of the test.

As for the Dyno test, well, that was also a new experience for me. I’ve never had one done before either. I’ve seen videos like everyone else I’m sure, so I kind of knew what to expect.

First, I had to locate a place to do it. Luckily I found one not to far away.

For a nominal $80, I had her tested. The guys here at Motor Mayhem were great. Jaime was the tech that helped me out with my test. It took him longer to secure the car than it did to actually do the test. 

For those out there that have never done a Dyno test before, it’s actually pretty cool. But if your vehicle is almost 12 years old, with the original drive train that currently has over 500,000 miles on it, add a little terror in the mix as well. So how it goes is that they secure your car over the rollers, hook it up to the computer & establish a baseline. Then they start to drive on the rollers until it hits 3rd gear to 3,000 rpm’s. At this point they hit a button on a remote & at the same time, floor the accelerator until redline. We did several runs & I’ll be honest, it was cool. But watching my car redline over & over was a little scary too. I kept waiting to hear an angry “POP” & weeze. But it never happened. 

The video below is the last (& best) run we did. There was another guy in the background unfortunately doing some grinding, so it’s hard to hear the TSX. But standing right next to it in person, it was still pretty impressive. Even for a stock TSX. Check it out here…

dyno test1

As you can see on the Dyno Test print out above, the TSX is still putting out about 160hp. Which surprised me, as I was only expecting about 150hp. Not awesome numbers, but for my particular circumstances, not to shabby either! I was pleasantly surprised with both tests. She still has it!

It’s not all good news for the Old Girl though, I’ve been seeing an awful lot of this lately…

Sadly, I do believe the NAV has cashed in its chips. I may try getting another used disc to swap out to see if it makes a difference, but I’m not getting my hopes up. I’ve been using GoogleMaps on my phone the last couple weeks & beside draining my cell battery like a bucket with a hole in it, it’s been working pretty well.

Like I said, things have been busy & I’ve been stacking the miles on the TSX. She’s taking it like a champ so far. I’ll update again in a couple weeks when hopefully things slow down a little. I need to post the last few service invoices. 

I also need to update on what I got from HeelToe. That will be coming soon as well!

I hope everyone is doing well out there & staying safe!

Shout out to euro_warmachine_r following me on Instagram from Orlando FL.

Sweet ride Man!

 

 

 

Q & A , & Walk Around

A week has gone by since the big day & it seems like I’ve been living in the car this week. Almost 1,700 miles worth in fact. Life is not slowing down the Old Girl. I’ve been to Fields, OR – Burley, ID – Twin Falls, ID (twice) – Emmett, ID & other local areas & Salmon, ID. If you take the time to look up these places in mapquest, or google maps, you’ll see that these places are no where near Boise. Hence, almost 1,700 miles in a week. Luckily, it’s a 3 day weekend & the only road time the TSX is seeing is back & forth to Lowes to wrap up some last minute stuff around the house before the Princess (allegedly) comes home.

Since my last post I’ve gotten a lot of different questions about the car & my future plans. I did a walk around video talking about some of the most common questions I’ve had recently. If you’re ready for the video, here ya go…

Some of things that I forgot to cover in the video that I’ve been asked a bunch is Q: If I plan on notifying Corporate Acura about my story & if I’d heard anything from them? A: Yes I have, Thru their Facebook page as well as direct emails to individuals working at Corporate, & no I have not heard, as of yet, anything back from them. I’m sure they’re all quite busy & lets be honest… Some guy just a few months ago put 1,000,000 miles on a 2007 Tundra! I mean, I thought I drove a lot….geez. Sadly I’m afraid the 500,000 mile benchmark may just not be that impressive anymore. (on a corporate level anyway)

Q: Do I plan to keep her on the road or retire her? A: I plan on keeping her on the road until the motor blows. Or some other devastating occurrence happens, at which time I will evaluate & make a call.

This is a very common one, mostly from people new to my blog, car, story – Q: What all have you had to replace & what kind of maintenance would you recommend for me to get similar results? What kind of oil do you use? A: See the 2 links below…

The first 350,000 miles of maintenance records.

Things I’ve had to replace by year of ownership/mileage

(Scroll down to the Orange McLaren. You shall Find what you seek there.)

Like I mentioned in the video, I’m having a compression & dyno test done to see how the motor is holding up after half a million. I’m very curious to see the results. I’ll update when I find out.

Since I haven’t had a lot of time, I’m still looking thru what all HeelToe has for my car. I’ve found a couple things that I like & will be deciding on something very soon. They have a ton of stuff for our TSX’s so it’s taken a while to look thru everything. I would love to get an A-Spec lip kit & a spoiler (Mugen or otherwise) fog lights, some of those sweet JDM headlamps with the clear lenses… Hell, I’ll like to get all the little dings fixed & a complete paint, but after just putting a bunch of money into home projects, I can’t afford anything grandiose like that right now. But I’ll let you guys know what I end up getting.

I hope this post answers most of your questions. If you still have some, feel free to sound off in the comments & I’ll do my best to answer them.

Stay safe out there & Thanks for stopping by!

500,000 Miles & My First Road Trip!

So, have I hit 500,000 miles on my 2005 Acura TSX you ask?    As a matter of fact…

NAILED IT!!!

6/25/16 around 4:45pm approximately 1.2 miles from my house in Kuna, ID it finally happened.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all the little people that made this possible…

OK, seriously, I would like to thank some people…

• Once again I’d like to thank Acura. For building a quality car that was fun enough, & comfortable enough to be worth putting a half a million miles on over the last 11 & 1/2 years.
• Lyle Pearson Acura Service. All members past & present, for keeping me on the road all these years and blazing a trail for all TSX owners.
• All my readers who have followed me on this journey & contributed to the blog by sharing stories, comments, etc…
• Tyson Hugie. The one who encouraged me to not only to start the blog, but to keep it up these last few years. Contributing with ideas, time & video collaboration. (Without him, my readers would likely never have seen the wonders of Japanese guys in white lab coats rolling tires down an Olympic Ski Jump on YouTube.)

Which brings me to a dedication. The following recollections, (I was going to use “memories” here, but after re-reading, it made him sound like he was dead, & he’s NOT) are dedicated to my Cousin Benny, who not only was the one I went on my first real road trip with, but once upon a time, had his heart set on putting 500,000 miles on his own 2000’ish Honda Accord Coupe many moons ago.

My First Road Trip:

This all started with my cousin Benny. When we were teenagers, everything was black or white with Benny. There was no “gray” or middle ground. For example, if my cousin Benny went out & bought himself a 60 count pack of Crayola Crayons, there would be 30 black, & 30 white. If you got in an argument with Benny, it was like arguing with a brick wall. As long as the brick was painted black, or white. So when he first approached me about going on a road trip when we lived in Southern California, I was a little hesitant, maybe even a little scared of what he had it mind. Turns out my gut was right. He wanted to do 4-corners.

Now, you may be thinking “Big deal!  From So. Cal. 4-Corners (where the borders of Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, & Colorado meet) isn’t that bad.” No, No my friends. I mean, what the kids now call “EPIC”, as in 4-CORNERS! Murrieta, CA, Key West, Niagara Falls, Seattle & home again 4-corners. Home being Murrieta, CA at the time.  4-Corners meaning, roughly 9,000 miles and a MONTH on the road. Remember, 30 black, 30 white. Go on the Mother of all road trips, or don’t go at all. This proposal was made when he was 16 years old! Obviously his parents were not cool with this. So we put it off. I’m sure it was his parents hope that he would forget about it & move on to something else. (30 black, 30 white)

Of course his folks were just fooling themselves, because, not long after he turned 18, he informed his parents that we were still going on this road trip, & it would happen in Oct of 1994. That’s something else I want you to ponder for a couple minutes. 1994. I was 19 years old. Benny was 18 years old. In 1994 ANY kind of cell phone was pretty rare, much less a smart phone. The internet was still in its primordial stages. Growing its first stubby little legs and crawling out of the swamp & taking its first breaths of the stinging cool air.

It was a United States Road Atlas, $1,000 each, a primitive cell phone borrowed from a friend for “emergencies” only (“emergencies” meaning to call home at least once a week so the Moms wouldn’t have a stroke, or if we scored some jail time), & a freshly painted 1982 Z28 Camaro named “The Red Baron” .With a non-functioning cruise control, that once set would continue to climb to sub orbital lift off speeds, & no windshield wipers. I don’t mean that they didn’t work, I mean, they weren’t on the car. Unnecessary drag, Rain-Ex Dude! (30 black, 30 white)

Once I somehow managed to convince my Boss at the time to keep my job open for me when I came back, on a cool crisp morning we packed up The Red Baron & headed out. This is what the trip looks like on Mapquest today…

It’s way too long of a trip to recount the entire thing, even if I could remember all of it. But I will review some of the things I do remember…

I DO remember staying at The Glass Pool Inn (if you ever want to stay in a place that has a strong vibe of hookers & murders, then this is the place for you!), & eating 7 plates worth of food at the buffet in the Excalibur Hotel while in Las Vegas, & the waitress clearing our table halfway thru because she had thought we had finally had our fill at plate #4.

I remember seeing the Hoover Dam & the Grand Canyon for the first time.

I Remember staying at the Camelot Inn, in Amarillo, TX. It was actually pink when we stayed there…

I remember us taking one of Benny’s “short cuts” on a state highway in Louisiana & Benny got pulled over. Somehow Benny was out of the car & the cop was explaining that California was not a “Compact State” (I think that’s what he called it) basically meaning that if the officer issued us a ticket & let us go & we didn’t pay it, Louisiana would contact California looking for help. California’s response would be “Go pound sand.” So the officer gave Benny some options…

Option#1…Follow the officer back to the station (a 20 mile backtrack) and pay said ticket.

Option#2…Ride with the officer back to the station enjoying the comforts of his back seat & have The Red Baron impounded.

Now, I’m sitting in the passenger seat with the windows down listening to all this, when, & I kid you not, Benny starts asking the officer questions. Benny needed more info. So he asked questions like…”If we ride with you, can we run the siren?” & “What do you serve for breakfast?” I’ll never forget sitting on the side of that highway at 11pm or so, shaking my head listening to this conversation thinking… I’m going to jail.

After Benny finished questioning the officer on the possible perks of being arrested, he agreed to follow the kind officer back to the station after all. I say “kind”, because if I were the officer, I would have shot Benny. At this point Benny gets back in the car, looks at me & says “Lets ditch him.” He was serious too. In the 30 seconds or so it took the cop to turn off his roof lights & start a U-turn, Benny & I discussed the likelihood of us actually ditching this cop. Discussing things like, it’s dark out. We have no idea where the roads go, we’re completely unfamiliar with the area. The Red Baron will never outrun radio signals, & how many bored Louisiana cops would love to pursue two California boys in a bright red Camaro? I mean, You’ve seen the movie Deliverance, right? Reluctantly, Benny made the U-turn. My cousin is stubborn, but not a moron. Benny refused to drive not 1 mile an hour over the posted speed limit after that night for the remainder of the trip. (30 black, 30 white)

I remember planning to be beach bums in Key West for a week, but upon getting there, it wasn’t much like we expected. (Remember, no internet for research, ratings, nothing. Everywhere we went, we were totally winging it. We couldn’t call ahead to book motel rooms, see which restaurants were any good, want Chinese food? Either stop & find a pay phone & check the phone book & then locate it on the road atlas, or drive around until we stumble across a Chinese restaurant, & so on…) I don’t remember which island we ended up on, but it was mostly seawall & the small beach we did find was coral rock on one side in the water & fish deposits on the other side. So we snuck into one of the fancy hotels nearby and enjoyed the swimming pool and spa for a while discussing a plan B. Which was, after Epcot & Disney World, to spend the extra time with Grammy in GA. (I’m on the right, Benny on the left) Then to Dad’s place in North Carolina followed by friends & family in PA.

I remember standing on top of one of the Twin Towers, World Trade Center in NY. Breathing in some of the most toxic air I’ve ever seen, followed by Niagara Falls. One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Then enjoying the much clearer view from the then called Sears Tower in Chicago. You could actually feel the building swaying in the wind.

I remember the nonstop drive from Chicago, to Bellingham, WA. Stopping in the middle of the night somewhere in North Dakota to marvel at the band of the Milky Way in the sky. I still to this day, have never seen so many stars & felt so small. We spent a few days with a friend in Bellingham & then headed south to wrap up the trip. We pretty much split everything down the middle, 50/50. The entire trip with food, gas, motel & even Disney World & Epcot Center cost us around $750 each.

Spending 30 days straight in an ’82 Camaro with the same person can be a challenge with any company. When the trip was over, Benny & I didn’t speak for 6 months. Not because we were mad at each other. We just had our fill for a while. After that time elapsed, we got together & shared the pics from our multiple Kodak disposable cameras and talked about the trip. (despite being invented in 1975, there were no such thing as digital cameras as we know them today back then either…Gasp! A “selfie” back then was…well, never mind.)

Sadly, a few years later, this was the fate of The Red Baron… A noble steed, sent to pasture.

Once upon a time, I had lots of pictures from this trip. I spent 2 hours scouring the house trying to find them. The pictures above are all I could find. They’ve been scanned for your viewing enjoyment on all the latest laptops, tablets & smartphones.

So what does the future hold for tsxtravels? I’m not really sure, to be honest. Now that I’ve hit my goal of 500k, which was the whole point of this adventure, I may keep it going for another year & then hang it up. I really can’t say for sure. Running a business & having a 3-year-old son is pretty time consuming as it is, & with Luke being gone for over a month now, has reminded me of how little time I have with him at this stage in his life. I DO know that I plan on keeping the TSX on the road until the motor blows up. So maybe I’ll keep an open journal until them. I guess we’ll take it one week at a time. Another thing I do know for sure is that now that the TSX has worked its little mechanical heart out to get me to bask in the  glory of the 500k club. It deserves something a little special. I’ve heard nothing but good things about https://www.heeltoeauto.com/ on both the TSX Facebook groups & Acurazine. So after I post this, I’m going to check out their website & see if I can find a little something for the ‘Ol Girl. I’m keeping her stock, so I won’t be dropping a turbo in her or anything, just a little accessory or something to celebrate the occasion. I’ll let you know what I end up getting.

 

Oh, & the surprise prize? This sweet etched glass plaque…(I put my mouse pad behind it to make it easier to read) Tyson was able to actually hand this to me when he just happen to be blowing thru town for the big event! Tyson was buying yet another Acura for his collection. The boy just can’t help himself!It was accompanied by hand written notes of congratulations & friendship. Thank You Tyson & Jason! It’s very cool! (shout out to my awesome neighbor for coming out & snapping this pic of the occasion)

Thanks again to all of you from all over the world that has followed me here, Facebook & Instagram! A special shout out to benopoly on Instagram & his Black Beauty following me all the way from New Zealand! What a sweet Accord Euro R CL7 doing its thing & making Auckland a better place.

Thanks everybody! Stay safe & see you again soon!

Peace out & stuff…

500 Miles To Go & The Green Monster

Wasn’t going to post a 500, but got an email today I wanted to share & figured, Why Not?

When your Acura Service Manager has a better life than you…

http://acuralaunchtraining.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=25e6dc4fd2dd02099f578a779&id=5404eb41e6&e=cf61f01b2e

The jealousy is REAL.

500 to go!

See you again real soon!