3000 MILES IN A 9C1

What an adventure. On Feb. 2 we started a trip to the British Motor Trade Association's annual "trade show," which was held in Daytona, Fla., this year. We decided to make the trip (just under 3,000 miles) in my 1989 Chevy 9C1 cop car. What an adventure!

We thought we were going to beat the GREAT SNOWSTORM of 2011 but it could up to us just outside of Bloomington, Ill. At about the same time our heater/defroster motor stopped blowing. We had to come off the Interstate "blind," watching the white lines to stay on the road.

That night brought 12-18 inches of snow. The next morning we looked for a place that could fix the car, but the city was shut down. The Interstate going north was closed and they lined the streets of Bloomington with semis. Never saw anything quite like it.

The next morning we checked fuses and the coolant level. Everything was OK, so we started looking for a repair shop. No luck. Almost ever business in town was closed. Luckily, Wal Mart opened, so we drove there, bought a plug in defroster and, after checking with truckers, we started south.

The highway was drifted, but we went slow. We passed 21 semi trucks in the ditch. We passed the National Guard leading a convoy of trucks north with their military vehicles. We passed three different fleets of ultility trucks going north to re-power Chicago.

Eventually we made our way to Effingham, Ill., home of Mike Yager's Mid America Motorworks. We stopped to ask for help and Kenny Yager took the car to their install center where he checked the thermostat (it was fine) and the blower motor. Kenny said those motors rarely go bad and he was right. The problem was a loose wire. After it was fixed, everything worked fine.

We got through Kentucky and kept going until we were on the Western outskirts of Nashville. That's where we stopped for the night. What an adventure. The '89 Caprice did very well and we were ready to travel on to Florida.

Stay tuned here for the next leg of the trip.