[kerber63]

The project was almost wrapped up and a buddy of mine invited me on a rod run up to Portland for the annual portland transmission run. I said sure, it would be good to start putting some miles on it. I had been driving it around for a while working the little bugs out and had about 30 miles on it. So I buzzed up to Salem to meet the group, and I was definitely the odd man out. There were about a dozen rigs, with all of them but mine an early '30s ford ratrod. I was the youngest there by about 30 years, but it was a pretty cool group of guys. The leader of the pack jumped in his Hemi-powered rod and says "ok boys, try to keep up" and I was ready to take him up on it. We all filed out onto the freeway and busted up to ... 60. It was one of the most boring drives I've ever experienced. I was lugging out in 6th turning about 1400 rpm, getting passed by every pos in Oregon. We eventually made it to the show, lots of cool rigs to drool over. We all left together and took a scenic route back towards home - those guys were definitely into treating every trip like a sunday drive. When we got back to the freeway I decided to stretch my legs a bit. And a bit more, and a bit more. It was a fun ride.