Members of the extended team here in The Garage are covering a lot of miles over the next few days, but none with quite so much kool factor as Aaron Von Minden. Regular readers will recall that our man on the west coast has recently made a move from LA up to the San Fran area. When a hot rodder makes a move of that size, years worth of acquired goodies need to be loaded in the shop truck along with the tooth brush and jammies. The Von Fonda isn’t just any plain old guy though and neither is his shop truck. How about a 1930 Ford pick up truck with bronze heads, Alexander side by side intake, big cam, 18 inch wheels and straight pipes!

Aaron loaded up the truck with his 34 Coupe trailing behind in Venice beach and set off for the north country. Of course a stop for fish and chips in Malibu was in order, not to mention a few photo stops.

This is beginning to sound like a song or something!

Putting the day job’s wares to work, Aaron grabbed some awesome shots from the road on his new iphone. It really is amazing what you can do with a phone, as these photos (after the break) will attest. In one shot, you’ll notice things were getting more than a little warm in the mountains. You can bet that the A might visit Lucky in the Team CBR garage for a once over one day soon after that little coolant mishap.
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Normally The Garage is about everything automotive, but really it’s about the cool stuff we’d all like to see in our garage. What gearhead wouldn’t love to have a submarine, a destroyer and a cruiser at their disposal? Ok, so they wouldn’t exactly fit in most people’s garages, but these hardcore naval machines have to be the ultimate mechanical playground.

We’ve been going to Buffalo, New York for years for kid stuff, but we had no clue that the waterfront held such incredible displays. The Buffalo Naval Park is home to the USS Little Rock, the sole surviving Cleveland Class Cruiser, USS The Sullivans, a Fletcher Class Destroyer and the USS Croaker, a WWII Gato Class submarine. Best of all, visitors pretty much have the run of all 3 ships so you can take as much or as little time as you want to explore the awesomeness.
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Enjoy taking a drive in the past? Who wouldn’t? Here is a site I have enjoyed for years and never tire of it. Enjoy.

MSNBC’s Hittin’ The Road

And whatever you do don’t miss out of the car salesman doing his thing.

There has been a lot of talk about road trips here in The Garage lately. Alex Roy setting a land speed record. Gary Faules heading to La Carrera. Later this week, I’ll be taking the camera on the road for a quick (ok, not so quick) run to Connecticut. Yet another new friend of The Garage, JF Musial and friends over at Thrill of The Road are taking some random road trips and capturing them on film. Can we say film when it’s digital?

They’ve launched Episode #1 and checked out a cool, but scary, collapsed and still burning mine. Remember that kid that smoked a pound of grass and walked around the high school cast party with a camera? Well, Thrill of The Road is sorta like that. Jerky and informal with a bunch of random chatter that could only be created by some great friends on the road. if you’ve ever been in a car full of guys with no real destination, you’ll get it.

You can watch Episode #1 after the break, but you’ll have to head over to Thrill of The Road to catch Episode #2
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I got to spend a few days outside The Garage this week and was hoping to grap some cool fall colours shots along the way. Oddly enough, with the drive to and from Collingwood the only good photo ops were closer to home. Along the way though, there were a few interesting spots to share.

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If things seem a bit quiet today here in The Garage, it’s because I’m at a conference in Collingwood, north of Toronto. I was hoping to post some fall colours pics, but the weather sucks. I have taken some pretty cool pics along the way though, so watch for them over the next couple of days.

You could call this an Ultimate Road Trip. Karen Catchpole and Eric Mohl have put all their stuff into storage and plopped their butts into a 2006 Chevy Silverado Pick-up to set off on an adventure. The husband and wife team plan to spend the next three years travelling 70,000 miles through North, South and Central America, hitting 23 countries along the way. Just for fun (or to pay the bills!) they will give the world updates in their travel log. They are planning the visit the many natural parks, natural preserves and wildlife parks that are found along the way. I can’t wait to see how many mini golf courses they find. They are also planning to visit all the Dinky Dots. What’s up with that?

Over the weekend, a bunch of blogs wrote about the upcoming Car’s Road Trip sponsored by State Farm. I was excited this morning when I read that the tour was coming to Toronto. It was a bit shocking to realize that they are supposed to be in town TODAY. Of course there is no listing of where in Toronto, just that they are in Toronto on April 24.

Now it seems I’ll be spending the day trying to locate Lightning Mcqueen & Sally Carrera.