Trip to Fayetteville Arkansas 


Marc makes the long drive up to Fayetteville in the name of hot rodding 

Jack has become a good friend of mine and he's been extremely helpful to me in my hot rodding pursuits. To be truthful, he's the whole reason I'm into this hobby and he really thought it would be great for me to come up to Fayetteville and stay with Jack, his wife Emily, and their daughter for the weekend. It would be a great opportunity to meet some people and to try and find some parts for my car.

First of all, I was skeptical of Fayetteville - it's in the middle of nowhere and an 8 hour drive from Austin - but Jack assured me it was a cool town and worth the trip. I left at 2:30PM on Friday - an hour later than I had planned - which put me in Dallas at rush hour. An hour of stop and go 20MPH driving put me in Fayetteville later than I hoped for - about 11PM. I met Jack and his friends Phil and Morgan at a bar for some beers and then went back to Phil's to hang out and shoot the shit.

The next day, I took a bunch of pictures of Jack's hot rod and we drove it around town visiting some of his friends. Later that day we went out to cut the rear-end out of one of his friend's wrecked '66 Mustang. I didn't take as many pictures as I should have so I don't really have all of this documented but I have to say that Fayetteville is a surprisingly nice town - with the University of Arkansas there, it's pretty liberal and it has a really quaint downtown... it kind of reminded me of Ithaca. Even better, their leaves change! So I actually got a taste of fall as we drove around. I was totally impressed with Fayetteville and I'll definitely be going back.

Despite my lack of Fayetteville pictures, I do have some shots of Jack with their dogs - a Boxer named "Brother" and two Boston Terriers named "Cracker" and "Skillet." These dogs are hilarious - the terriers or "Boston Terrorists" as he calls them will fight with each other non stop sounding like two wild raccoons. They never hurt each other but it makes for some interesting entertainment - here's Jack holding Skillet and all three of them fighting over a stick:







That night, we went over to his friends Clem and Kim's place for a halloween party. Words cannot describe their house - it was one of the coolest places I have ever seen. Both Clem and Kim are graphic artists and Clem is an avid car restorer and hotrodder. They bought an old Sinclair oil station and converted it into a combination work studio, garage, and living quarters. They were incredibly nice people and extremely interesting to talk to - the food was amazing and the party was a lot of fun. I also met some good connections for the hot rod - one guy will probably build my engine.

Here's a dark shot of the house outside and a picture of the pumpkin carving in the garage bay:



For a better look at the place, take a look at this Home & Garden Television article that was done on their house.

The next day, Jack and I went out to an old junk yard and pulled a rear-end out of an old 1960 Fairlane for my hot rod. It was quite an experience - you can check it out on the Rod Blog if you are interested.



I ended up leaving town at about 12:30PM and making it back to Austin in about 7 and a half hours which was quite good. For a weekend trip, the travel was a little taxing but it was doable and visiting Jack and Emily was a great time - so I'm sure I'll do it again in the near future.
 

Posted: Mon - October 31, 2005 at 10:41 PM          

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