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Check out www.parcelmonkey.co.uk/

Input the dimensions and weight. Away you go they use all the major couriers and find the best deals.

I sent a pretty heavy parcel to Sweden a while ago and parcel force/royal mail wanted like £150 on their own website and in person. Parcel Monkey charged me about £40 and i dropped it off at my local post office for Parcel Force exactly where i had a quote previously for over 3 times the price.

Got there nice and safely.

Edit, to add onto the damage during transit queries. Wood.
Use scrap wood to build a frame or something slightly bigger than the bonnet and use that to protect the edges from bumps.

I took this in May 2011 when we went and bought this 2.0S for my dad.
We ran out of fuel about 5 miles before this because details of nearest fuel station by previous owner was not quite accurate. Or we got lost...
Luckily i brought a can of fuel with me, and my dad asked why. I had a smug look on my face when i saw him slow down and pull onto the hard shoulder. "Need any fuel?"

It then became mine after a couple years, became my daily and is now slowly getting restored when/if i have time!



My 2.8 before i was able to get some centre caps for all 4 wheels.
Not too far out from Santa Pod for Classic Ford 2017

Finally had a chance to see your updates!

Great stuff. Its something i want to do next time i go. Visit all the junk/antique shops and waste some money on stuff i don't need and have no where to put!

We only managed to visit 6 or so of these shops on my trip. Our routes just didnt go through the type of small towns these places are found in. And the travelling we had to do day to day. I underestimated the time it would take each day and the time we had for stops etc.

Would love to see some pictures of that place! Sounds great, and you are much better at posting updates than myself!

Day 8 - The last day

Driving on back to the airport and Dad wanted to stop into a couple Flea markets. We did, but were very disappointed with the goods on offer
Mostly new market traders, very few trinket/American collectibles for sale.
But we did see this in the parking lot of one of them. So not all bad.
If I'm not mistaken this is a Ford Pinto? With a Chevy badge and an aircleaner out the bonnet.


So we headed back to the Airport early looking for something else to do.
We happened upon Year One Muscle cars garage/sales room.

Just so happens that today was a Car Show, hosted for charity by the one and only Chip Foose

"Chip Foose Edition Braselton Bash"

Chip Foose Select Car Show Group:
$100 entry . The Chip Foose Select Group is limited to the first 100 vehicle entries at a cost of $100 per vehicle. A photo is taken with the entrant’s vehicle and Chip. Vehicles should be ready for judging prior to entering photo area. The Chip Foose Select Group will have a special parking area. Chip will be choosing one vehicle as the Chip Foose Select Award Winner. The winner will have their vehicle sketched by Chip Foose and an invitation to attend dinner plus one with Chip and Kevin King (President of YEARONE) Sunday night, September 16, 2018.

Here are the cars from the Chip Foose selection area. (My god these cars were clean!)

Well the first one wasn't clean, just cool










Again, not clean but an Awesome Rat Rod








I think this car, might have had THE best paint job, ive ever seen. The pictures do not do it justice.
Black is a hard colour to paint, shows everything up. But this had 0 flaws, 0 orange peel. Just pure glass! I was in awe!
And its a Mustang as well, so it has all the right boxes Ticked. Black, Ford, Mustang, American, Muscle. Red accents.



Only issue for my taste is the wheels, still prefer old school wheels. But it does suit this pimped out car.





Its hard to remember where the Chip Foose selection ends, But i think it was there. Onto the other cars.




This car was original, unrestored. 9k miles on it. My 2018 Camaro rental had more miles on it, that gives you some context!









The Wheels on this were fun









One of a kind coachbuilt car. Not sure about it but can't fault the workmanship






Nice bright colour, good paint job as well


You can see the guy walking away after cleaning the engine bay, he said damn sun shows up all the little marks. Once he put away his cloth and closed the boot. I joked he missed a bit. Came round said you're right, and got out his cloth again. We both laughed.



The airbrush work on this was great!
Bit too much for my liking but again can't fault the skills involved.





It fits under the bonnet...


Cool R/C car
Modeled on a Power Tour car i believe


Dropped the car off at the hire place
Milage 10573
Total miles done: 1,283


1 more update to come.

Day 6 - Hot Rod Drag Week day 4


Today was at Bristol Dragway - Thunder Valley. And again holy curse word. This place was great! The view was awesome, set into a valley (As the name suggests) It has great green hill views either side and the end of the strip disappears into the middle of the valley. WOW. Recently has had a $18 million refurb. Again, wish we had some venues of this caliber.



Untitled by Jake Hall, on Flickr





Look at this line up, Cars waiting to stage!


Some cars in the pits




The Hemi of Finnegan's Chevy


This Chevy lost a wheel on the drive to the track. Sheared the studs.
Recently restored for drag week. now needing some more panel work on the rear quarter!
Real Drag Week spirit, getting a trailer and bringing it to show the carnage, rather than taking it straight home.


Off we went to the first checkpoint, dad taking lots of photos while driving, i will get these from him later on.
Checkpoint 1 a sandwich shop





Lots of signatures on this hood!



Approx 2 hours driving to checkpoint 2 a flea market 45mins from Atlanta Dragway
We spent over an hour here chatting and taking photos. Local police was here, guy finished work and heard about this checkpoint, called his wife and told her to bring their son. He spent a couple hours sitting inside 1,000 hp race cars. Having dad as sheriff works out well for you.







Butterfly was in the wrong place at the wrong time.



Just a 7 second wagon, nothing to see here


Ford Thunderbird, so ugly but so cool.



Landed at Motel 6, popped across the road to Ruby Tuesdays, Burger couple beers and bed!

Day 5 - Hot Rod Drag Week Day 3

Woke up this morning to some fellow Brits in the car park. Had spoken to them the night before in the bar, drag racers from Middlesbrough/Hartlepool
Saw this a couple times afterwards following the route. Kept the flag flying the whole time!


Today was at ZMAX dragway. And holy curse word! This place is huge!!!



Parked up in the car park. Fun Truck


Theres some money over here for Drag racing. Its a real shame we only have Santa Pod left, there's just not enough money/interest our side of the pond for Drag Racing anymore

Last Years winner


This wagon has a funny car alcohol engine with a super charger on it. They have the throttle body under the blower and can disconnect the blower and run on the street without it. This thing is capable of running in the 5's and is 'street legal' Theres video of them driving down the road, 200 miles between tracks! Mental thing, I bought their awesome t-shirt.
Its been name the 'shitbox of doom' google it. Its hella fun.




This 30's Truck. Named the dirty thirty. Did some awesome wheelies. Unfortunately this car is out of competition. Engine started to seize, and he didn't want to risk/fix it so went home after today.
Was going to buy one of the tshirts you see, but forgot and was going to the following day. Now they are gone.


Grabbed myself a healthy lunch Merican style. And continued watching the action.


When all was finished we hit the road and went to a local Nascar museum down the street, turns out Wednesdays they are closed. Only on Wednesday. Great.



Todays route stopped off at Pat Musi racing engine shop. Some cool machinery and they make some serious serious engines here.











I'm sure we can all relate to this one! Expensive hobby we all have here!
I wish i liked something cheaper. Like knitting or something


The rest of the route was 'get there however you want' but the second stop (Not mandatory due to weather) was an old petrol station, this was cornered off, but we took a snap.



Arrived at our hotel and fell asleep, no dinner was had this night!

Day 4 - Drag Week Day 2

Started the day nice and early. Dad drove the Camaro for the first time in about 1,000 miles. We drove the 10 miles to the track. But gave me back the keys.



Sat in the stands and waited for the first race. Weather was really nice almost right away.










Plenty of wheelstand action today



Burnout Video
Burnout by CapriJake, on Flickr

We left the track at about 14:00, the official route was now not mandatory for racers, due to some silly strong wind called Florence. So we assumed the racers would chose the 2 hour quick route rather than the optional 4 hour 15 route. We did the 2 hour route.
Dad took this photo of me/the sign he enjoyed #Merica


Found an 'Antique' shop along the way

Shame that all it sold was a bunch of old


Saw a fair few cars along the way, as expected alot of cars decided not to take their 1,000+ hp cars on an extra non compulsory 100 mile route. Including one break down/police stop?



Not sure if we went through a town called Alligator or if thats what the water supplier is called. Cool anyway


Made it to the next destination for tomorrows races approx 2 hour from Darlington, a pretty short distance


We got to our Hotel round the corner and chatted to some others who were arriving at a similar time.


Chilled out for a bit and then bit the steak house



Nice food, and waitress was nice and friendly. Certainly didn't mention our accents....



Selfie time after a full belly of steak and beer


Back to the hotel for a few more beers. Got chatting to another group of lads from Middlesbrough

I’ve been taking lots of Photos with my decent camera. But have misplaced my USB cable. So can’t copy to my laptop just yet.!

I need to post lots of photos from Day 1 and now Day 2!

Coming soon! Once I get my USB cable!

Day 2 - 09.09.2018 Part1 - Alabama Space and Rocket museum

So my dad likes all things NASA and wanted to visit this museum.
I had planned to go and see a friend in Nashville for the day while he was at the Museum, but last minute we had to cancel our plans. Originally we were going to do the Tennessee state fair. But weather put a stop to that, and also things came up for her and wasn't free within my Window. So i did the museum with my dad.

I'm not much of a rocket and space fan, but the museum was pretty cool and had a bunch of scale models of Army equipment i thought were cool.


Here's some photos. See full album link in original post to see all the photos.
Saturn 1 rocket

Saturn V







A real life barn find Airstream. Happened to be the NASA mobile quarantine facility






We left the museum to head back to Georgia Drag Way area ready for racing to start tomorrow.
Along the way we stopped at a few Antique shops first place we saw this awesome looking Ford, left out in the rain, looked clean hopefully its not going to stay there and rot.
Untitled by Jake Hall, on Flickr
Untitled by Jake Hall, on Flickr

And an awesome home made tot rod inside. I really wanted to bring this home!



This place was cool, nothing inside we wanted but some odd stuff.
Untitled by Jake Hall, on Flickr
Untitled by Jake Hall, on Flickr



Had a pretty clean looking Plymouth out the back, slowly going back to nature.



Bought a few license plates, although forgot to photo them. My goal is to collect one from each state i visit. Up until i have all 50.

Just arrived at the hotel. And there's some drag cars in the car park. Heading out for Dinner soon. So will post part 2 of today later. With some competing drag cars View from my rooms window, a bunch more round back