Even if i'm not posting a lot, i've been following this forum for a long time (even if i only registered recently). I always love to read all those reports of members roadtrips,
bringing back home all those gems in their sched, and bringing them back to life. So i was waiting for my time to come :-)
Recently i noticed that another member ,gyruss to name him, was selling his mint chase hq cab in the business area. this game has always been attached to many memories in my life.
I remembered playing the arcade version at the playground or playing the console conversion on mastersytem and commodore 64.
After reading the announce, i quickly checked on google maps how far the cab was. Only 2hours drive from my place ! PERFECT for a first road trip, decision was then taken
While sourcing for a van, my old good friend devpsx succeeded to put his hand on one of his dream cabs : "Defender" (thanks to ckong). The seller was only 1 hours drive from
gyruss's house. So i proposed devpsx to pickup his defender cab and host it until his next visit to belgium (he's from paris, the RT would have been 1200km for him). So the
road trip ended into a combo RT
So here's the map : about 500km, 2 countries : Belgium & Holland.
My pal Fr4nz is my co-pilot, and the official photograph of this RT. First step, picking the van in liège guillemins.
Loading all the blanckets spirofoam , food , drinks and then off we go ! it's 9:30 am next step, is Strijen where i need to meet hans for the Defender cab.
Arrival time will be, 11h41 , i'm driving carefully as it's the first time i drive a van. I was pretty concentrated (and boring driver according to my copilot ^^) , so i can admire the landscape in holland:
nice , clean , green and flat , really really flat
Before arriving to Hans's house, we needed to use the KiltTunnel
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiltunnel with a name like that, i prefer not to see what's under
(btw 5 euros the toll, what a scam!).
Finaly, we arrived at hans's house before noon, a pretty rural place, was pretty surprised to find cabs here
The cab is in the wooden storage.
And here's devpsx's dreams cab.
The cab is in really good shape, except for the bottom part which need some work. Appart from that, the sides are great. Hans told us that he was exploiting pinballs, cabs before retiring. This cab is his last one and was happy to sell it as he can now demolish that wooden storage.
Time to leave now and pick MY cab
Let's go to Hilversum and meet Gyruss. During the trip there , i can not stop humming chase hq music ! And in the end my eyes started to see the road like this
Nancy we got the suspect in our sight !!The lamborghini guy got lucky , my van was not fast enought even with 2 turbos left
Arriving time in Hilversum is 13:37, W00t and leet
Unfortunatly, the city was full of one way roads and the street proposed by the gps is in work :s so we lost about 30mins turning arround the city. Gyruss was kindly waiting after us at the entry of his street and guided us to his house.
Once we get out of the car, Fr4nz found a 10euros note on the ground ! lucky guy, but generously, he gave it to me . Lunch is my treat mate !
The cab is in gyruss apparement, in the building in the background. We needed to park the van there as the road is too narrow. Hopefully the cab is on wheels
Once at gyruss flat, we had a small chitchat about arcades and he showed us his "Taito station" game room. Pacman & mspacman cabs, damn i'm jealous , and his new Operation Wolf cab is huge !! Unfortunalty Gyruss need to go back to work. the discussion was too short, that'll be for next time
cabs are loaded.
Gyruss kindly offered me a taito ash tray, thanks !! I don't smoke but it's a nice coins holder in a game room.
Back to belgium now, we begin to be hungry, and decided to stop at the first restaurant on the highway. And it's a .... BURGER KING !
The best way to spend the 10e found in Hilversum ^^ Whopper menu for Fr4nz and a Barbecue Grilled Chicken & bacon menu for me... mmmh fattening & tasty.
On the road again, it was boring, lots of traffic jam near maastricht, we arrived at about 5:30 pm. Time to unload the cabs in my basement.
And the cabs are joining my others
The defender one gonna wait there until his new owner comes to pick it up.
In the end, it was a great day and nice first RT, my special thanks goes to Gyruss & Fr4nz . Until next time
