Wave if you seem them in the 69 Cad SDV!

[Rod Dahlgren #19496]

Just sent out these kids on an American Adventure in an American Cadillac--- After all, we do recognize Cadillac as The Standard of the World, so they asked if it was possible to set up this trip. San Francisco to New York City on a "60's" Cadillac. AND to top it off, they are from Austria. I hope to get progress reports along the way. Pacific Coast, across the Arizona desert, New Mexico, Texas (a visit to the Alamo of course) on to New Orleans for Beignet's at Café Du Monde, then up to Memphis for the pilgrimage to Graceland, Smokey Mountains and up to the Biltmore---
Hope they have a great trip!

[52Cadillac]

Very cool Rod. Ask em to stop in at the GN this year.
Mike

[Rod Dahlgren #19496]

I told them about it. Not sure if they will get there in time. But at least they have it on the list of places to go.

Thanks!

[Eric S. Maypother #15104]

Nice, I hope they have a fun safe trip. These days you have to worry about more than just car troubles. My first car was an all black 1969 SDV, this ones a very beautiful color. I'd love to get another 1 sometime. In the fall I plan on driving my 1990 Brougham from Central, Mass to Las Vegas but will be taking a more North route, maybe on another trip I can take a similar as them.

[C.R. Patton II]

Hello Eric

Your trip sounds like a wonderful adventure! I hope you plan to visit our Motor City Region meeting and the great collection of Cadillacs & LaSalles in Hickory Corners, Michigan.

[Rod Dahlgren #19496]

Susanna sent me her trip report. With photos. I will start a new topic, but wanted to try updating this one as well

San Francisco â€" New York The Story of an American Adventure in a 1969 Cadillac
By Susanna Wittner, a 19 year old young woman from Vienna Austria.
My parents gave me this trip as a present for my final exams. So this is how the trip started. I decided to do the trip with my boyfriend Alex. And my Dad organized, with our good friend, Rod Dahlgren our beautiful car, a Cadillac de Ville 69, for our trip.
First of all we booked our flights from Vienna to San Francisco.
And then our amazing trip started . It was a pretty exhausting flight, because we flew about 20 hours. Finally we arrived at night at the San Francisco airport and went to a hotel next to the airport, and fell totally tired in our beds.
Next day we got up early, because we had to take the bus up to Napa Valley. After a two hours ride, Rod picked us up at the bus station in Napa, with our Cadillac.
Then we stayed for two days at Rods house, where Cindy and Rod took care of us. It was a great stay in their nice house in the middle of a vine valley, perfectly to start our journey with the car. They helped us a lot with our new friend now called “Franklin” (The Cadillac) and organizing the trip.
So this was the real start of our journey. From Napa we drove down to San Francisco to see a little bit of the city.
We went down “Lombard street” and a lot of San Francisco famous streets. We even crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. And took a look at Alcatraz from the Pier 31. Then we slept in a cheap motel next to the airport.
Then we have been invited by the Springer family in the near of Santa Cruz. That was pretty cool  because they had a horse in their garden ( Alex was more exited about the cars there). So we stayed there two days, Santa Cruz is really a nice little town, what a pity that It was foggy all day long. So thanks a lot to the Springer family for their accommodation.
Than we went down to L.A. and did a stop somewhere near Malibu or somewhere like that, and slept in the car, because no motel or hotel had a free room, even the camping places where overfilled. Gladly our Cadillac ´69 is big enough
In L.A. we met Matt Springer who let us stay in his unbelievable Student home. It is a sort of a modern castle and really really big  with lots of crazy students . So took with us a little trip trough the city and showed us L.A. by night. What a pity that I am just 19, so no bars for me in America. Thanks a lot to Matt 
From thereon we went down to San Diego, but before we stopped at “pizza hut” in downtown L.A. what wasn´t one of our best ideas. Because after that so called “pizza” we both felt totally sick and didn´t really see a lot of San Diego because we decided to stay in bed
San Diego was sometimes a little bit scary, we stopped at a gas station and a poorly looking man went over to us. He asked a lot of question about our car, and then he said: “All the kids in this area call me Caddy Daddy, Do you know why? Because I know how to start all those stolen old Caddys!” After this little conversation we really tried to get away of this area.
Pour next stop was Needles, a very small town on Route 66, not that far away of Grand Canyon we really wanted to see. Needles was totally hot, it had about 55°C all day long so our old “Franklin” overheated totally. From now on we didn´t use the air condition anymore. We called AAA to help us to fix the radiator and they sent us to a working station the big O. We didn´t find the big O immediately and landed at a very dirty working station with a guy who charged us 80$ for actually doing nothing. After that we found the right big O, there they really tried to help us and charged us nothing . So a big thank you to the guys there.
After a 10 hours ride in the heat, we reached the Grand Canyon, where we stayed at a really nice hotel near the railways. How sad that it was raining heavily at the canyon.
Our next big City was Las Vegas. Where we stayed at the Venetian, one of the most luxurious hotels I’ve ever stayed in.  Las Vegas is not really comfortable by day, because its sooo hot. But at night it is an unbelievable amazing city. With all those lights and shows. Alex went gambling, I wasn´t allowed to. We stayed there for two days. And then went on to Phoenix.
In Phoenix, Rod organized us a really nice guy who helped us by repairing our radiator, und after that our car really went better . We also met a interesting truck driver, who really had nice ideas of lifestyle. That’s the difference to Europe, the people in America are more open minded to strangers.
Then we went to Albuquerque in New Mexico. New Mexico is a really poor state, where nothing´s really happening, except some Aliens in Rosswell .
Then we went on the Mexican border up to San Antonio, Texas to attend a little punk rock festival called “Vans warped tour”. What was really amazing, because there was so a huge amount of good bands on just one day. After this festival in the middle of Texas we got in a hurry to reach the east coast in time.
We drove through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama in one day. We only made a stop in New Orleans. A really beautiful town with lots of flair of the last 100 years. Then we stopped in Tallahassee, Florida and passed Florida’s North up to Georgia.
Georgia and all the south of America is really beautiful and has its own charm. Especially South and north Carolina, where we´ve seen one of the most beautiful cemeteries, we´ve ever seen. And then we did a 22 hours ride from south Carolina up to New Jersey in one day. After this we were totally exhausted and slept at Tom Miller’s house nearly two days. We were allowed to stay there for 5 days, and went by train to New York for one day. The other days we took easy and only did some shopping, our last few days in America. 
All in all it was an amazing and unbelievable experience in my life I wouldn´t want to  miss. We met a lot a scary people, but a lot more of very friendly and helpful people. We passed trough 17 states and drove more than 6000 miles in 28 days. I really felt a little bit in love with America, this is the reason I decided to study “English and American studies” at university in Vienna.
Thanks to all the people we met on our way.

[Davidinhartford]

Wonderful story!   Do you have photos to post of the Caddy on the trip?

[Rod Dahlgren #19496]

Yes, But Susanna sent one document with the photos in it and the file was to large to post.. I am a dummy so I am not sure how to pull the photos out-- Will try...

[Rod Dahlgren #19496]

Here we go with photos--