Grand Junction to Albuquerque to Lubbock, oh my!

First, I must apologize for not posting last night.  Read on, and you'll learn why!  So tonight is a special "double feature" blog!  Hope you enjoy!

(Geez, I hope I can remember the last 48 hours!  The days are already starting to blend together!  Lol!)

Let's see….Wednesday morning we woke up and I was especially excited because we were headed for Albuquerque!  Yay!  I got to see my puppies, catch up with my bestest friend (without whom I would not be able to be on this trip, cuz she's house sitting for me!  Thanks Sally Jean…love ya bunches!!!), sleep in my own bed, do laundry, and repack BlackJack for the next part of the journey.  The drive to Albuquerque took us on the Million Dollar Highway through Silverton and Durango.  It was stunning!  The scenery was beautiful, but the drive was a little scary at times!  No shoulder, and sheer drop offs, straight down, 1000 feet!

I don't have any good pictures of it because, well, I was driving!  But trust me, it was beautiful (and scary)!  And we also experienced some pretty big temperature changes!!  We saw a low of 61 and a high of 97 degrees!  We stopped for lunch in Durango at Steamworks Brewery.  It was really good!!

After Durango, we headed for home, thinking we'd finally have an early night to get stuff done.  Not so much!  I'm not sure why we thought we'd be home so early, because we didn't even hit Bernalillo until around 5pm.  The evening event started at 6:30, so we decided rather than drive all the way home, and then back to ABQ, I would drop Barb at the laundromat in Bernalillo, and I'd go gas up the car, hit the carwash, pick up some flat rate boxes at the post office (for Barb to send home her goodies she's accumulated), and then head straight to Sandia MINI for the party.  And THEN go home!  Let me just say, you are welcome, Bernalillo, for the soaking rains that came, surely as a result of me washing BlackJack!  We finally got to Sandia around 7-ish, and what a great party!  They had fajitas and all the fixins from El Pinto, green chile roasting in the parking lot (smelled like heaven!!), a live band, a calf roping simulator, a mechanical bull, and 700 MINIS!  I also got to catch up with my El Paso friends, and other local friends joining us for the next leg or two.  It was a great night!

 

Eventually we left for home.  Once there, I completely unloaded the car.  We got one last load of laundry done, repacked and reorganized, and it was after midnight before I got to bed, hence no blog last night!

Ok, now for today..!  

I had posted on the MTTS 2014 Facebook page about an alternate route to Roswell, going through Capitan, Lincoln, and Hondo.  I offered to lead a group of whoever wanted to join us, and we ended up with more than 20 cars!!  It was a great drive!  We stopped at the Valley of Fire lava beds, Smokey Bear Historical Park, drove through Lincoln, stopped at the Tangle Y Wood-N-Art shop in Hondo, and finally drove into Roswell.  That's where we met up with the rest of the MINIs heading to Lubbock.  We stopped at the UFO Museum and had lunch at Farley's.  

Oh!  Let me backtrack for a moment…back to the morning departure at Sandia MINI.  BlackJack won Car of the Day!!  Every day they pick a car to represent MTTS for that day, and today it was BlackJack!!  We were awarded the highly coveted MTTS 2014 door magnet, along with a limited edition skateboard signed by Tony Hawk!!  How cool is that???  I was super excited!  I ended up being interviewed twice today…once by the MTTS video crew, and then by another crew because of winning Car of the Day!  The second guy kind of followed us around all day, filming BlackJack on the road.  He even gave me a GoPro camera to drive around with and film ourselves!  Lol!  Not sure how any of that will turn out!  (I had to give the camera back…lol!)

So all in all, it's been another great day!  Tomorrow is Austin…sounds like they've got more fun planned for us!  Imagine that!!  So until then…

Rain, Sun, Rain, Sun, repeat… Wendover to Grand Junction

Wow…again!  Wowie wow wow!  (In my best Christopher Walken voice!)

Ok, so today started out a little sad.  Because of all the rain going on around here, we weren't able to make our run on the Salt Flats.  Part of me was super disappointed, and part of me was kind of relieved that BlackJack wouldn't get all covered in salt!

We headed out of the parking lot with the cheers from the West Wendover Wolverines cheerleaders, waved goodbye to Wendover Will, and got on the Interstate heading east.  It was pretty drizzly rain off and on until we got closer to Salt Lake City.

I totally missed the Bonneville Salt Flats exit, so didn't even get my photo op…was a little upset about that, but got over it quickly.  Along the way to Grand Junction, we stopped at a little place called Papa Joe's for a special MINI surprise!  They gave us a free drink (I got a bottle of "real" 7up) and a really nice coozie!  It was a nice little stretch stop!  We were pretty close to Grand Junction at that point, but discovered we were also pretty close to Arches National Park, and decided to take a detour from the route to check it out.  It turned out to be the best decision of the day!!  What a beautiful place!!!  Barb and I were snapping so many pictures, it was insane!  We stopped for a few photo ops, drove to the lower lookout for the Delicate Arch for a few more pics, and then drove back out of the park.  About that time, it started pouring rain!!  Lots of rain!!  We went into the Visitor's Center for a bit, but came out to more rain!  From there, we drove on Highway 128 along the Colorado River, north back up toward Grand Junction.  It was one of the most spectacular drives I've been on!  It was especially glorious when the rain subsided enough to put the top down again.  The pictures just don't even come close to doing it justice…it was absolutely incredible!!

We kept the top down for the rest of the drive into Grand Junction.  When we got to the hotel, the local Colorado club had hoses and buckets and soap available for washing the cars!  I took advantage of that, as BlackJack was getting pretty crusty by now!  All of us car washers must have been doing more rain dances, cuz the rains came again shortly after!  The evening event was moved indoors, but was still pretty nice.  They've been feeding us great food!  Tonight was roasted chicken and a whole roasted pig (two pigs, actually)!!  I passed on the pig, but the chicken was awesome, along with all the fixins…!  Delish!

Tomorrow, we're on our way to Albuquerque via Durango, I think…I hope so, cuz I've never been there.  I'm anxious to get home and do laundry, and repack/reorganize the car.  Then it's off for two more weeks of adventure!!  Thanks for following our antics!!

Another great day! Reno to Wendover

Wow!  (I think I may have to start every blog entry with "Wow!"  Lol!)

So this morning, all the MINIs met over at the Atlantis Casino for the Rise and Shine departure.  Barb and I had breakfast at the hotel, but it wasn't all that great.  They had a full breakfast setup at the Rise and Shine (MINI's departure party), but since we took the time to eat at the hotel, we didn't really have time to take advantage of it.  I think we may skip the hotel breakfasts from now on, cuz they seem to really take care of everyone at the morning departure point.

We supposedly had a police escort out of town, but by the time our row of MINIs left, we were kind of on our own.  About 10 miles out of town, we discovered the police escort turned on us, and were pulling over speeding MINIs everywhere!  Fortunately, we weren't going too fast at the time, so we escaped getting any "merit badges"…lol!

We took the "scenic route" to Wendover, by way of the "Loneliest Road in America"..US Highway 50.   Part of this highway dates back to the Pony Express!  It was actually a very nice drive, and definitely not as lonely as the Extraterrestrial Highway we drove last week!  After about 80 miles, we came across the Nevada Shoe Tree!  For some reason, people have stopped over the years to adorn a large tree with shoes!  It was quite a sight!  We didn't have any spare shoes to leave behind, though…

After the shoe tree, we continued on our way to Wendover.  Along the way, we had some nice rain, and even saw a doe with two fawns run across the road in front of us!  We rolled into Wendover around 6pm, and the evening event was at 7pm.  It was held at the Historic Wendover Airfield on the Utah side.  

They also had a parade of pets, as many people are traveling with their dogs.  There sure are a lot of cute puppies out there!!

The airfield was an amazing place!  How cool to line up all the MINIs on the tarmac, and have a barbecue in an old hangar!  Met a few new people, too!  And took advantage of some great photo opportunities!  Tune in tomorrow…just how fast can a JCW Roadster go on the Bonneville Salt Flats??

And we're off…! San Francisco to Reno

Oh my goodness!  What an incredible day!!  We were running a bit late this morning, but made it to the morning event in time for me to get in the Coast to Coast (C2C) picture!  Over 900 MINIs met up at Golden Gate Fields in Berkeley!  What an incredible site!!

It was quite a send-off celebration, complete with vendors, sponsors, and plenty of fun!  Tony Hawk was there, jumping his skateboard over a few MINI's driving between the ramps.  It was so cool!  I'm pretty sure he is joining us on this cross country journey…I'll have to find out for sure!

We finally drove out of the park a little after 9am.  Kudos to the MINI volunteers who worked traffic control!  We were so excited as we drove away, we just followed the MINI in front of us, who followed the MINI in front of them, and so on.  The problem was, nobody read the route sheet to follow the suggested route!  Lol!  So we ended up going our own way, losing most of the pack until we backtracked to pick them up again just north of Napa.  It was a beautiful drive, in spite of taking a few detours.  Eventually, we all ended up at the MINI dealership in Sacramento.  They provided an amazing lunch for us, along with beverages and MINI love!  Most of the pack was already there by the time we arrived, so it wasn't long before we hit the road again.

This time, we stuck to the route sheet!  It took us on a nice drive, into South Lake Tahoe, along the Lake for a bit, then into Carson City and up to Reno.  Barb wasn't able to partake of the lunch in Sacramento, so we stopped at In-N-Out in Reno for her first Double Double….she enjoyed it without the cheese!  We got to the hotel with about an hour to rest up before the evening event.  Tonight's party was at the National Bowling Stadium.  We took over the entire upper floor (73 lanes!) and bowled to our heart's content!  It was sooooo fun!!!  The food was awesome as well, although we weren't too hungry cuz of the burgers.  This was a great night!  Here's hoping the rest of the trip will be just as awesome!!  Well done, MINI USA!!!

MTTS has officially begun!!

 

A beautiful day in San Francisco today!!  Barb and I headed across the bay from Fremont in time to do a little shopping around Fisherman's Wharf, and got in some famous sourdough bread as well.  I love that stuff!!  After lunch, we drove over to Marina Green Park which was the meet up location for a drive down Lombard Street…the crookedest street in the world!  I never heard an official count, but I would bet there were at least 100 MINIs…!  Because of all the tourist traffic, the MINIs weren't allowed to take over.  So we had to share the experience with everyone else.  That meant that several non-MINI vehicles were scattered in between the MINIs for the 5mph drive down the hill.  It was still pretty neat, though.  It was especially fun listening to the comments of the people on the sidewalks!  No one had ever seen so many MINIs in one place!

Soon after Lombard Street, we arrived at the hotel.  I really wanted a nap before the evening event, but we ended up having to wait over an hour before our room was ready.  I still managed to at least rest a bit before Cindi (my copilot for the second half of the trip) joined us and we headed out to the Garage Party at MINI of San Francisco.  We decided to use Lyft to get to the event…it's a ride sharing service that is way cheaper than a taxi.  You use an app on your smartphone to notify nearby drivers that you need a ride.  Kind of a cool idea!  It worked great for us!

The Garage Party was great!  There were 900 people!  At one point, the line to get in wrapped around three corners of the building!  We got there fairly early and got checked in.  The food was pretty good.  Mostly finger food, but plenty to get your fill.  A few raffle tickets were drawn for door prizes, but none of our numbers came up.  There were a few "special" guests, including a Queen's Guard, a Beefeater, and a Bobby!  Lol!  Tony Hawk was also there (professional skate boarder)!  He loves his MINI…I'm wondering if he will be joining us all the way to Boston?  Speaking of going all the way, they announced that 350 people had registered to do the entire trip!  I hope to meet the other 349 in the coming days!!  

Tomorrow morning we leave the Bay Area and head to Reno.  Let the journey begin!!