The most epic road trip. EVER.

23 days
21 states
2 countries
4 National Parks
1 Dragon
5 wrong turns
9043 miles

Old friends, new friends

Countless laughs (including 2 really good I can't breathe, tears in my eyes, gonna pee my pants, milk up your nose, how am I still driving kind of laughs!)

Pop Rocks, meerkats, hair blogs, cop dots, 1 giant box of lime Jell-o, 4 antenna balls, a dozen souvenir t-shirts, 2 Wicked Good cupcakes, and a Tony Hawk autographed skateboard!

I'd say this has been a pretty successful road trip!

On the drive home, I was able to enjoy lunch in Nashville and Oklahoma City with 2 friends whom I hadn't seen in a while.  I saw so much of this great country that I hadn't seen before.  We really are blessed to live in such a beautiful country, with the freedom to explore and enjoy and marvel at just a sample of God's glorious creations!

I don't know that I will ever have the opportunity to do this again, but I would love to if I can!  Every day was a new adventure, a new memory to cherish.  I am so grateful to so many!  Thanks to my two co-pilots, Barb (ABQ to SF to Dallas) and Cindi (Chicago to Boston).  We had so much fun, so many laughs, and I truly am blessed to have you as my friends!  I want to thank my dear friend, Barb (Sally Jean), who so graciously agreed to house sit for me.  This trip would not have even been possible without you!  I don't think I can ever repay you for all you've done around the house while I've been gone!!  Thanks, Sal!!  I love you more than you could imagine!!  Thanks to my family and friends for checking in with me along the way.  Hopefully you shared a laugh or a smile with me, too!  Above all, I want to thank God for blessing me throughout this incredible journey!  I often stared in awe at some of the most astonishing scenery along the way.  The places, the faces, the smiles, the laughter…all of it gives glory to Him!!  Hallelujah!!

The final morning…Goodbye MTTS 2014!! Heading home...

 Well, I'm a few days late posting this…it's been a busy trip!  I'm two days into the drive back home.

Sunday morning was bittersweet…it was such a feeling of accomplishment to be able to say I went "all the way", but sad that it was all over.

checking off the final stop

I ended up getting a T-shirt that was given only to the Coast to Coasters, and I also got a free MTTS 2014 hat.  As I suspected, the MTTS souvenir table put all their remaining stock on sale, and some stuff was even free!  Including t-shirts, hats, etc!  Cindi got a shirt, too, so she'll have a MTTS souvenir to wear when she gets herself a MINI…Lol!

They put all the Coast to Coasters together for a final picture, including the montage banner they made. I couldn't find myself in the banner, but I took a few photos of it so I could scan it more closely.  I did find a picture of my car!  Lol!

We said goodbye to the new friends we'd met along the way.  It's been an incredible trip.  I would definitely do it again, if I could.  There is already talk about 2016, and the rumors are flying about the route!

After the MTTS goodbyes, Cindi and I went in search of the "Cheers" bar in Boston.  We found it and stocked up on more souvenirs!  We weren't really parked in a good place, so we found a parking garage, and then came back and ate lunch there.  It was pretty good, but was just so cool to be hanging out where Frasier, Norm, Cliffy, and the gang once sat!

Next we decided to hop on the Trolley Tour bus.  It takes you around Boston to all the sights, narrating along the way for about 2 hours.  We thought it would be a great way to take in as much as we could in a short time.  It wasn't…the drivers (there were 2 because there was a shift change during the tour) were both a little goofy.  They seemed to be more interested in telling stupid jokes rather than just telling the history of where we were.  Cindi and I were both getting a little annoyed, but we had to stick it out to get back to the point where the car was!  The good thing about it, though, was that they had flyers for the Wicked Good Cupcake company!!  (You must google if you don't know!)  It was featured on Shark Tank, so we had to find it.  And we did!!  O M G !!!!!  It was awesome!  I will likely have to mail order more, cuz what I bought will soon be gone!

We left Boston around 4pm and headed to Salem, where Cindi's sister lives.  She and her husband opened their home to us, fed us an amazing meal, and then took us for more sight seeing Sunday night and Monday.  I had originally planned on heading out first thing Monday morning, but I couldn't leave without seeing just a bit more of the Massachusetts coastline!  So I followed Cindi and Joy up to Gloucester, stopping at Hammond Castle along the way.  It was so beautiful!!

Sunset at Salem Willows

So off I go, heading home.  Nothing too exciting from yesterday's drive, but today I detoured slightly to drive the famed Dragon…Highway 129.  There is an 11 mile stretch of road with more than 300 curves.  It was pretty amazing!  I wished I could have enjoyed the scenery more, but was focused on the road.  But not far from coming out of it, a beautiful sight awaited me.  This was truly the icing on the cake of this epic road trip!!

This is what was waiting for me after driving "The Dragon"…beautiful mist on the Little Tennessee River

Hoping to be home in two more days, with a couple more stops to see good friends along the way.  Thanks for following me.  I hope you've enjoyed this blog at least a little as I sure enjoyed the experiences I've shared with you!  Get out there and enjoy life!!  God bless you all!

The final leg… Bethlehem to Boston

One wrong turn…

Well this is it…the final leg of MTTS 2014.  Kind of a bittersweet day, knowing it has to come to an end.  We all lined up at the Steel Stacks for the final parade out of Bethlehem.  No surprise and delight stops this time, just a nice, scenic drive to Boston.  That was until we decided to follow some “rogue” MINIs and divert from the route!  We didn’t’ know they were going a completely different way.  But we soon realized  we weren’t anywhere near the original route,  so we decided to just enter the hotel info for tonight into the GPS and roll into Boston early for a change.  As if…! 

Lining up at the Steel Stacks

We soon were on our way into New York City!  That was kind of cool at first, as Cindi had never been there.  So she was excited to see the NYC skyline as we headed toward the George Washington Bridge.  The problem was that the GPS and the highway signage didn’t seem to match up.  And the traffic was horrendous!!  I thought it was a typical Friday lunchtime traffic  jam until I realized it was Saturday…should there be this much traffic on a Saturday??  Must be an accident…

Entering George Washington Bridge

Nope….but it was a Yankees game, and we soon found ourselves directly across from Yankee Stadium!  Once we got past all that baseball traffic, things settled down a bit.  We ended up with a beautiful drive on Saw Mill River Parkway until we finally got onto a road taking us into Connecticut. 

It was lunchtime, so we thought we’d look for a Ruby Tuesday’s again.  Sure enough, there was one 6 miles ahead, right along our route!  Except that when we got there, there wasn’t one anywhere to be seen!  We decided we were not meant to eat at Ruby Tuesday’s…!  So it was Red Robin.  Lol!  Oh well, it was definitely better than Burger King!!  We were getting pretty giddy after lunch…!  I was getting tired, so decided to stop and get a Dr. Pepper and some peanuts.  Ok, how many of you have ever poured your peanuts into your pop?  Someone showed me that once, and I thought, eww!  But omg..it’s a taste sensation!!  Who’s with me, here??  Lol!  I hadn’t ever tried it with Dr. Pepper before, but it was amazing!  Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it!! 

 And then there’s Pop Rocks…!  I picked some up at the Jell-o Museum and decided it was time to try them.  Wrong!!  It’s been YEARS since I’ve had Pop Rocks, and trying them again on the freeway just outside of Boston was not the best idea I’ve ever had.  As soon as they started crackling, I started laughing!  And then Cindi blurts out, “It’s like your mouth is on fire”, and I lost it!!  I think the guardian angels took over at that point, because I was laughing so hard, I was crying!  And trying to see the road and drive when you can’t breathe or see is not very smart!!  But it sure felt good to laugh so hard…again!  We regained our composure and our driving abilities and smiled the rest of the way into Boston!

From there, we finally caught up with some other MINIs and got to the hotel.  We actually had about an hour before heading off to the final Evening Event.   This final event wasn’t quite as “all out” as I remembered from 2012, but it was still fun.  The food was awesome, the setting was spectacular, and the company was grand!  How perfect to be enjoying the Boston Harbor with great food and great friends, old and new!  This has truly been an epic adventure and one heck of a road trip!  In the morning, we say goodbye…one last blog to come!

Boston Harbor

Cindi with our new friends, Jeff and Brandon

DeeJay in a MINI

Really?? A Jell-o Museum?? Buffalo to Bethlehem

Things are winding down…or maybe winding up!  After a rousing Rise & Shine at Towne MINI in Buffalo (they said it was the most attended R & S yet), we took off to Bethlehem, PA.  

First stop, the Jell-o Museum in Le Roy, New York!  It was less than an hour out of Buffalo, but mostly through small towns, and people were lining up on the streets or standing on their front porches waiting for us!  It was awesome!  Kinda like we were in a parade, which I guess we were!  Sometimes I wish I could be a bystander just to see the endless line of MINIs coming down the road!  Everyone waved and smiled and whistled and just had an old fashioned good time!

And then there was the Jell-o Museum!  The people of Le Roy are proud of their history!  They were out in full force to welcome us, handing out shopping bags with Jell-o souvenirs, including a huge box of Lime Jell-o!  When we first entered the Museum, they had a ballot table set up to vote for your favorite flavor!  Great, I thought!  We get to do some Jell-o taste testing!  They had flavors I never even heard of, like Island Pineapple and Sour Apple!  But no, they just displayed the boxes and wanted you to pick one and write down your zip code so they could track who liked what where.  I jokingly complained that we didn’t have Island Pineapple in New Mexico, what if it was my favorite?  How would I know if I never got to try it?  “What have you been drinking?” was the admonishing response I got!  Lol!  Interesting side note…they were asking if anyone in our group was from North Dakota.  Evidently, no one from North Dakota has ever visited the Museum, and they were convinced that ND residents were not allowed to leave the state!

 When we left the Museum, we were given a detour from our route sheet to bypass some construction.  Because of that, we ended up lost for a while.  But the good news is, we were lost with a bunch of other MINIs!  Finally, one pulled ahead that seemed to know where they were going, and we followed them to our next point of interest, the world’s largest pancake griddle!

We stopped for a photo, and then headed out…looking for a place to eat lunch.  We found Petersen’s Pizzeria nearby, and had a couple of NY style slices.  It was delicious!!  Once our bellies were full, we just put the hotel address in the GPS and drove off.  Well, that took us straight into Watkins Glen, where NASCAR was having a race weekend!  Talk about a traffic jam!!  The entire road was set up with vendors and food trucks and people everywhere!  We finally detoured through a residential area and were able to bypass most of the crowds. 

We got to the hotel at a reasonable time, but when I checked in at the front desk, they couldn’t find my reservation.  I gave them the confirmation number, and the clerk said, “Oh…!  You already checked in!”  Ummm…no, I didn’t…!  So after about 30 minutes of sorting out the confusion (it just so happened that there was also a “Janet Rosenthal” checking in, and she was given my room by mistake), we got into our room with barely enough time to freshen up a bit and get to the evening event.  That was another fiasco!  Lol!  It was held in conjunction with Musikfest, a 10 day festival held at the Steel Stacks in Bethlehem and this was the closing weekend.  So by the time we got to the area where the MINIs were supposed to be, it was full and we were diverted to “overflow” parking, which was more than a mile away!!  We complained and whined for several minutes about what to do, along with several other MINI drivers.  Eventually a bus came to pick us up and deliver us to the Registration area.  We were given $25 in food/drink vouchers, and Cindi and I walked around looking for something halfway tasty, but all we really saw was your typical “Fair” style food.  We decided to turn our vouchers back in and eat at a nearby Ruby Tuesday’s.  By the time we got the bus ride back to the car and drove to the restaurant,  it had closed!!  Now we were both whining, hungry, and exhausted!!  We actually ended up at Burger King and went back to the hotel and crashed within 10 minutes!  I have to admit, the trip is starting to take its toll…but I’m still having a blast!!

Pictures: Cleveland to Buffalo

 Here are the pics from Cleveland to Buffalo….enjoy!

Cleveland from the 9th Street Pier

Drew Carey and Mimi made a surprise appearance!  

The covered bridges of Ashtabula County, Ohio

Crossing the border into Canada

First glimpse of Niagra Falls!

Our second glimpse…I grew more and more excited!  So impressive!!

Looking across to the American side... 

Some serious mist!  Made it feel like you were getting rained on!

That pink stuff is people in "biodegradable ponchos"…!

Cars staged for the "MINI Invasion"

Looking toward the Rainbow Bridge

We saw this as we were crossing Rainbow Bridge.
I'm not sure I would trust those nets to catch anyone who may "slip" off the platform!