Video from the salt flats

just in case you didn't see, the local news station sent a helicopter to shoot the crazy little european cars.

video from ksl.com

Home again, home again

More photos and fun stuff to follow, but in the meantime, some statistics:

Total miles: 3735

Highest elevation: something around 12,000 feet

Highest speed: withheld

Highest temp: 105

Lowest temp: 52 and foggy along PCH

Most MINIs in a single photo shoot: around 300

Number of times across the Continental Divide: 6 (well, we only saw 5 signs, but since we're here, I'm assuming we missed one. Elevations ranged from 6000 to 14,000 something.)

Wildlife spotted: the seals at Ano Nuevo, two kinds of deer, elk, and one tame rabbit. Didn't see moose or bighorn sheep, but I'm sure they were there.

Strangest moment: descending on the wrong "big red barn" for our MINI-sponsored peach stop. The wrong farmer Bob kindly gave us a tour of his peach farm and packing plant, while his field hands took pictures of all the funny little cars parked in front. The right big red barn was about a half-mile down the road.

heading home

we're all done - approx 2,400 miles down, and 1250 to go before we get back to Sonoma...



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Group Photo Charlie-Foxtrot

what happens when you get too many MINI owners in too small a space?

this is the lower of two parking lots:


an the upper parking lot:


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More pictures?

check out my flickr stream at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidrperry


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Location:Winter Park, CO

While we're gone...

We have a trusted friend taking care of the kitties. We also have a webcam that watches them... (this is my favourite shot so far)


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10603

I think this is the highest point of our road rally. my terrible math tells me we were about 2 miles above sea level.

we stopped in Frisco, CO (elevation 9,042) for lunch.


Miles is enjoying the view, but he is breathing much harder in the thin mountain air :(

Tonight we stop in Winter Park, CO and meet up with folks from MINIs in the Mountains for a cruise through downtown.


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Location:the rockies

tragedy strikes Miles!

as we're washing the salt off of Miles, his passenger side vent grill suddenly detaches...


it's a grill just below the windshield wipers and back from the bonnet:



so, I call MINI of Murray, the local dealer, to see if they have a spare. They do, so we grab a bite to eat, at Noodles & more and we encounter our first Coke Freestyle machine (but it was out of Coke!).

at the dealer I also pickup a RUBBISH bag from the MINI accessories catalog, fit the replacement piece and head out.

by now, we're convinced that we're at the back of the pack, only to see the support van barreling down the Interstate behind us!

high point for today: 7,477'

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Location:the car wash

car wash time

so, after racing across a dry salt lake (which is actually moist-ish) - we had to get all the salt off of Miles. MINI had provided us with directions to a car wash in SLC, so we wandered to S 2100 E & N 1300 E (or something like that) in Salt Lake City.



see that white cakey stuff? Salt. Salt is bad for cars, and the amount of salt we picked up was amazing (will post more salty pictures later).

Then it was off to Grand Junction, CO
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Location:Salt Lake City

Wednesday

today has been a long day... up and out of our kitschy hotel by 7am. headed west (homeward bound) on I-80 for about 120 miles until we got to Bonneville Speedway.

Then we headed back to Salt Lake City, and the car wash (salt is not good for Miles)


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