Finally I have been able to sort all the pictures taken by Margaret (and a few by me) at MINIsOnTop [MOT2004] this weekend … MINIsOnTop started for us on Friday evening after checking in to the Town & Country in Gorham, NH; I headed to the auto road and collected more than 100 registration bags put together by John & Steve earlier in the week – it was a tight squeeze in one MINI, even with no passenger; Margaret & I along with Ed (MaxaMini) sorted all the bags into alphabetical order, added the few extra donated items and handed out bags to 20 or so early arriving MINI owners. The rest of the bags were handed out at Loon Mountain parking lot Saturday morning.
Saturday morning was overcast when we left the Town & Country with Ed & Mart about 8:30am, and during the drive over it rained torrentially! Bad sign. But by the time we reached the Loon Mountain parking lot, the rain was ending and the sky slowly cleared. More and more MINIs arrived as the morning progressed, including all the MINIs that started the day around 3:30am in Maine! We handed out all but four registration bags and eventually Richard called a “driver talk” to tell everyone what was happening:
And then we all set off along the Kancamagus Highway; the route was longer than last year – basically one end to the other and half way back again. The lunch stop was a parking area on the Kancamagus highway that we could hardly all fit in. After that we drove Bear Notch Road and on to route 16, past the auto road and to Gorham and back to the Town & Country for a quick rest.
Now everyone headed to the auto road for a planned gathering starting at 3:45pm, with food and prize giving. Unfortunately the rain had returned and the morning running race up the auto road was running late so our event started very late.
The weather improved again, but sadly the food lines had not improved from last year – food service was probably the only failing of the MINIsOnTop event.
There were loads of donated prizes to hand out, as well as a plaque from MINI USA to Steve thanking him for organizing the event.
The running race delay forced a rush of the prize presentations and all too soon it was time to drive up the auto road. We were warned that near hurricane winds were present at the top, and we had to be very careful – the drive up was almost cancelled.
However, we did all make it to the top of the auto road in one piece – one car overheated but was rescued by Steve (who generously sacrificed beer to provide water containers!) At the top of the mountain the weather was utterly unbelievable, with winds gusting to 84mph and wind chill temperatures around zero fahrenheit! We took a couple of pictures and left quickly! On the way back down the auto road, as we got below the clouds the sunset became magnificent; maybe the weather likes us after all …
UPDATE: there was a great article in the Boston Globe, by Royal Ford who attended the event:
M&I / GBMINI 