In honour of Ed, I headed down to Long Island this weekend to join some Long Island MINI owners and tour Long Island; I met Chris at the New London ferry (he had driven down from New Hampshire), and we crossed to Long Island the easy way …
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Then early yesterday morning I met up to 20 other MINIs at a mall near New York City, where the rally started (and ended!):
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We headed off to drive a total of about 180 miles! For me there was too much driving and not enough stopping – we passed lots of beautiful scenery and towns, but stopped only rarely …
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But one important place we did stop was the Big Duck!
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GBMINI#3 at The Big Duck
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Group picture at The Big Duck
Lunch was at a golf “country club” which had trouble coping with an “invasion” of 30+ MINI people – food was excellent but slow. On the other hand, the weather was fabulous!
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Background – why the Big Duck:
Ed (MaxaMINI) developed his duck theme from a tour round Long Island organized by RobFriedman; see see this post on MINI2, where Ed writes:
Sorry ladies and gents it be no Giant Duck. Cheez it’s plain to see they are merely mini people. Come on get real. Giant duck! Have you ever in your life seen a duck this big? Of course not. That’s quite impossible and you know it. Look how small those cars are. Could real size people operate them? Of course not. Mini people and Mini cars. Get it.
M&I / GBMINI 
Looks like fun, Ian. Glad you took advantage of the shortcut I proposed. I’ve only set foot on Long Island once or twice for a short time, and only by boat, despite being able to see it from my house while growing up.
sorry we didnt have photo stops…. basically too much milage and driving.. i know..
then again.. at RDR1 after driving by Byram Lake in Mt kisco.. Sue and i went back to shoot it and drive around…about 2 weeks later..
hope you enjoyed yourself too.. it really was great meeting you and Chris.. the Pie Man
Lov’n those 8 digit plates! Here in CA we only can get 7. Loved that Union Jack scoop also.
… In Mass we are limited to six characters, and no fancy stuff like dashes or spaces either 😦
From this post it is reported that more than $1000 was raised for the Salvation Army to support hurricane relief efforts …