TGICR day 6 – going my own way

Posted on by Ian C.

Today we all headed up in to Haverhill to England’s MicroCreamery – great ice cream made on site by friendly folks 🙂

After that, sadly, I had to head away – dropped GPMINI off for spa detailing, and picked up a BMW loaner (which was shockingly cramped feeling, with a very raked windscreen, narrow doors, and bulky headrest).
I visited work, then Sublime Restorations to collect some last minute MINIsOnTop donations, then back to get GPMINI and head home … grabbed some food and now trying to catch up on all the MOT loose ends, before packing and heading north with Margaret in the morning.

Sorry – it seems I didn’t take any ice cream pics today! Well, the ice cream was good, and the caramel sauce was great.

I hope to see a number of TGICR folks tomorrow and/or Saturday, during MINIsOnTop; meanwhile, I’m missing my new friends – especially Murray, Erica and David that I travelled with every day …

TGICR day 5 – not so fun

Posted on by Ian C.

Today was too much non-highway driving, and not so much fun – although the ice cream was excellent!

The first part of the drive, to the ice cream at The Riverside Creamery in Port Jervis, was deliberately off-highway and was a nice drive … after lunch I fancied a straight highway haul to Sturbridge, but it would have got us in at 2pm. A couple of people suggested US 7 up Connecticut instead (“very pretty”).
Well, it might be pretty in parts, but if you get tired of it or stuck with traffic – and we did – there’s no other option; we were behind slow vehicles for a long time, encouraging one driver to get crazy. I think some MINI folks forget that we have to respect other road users, even if they’re going slower then we’d like.

When we finally reached highway, we still had 90 miles on the Mass Pike, with regular police activity too … so we finally made it to the hotel at 4:30, and then spent ages doing room swaps to try and find working internet. Not my hotel of choice (last nights Holiday Express was so much nicer!)

Anyway, MINIs are arriving, and some folks from OceanStateMINI are here to greet us – and it’s damn cold (low 50s) so back to long trousers before I go out.

 

This evening, we swamped Enricos – but they handled us extremely well; and their pizza was incredibly good :); we missed the evening ice cream – they were closing before we could make it to them – so we hung out in the motel parking lot and enjoyed chatting, till the Florida folks got too cold 😉