MINI Meets

Burning MINIs 2 was a very blue event! It even included MaxaMINI‘s MINI, driven by the lovely Mart:

 

On the drive, there were other colors, with the fall foliage still looking good (with early November temperatures in the 60s and sunny, it’s not surprising!). Our first stop was at MINI Peabody where our MINIs joined the new ones and nearly filled the lot (made worse by a delivery of brand new MINIs!):

Then, more driving, to a destination of Russells Orchards:

And finally back to the farm starting point – where we were joined for a short time by a few MINIs who had spent the day driving the Mohawk Trail:

 

Now it was bonfire time – since the day (November 5th) was Guy Fawkes Day in England, I made a Guy who had driven up with me in the morning; during the day he had gathered some friends but now it was time to send him up in flames! We finished the evening enjoying the fire, lighting sparklers, and eating burgers & steak cooked on the BBQ …

Back home from MAMA 3 (see this MINI2 thread) – lots of MINIs and loads of water! There was heavy rain during my drive up to Keene, and also during some of the drive today – but none of this spoiled the fun we all had; there were a few route changes due to the floods, and one U-turn!

 

Our lunch stop was at Cathedral Of The Pines which happily offered a tent & dry benches:

On the return journey we stopped in Harrisville – we would have enjoyed a tour of the ex-mill town, if the weather had been more friendly. Instead we were in awe of the water again:

 

Sadly there was very little fall foliage:

 

A great day: seeing loads of MINI friends and meeting some new ones, enjoying some great twisty roads and not drowning are all good. Thanks Annette for the brownies too 🙂

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 …

Then early yesterday morning I met up to 20 other MINIs at a mall near New York City, where the rally started (and ended!):

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 …

 

But one important place we did stop was 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!

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.