MINI Meets

A new group / website / forum recently formed, the Massachusetts Motoring Club – one of their goals is to have regular get-togethers (“shindigs”) to enjoy an “international night” dinner together … Margaret & I tonight attended a re-run of their first night (not sure if that makes it their second night or not!), at the Brazille restaurant in Framingham. The food was very good, with an array of choices of salad, cooked meat and sides … highlights included the steak, pork sausage and grilled pineapple; yum yum 🙂
Also on offer, dessert (which Pete amazingly managed, after four plates of main course!) and drinks – Margaret said the Strawberry Daquiri was good …

 

The Club has created a Passport to accompany attendees of the international nights – the idea is to fill it with stickers collected at each night!

Let’s hope there’s many more events – the chance to enjoy great food with great MINI friends should be a great incentive!

Many thanks to Mass. Motoring Club, to Becca, Sheena, Pete, Audra, Thom, Keith (hope that covers everyone involved in organizing it!)

On November 16th 2002, I joined a total of 11 MINIs on my first ever MINI drive from MINI of Peabody to Woodmans in Essex … see this posted-after-the-fact weblog entry for pictures.

Now, five years (and 1 day) later, a group of us did it again – and one of the MINIs was even present at both drives (owned by Jayson & Karen)! As in 2002, we started from MINI of Peabody, who were kind enough to provide coffee & muffins for us! They also offered a discount on merchandise – and yes, I purchased a few things 🙂

Then, with everyone signed up and directions in hand, we headed off first south to Route 128, then east towards the Atlantic Ocean … First stop was at West Beach in Beverly, just to make sure we hadn’t lost anyone!

We then continued along route 127 which runs along the Atlantic coast, through Manchester then round Ocean St, which is a great curved beach & road and a perfect place to stop for pictures! Cool weather, especially when the wind blew, but beautiful clear blue skies and pretty nice in the sun 🙂

 

Onward and in to Gloucester, where the cut bridge opened just as we were crossing it, stranding some MINIs while a tall-masted yacht sailed through! But then everyone got together again, parking on Stacy Boulevard for pictures at the Man At Wheel statue:

After that we looped around Bass Rocks before heading across two rotaries and over to Essex to Woodmans for a huge deep fried lunch!

Many thanks to MINI of Peabody for hosting us, and to everyone that joined us on the meander – from 5+ year owners, right up to 1 week owners!

I’ve been working this week in Selma, CA – so I’m driving some Ford while GPMINI waits at home! Today I had a few free hours, so took the opportunity to arrange lunch with MINI friend Robert, of TwistyBitz fame. We met in Bakersfield, halfway between where I was working and his home; Robert’s MINI is sick at the moment, so he drove up in his wife’s Audi … so two MINI owners, but no MINIs! We had lunch in Zingo’s, more of a truck stop than anything, but friendly service …

It was great to chat for a few hours, and switch off from my work – until the company called with a crisis, and I had to rapidly cover the 100 miles back to spend the evening working.

Thanks, Robert, for heading up – great to see you again 🙂