MINI Meets

Unlike last years Apple Picking Sundae drive, this year we were super-blessed with blue skies, sun and temperatures above 70! It was a brilliant day weather-wise and scenery-wise, with Fall foliage near peak; the company of many friendly MINI owners – and Margaret – made the day better still!

Like last year, we all met at PapaRazzi on route 2, an easy-to-find point from which to begin driving great back roads in the area:

On the road, we enjoyed many Fall foliage lined roads – much quieter too once I pulled past Keith’s MINI and followed Sheena 😉

When we arrived at George’s Hill Orchards, we parked all the MINIs and then headed off to various entertainments … Margaret & I headed up to the top of the hill with Jock & Hannah, making a bee-line for lunch. Unfortunately bees (well, wasps actually) headed there too – we had to eat indoors instead of enjoying the weather, but that’s better than sharing with wasps! After lunch though, the view from the top of the hill was worth enjoying:

 

We then strolled back down through the orchards (with many apples sadly fallen due to recent hail), and visited the “Petting Zoo” – the goats especially were very friendly and keen to be petted, to Margarets great pleasure:

And in the distance, hiding in the trees …

 

Then it was time to call everyone back, ready for the next destination … but first, more pictures:

 

And the next destination was Colonial Candies, with DIY ice cream sundaes (at least, you get to apply your own toppings); and after ice cream, loads of sweets available to choose from too 🙂

 

What a great way to spend a “bonus” October day! Thanks Sheena, Margaret, and everyone, for making today such fun!

Yesterday I was back at NHIS in Loudon, for an event sponsored by Herb Chambers MINI of Boston and organized by Skip Barber School instructors.
Two “cone track” layouts were provided – on one you could drive MINIs provided by Herb Chambers (including, if you waited long enough, the new JCW version of R56 MCS); the other was available for you to drive your own car on. Sadly, neither layout was as “complex” or fun as the auto-x layouts that Boston BMWCCA set up during the recent MINI of Peabody sponsored events (see here and here).

At almost the same time that George, Jayne and I arrived in GP1717 and GP0203, Dave pulled in with GP0191 (Dave’s friend owned a rather larger vehicle):

We first headed to the “drive Herb Chambers MINI” layout – where everyone else was too! The popularity of this – especially for (presumably) prospective MINI owners that had arrived in some other car – meant a long wait and, for me at least, some disappointment. There was only time to do two laps around the track – on the first you were learning the route (there were no laid-down marker cones to indicate the course), and on the second just as you were getting in to the swing of things, you had to slow and finish).

Now and then, further limiting drive time, the instructors decided to take over the driving and “burn rubber” while taking two randomly selected people as passengers (similar to what happened during the Herb Chambers R56 launch back in February). We decided to head over to the second cone layout, where we could drive our GPs – a little more fun but again, the layout consisted basically of a circle with a couple of tight corners, and one “chicane” of two cones to take left/right (or right/left if you preferred!). An amazing go-kart showed up, brought by some teenagers who hoped to drive the layout, but unfortunately could not be allowed to since there was no emergency services on standby …

Here’s lots more pictures: