This is looong. Consider yourself warned

We finally got our MCS home this week :smile:

We ordered in early Dec fromJulie at Classic MINI, and had originally
planned on shipping from Ohio to Washington with Concours Transport.
Our car arrived on about the 15th, which unfortunately was a few days
after Concours had trucks in the area. My patience held out for about
a week. The next Thursday we found out the soonest we could have
our car delivered was about the first week of Feb and I couldn't hack
the waiting any longer. About 2 hours after we got that info I was on
a plane to Cleveland to get our car.

For those of you considering shipping, even though I didn't go that route
I'd still recommend Concours. Fred was a good guy to work with, and had
the best prices of any carrier I talked to, covered or otherwise. It was
unfortunate timing and lack of patience on my part that put me on a plane.

The flight I was on connected in Phoenix at about 2pm, and put me in
Cleveland at 9:30. I was under the assumption that Classic would be closed
by the time I got in, so my plan was to get a room and take delivery in the
am. I wasn't able to get a hold of Julie until I was about to board the
plane in Phoenix - and get this - she actually offered to pick me up at the
airport (keep in mind this was about 6 hours before I would arrive there),
take me back to the dealership and get me into our car! I'm so glad we
decided to go through Classic, the whole experience working with them has
been awesome.

So after a long day of flying by me, and a long day of working by Julie, we
arrived at Classic around 10:30. We rushed through the paper work, I took a
few pictures and got on the road in "freezing my *** off" weather at about
midnight. My goal was to get back in time to get to work on Monday, so I
wanted to get some miles behind me right away.

Now I missed the terrible snowstorm that blasted the east coast by a few
days, but it was coming down pretty good, so I made a beeline south for I70
and clearer weather. That first day was a blur of driving, and I think I
made it to somewhere in Illinois before crashing in the parking lot of a
Long John Silvers.

Friday was much more laid back, just a straight shot along I70 in clear
weather took me all all the way to Hayes, Kansas before retiring.
Having logged Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas City, and
soon Denver, I felt like I was doing a Midwest NFL city tour. Unfortunately
that trend would continue as I would come uncomfortably close to Phoenix on
day 3.

My intention was to go north from Denver and hit I80 west, and then take I84
to Oregon, which is a doable 1450 miles in two days. I intentionally slept
in a little, and probably got on the road at about 10am. I got into Denver
just in time for rush hour (yay), and started to head north. About 10
minutes outside of Denver I got a call from a friend who was checking out
weather info for me, and apparently the roads in eastern Oregon were snow
covered with chains required for anywhere from 100-250 miles. Ugh. I
pulled over and considered my options: 1. Crappy, stressful, snowy drive
with chains, which, in all likelihood, would snap at some
point and trash the hell out of the side of the car; or 2. Tack another 1000
miles onto the trip and go around the mountains. Neither option looked too
appealing considering I really needed to get back by Monday. The health of
the car won out over my own, and I decided to turn around and head south for
I40 in New Mexico.

I got out of Denver a little after 5, and boogied down to New Mexico and
Arizona, landing in Flagstaff at about 2:30am. I wanted to keep going, but
the worst snowy roads of the whole trip I found in NM and AZ, which baffles
me to this day. I figured the only way I'd have a chance to make it home on
time was to get up reasonably early, so I set my alarm to 8:30.

So I got 6 hours of sleep looking at my 4th and longest day of travel, and
had 23 hours to make the 1400 remaining miles. I didn't know this at
the time, but if you average 70 miles per hour over 1400 miles, you'll
be traveling for 20 hours straight. Had I known that I don't think I
would have bothered trying.

I chose to head north from Kingman towards Reno, instead of backtracking to
LA and I5. This was a mostly uneventful drive - aside from getting pulled
over just outside of Hawthorne for 83 in a 70. The cop was cool though, and
knocked it down to "Excessive Speed" which is just a small fine. He didn't,
however, have any clue what I was driving and was sure it was some kind of
Volkswagen :smile: I was extra fortunate because I was bombing through NV at
about 90 for most of the drive, and had decided to take it easy about 2
minutes before I was nailed.

It was during the drive out of Reno that I started to get beat. I must have
caught rush hour between Reno and Sac because the drive through the
mountains was a zoo - I was dodging semis, flying rocks and speeding
minivans the entire way. For some inexplicable reason traffic came to a
grinding halt for about 1/2 and hour and then picked right back up. No
accidents, no nothing that I could see. If there is an explanation for this
phenomenon on this stretch of road, I'd love to hear it. Luck was with me
on this part of the drive as the MINI only collected one rock chip worth
mentioning during the entire trip. Perhaps my frantic speeding and braking
to avoid those crazy drivers and their rock missiles had something to do
with it.

The drive into and out of Sac was great. I was finally out of traffic and
on a road that led to my house. I made it clear to Redding before just
about loosing it. I should say here that the only reason I made it this far
was talk radio. I never listen to talk radio, but it didn't take me long to
figure out that no matter what they were talking about, keeping my brain
busy listening to words was the only thing that would keep me going in this
severe state of not enough sleep and too much travel. However, it was here
that I just about threw in the towel. I did a bunch of jumping
jacks and a few laps of the parking lot in some restaurant (I'm sure I got
some interesting looks, but was too tired to care) and found enough to keep
moving.

It was just outside Redding that I remembered caffeine. I had stuck to
water thus far, and decided that a system shock of caffeine was the only
thing that would get me home. After a wicked concoction of Red Bull and
NoDoz, I found my second wind :smile: This would later deliver my 3rd and
4th winds in Oregon.

Now wide awake, I had a fairly easy time getting into Oregon. The "Chains
Required" signs were concerning (I had no chains), but I kept on through the
first couple towns. I stopped somewhere for gas, and to inquire about the
weather. Most folks felt the passes would be ok, but didn't recommend
heading out w/o the chains. I spent probably an hour looking, and in the
middle of nowhere found a 24 hour WalMart that had chains that were a close
but not quite fit - they would have to do.

The hills go on for fricking ever in southern Oregon. It was night, and
I had no clue how high up I was, so I was on constant alert for ice and
snow. That got old quick. I was beginning to loose it near Eugene, so
I took another hit of Red Bull/No Doz, and kept on going. I was too close
to home to stop now.

The rest of the drive was hazy, but uneventfull. For some reason I woke
up just as I got into our town, and had enough left in me to take the car
to a you-hose-it carwash to try and get the top couple layers of road
trip off of it. This weird state of half awake but can't sleep stayed with
me all morning, until I crashed around 1. I scored 2 hours of sleep before
going into work for a 10 hour shift. Needless to say I was loopy by the
time I got home that night.

So, total miles on the trip was just under 3500. Total hours on the road,
79. Miles/hours on Sunday - 1400/23. Percentage of time I had a sore
posterior - 0% (this was amazing). Problems with the MINI - 0. Overall,
this is a much better road trip car than I expected, especially considering
the manic nature of the last day of the trip. I give the MINI two thumbs up.

:smile:

 

v. nice.

please post the pictures too. :smile:

congrats

 

yeah, pictures are coming.

 

I used to be a maschist until I found out that I enjoyed it too much and had to quit !!

Great story -- you'll remember the trip fondly in your old age. Tom

_________________

Tom Clark, Clarksville MD: CR '02 MCS

 

I wanna do a roadtrip this summer, and wanna beat my two one-day distance records. First was Cleveland area to halfway through Nebraska in one day... I had a passenger, but he couldn't drive stick. 20 hours. That was in a New Beetle. Second one was in my Mini, which was from Clevelandish to Bostonish and back, staying in Mass for 5 hours, total trip time of 24 hours. I wanna try to get to Nevada in one day for my next trip.

My secret for travelling long distances in short periods of time without getting a ticket? (Only have had one speeding ticket, and that was going to work last spring). CB radio. Truckers are your friend, don't let anyone ever say ANYTHING bad about truckers. I averaged 110 mph in my Beetle from Iowa through Nebraska.

Apex, congrats on your drive! Julie's great, no? I'm fortunate to live only 40 minutes from Classic, so I don't have to drive to Washington,

 

Mike, glad you made it home safely. :smile: I admire your tenacity and endurance!

I made a similar journey on 1/5/04. Luckily I flew out of PDX before the airport was shut down for several days due to the winter storm. I flew into CLE, where Julie picked me up that night. The sales team at Classic MINI was extremely friendly and helpful, which made my purchasing experience a memorable one.

Like you, it was snowing when I drove the car off the dealer's lot. I wanted to get out of that area ASAP. Instead of gambling with uncertain winter road conditions of the Rocky, I purposely avoided I-80 or I-70 and headed SW to Oklahoma City. From there, I traveled on I-40 via TX, NM, AZ, to CA. I planned my trip, so I can attend LA Auto Show. From LA, I took I-5 all the way to Portland, where I encountered the worst weather of my trip. That was during the week of snow storm. MINI performed perfectly throughout the entire trip. Believe it or not, when I was only 2 feet away from my garage, the car was stuck because of the pile of snow. I had to get out of the car and shoveled the snow away from under the tires.





_________________
04 IB/W JCW MCS

 

In hindsight, I should have just taken a similar route to the one you did. I was betting that the passes would be ok.

"Believe it or not, when I was only 2 feet away from my garage, the car was stuck because of the pile of snow. I had to get out of the car and shoveled the snow away from under the tires. "

I believe it. It was a serious mess here that week. Getting out of our driveway took 5 minutes if you were lucky and 60 if you weren't. Actually moving down the street once you were out was a whole separate issue. We didn't see a plow once in our neighborhood. I did see a firetruck drive up and down the street a couple times, and I think that was their version of "plowing".

_________________
Finally in our driveway! - Blk/Blk/Anthraccite MCS, 3 packages, H/K, Wipers/Mirror, Rear Fogs

 

How was the ride on your MCS with chains? :smile:

 

you met Julie in person! WOW
She is really the nicest...I bought my MCS from her in October...and she was on the phone to me in CA while the car the car was being trucked out. Problems with the car and she was talking to Calif MINI dealers and the
east and West coast MINI reps to find a solution. Classy all the way.

Like your trip story. I did that once too, FL to Forks Wa. with a border collie and a sassy old cat stuffed together in the back seat of a 90 toyota xtra cab truck.

Glad you made it home and missed the wicked winds along the Calif /Ore border.

How do you like your car???

 

I picked up the MINI after all that snow melted, so I don't know. I was driving our stock Maxima when that weather hit and got around without chains. Took some work though :smile:

Like you I went around the Rockies to avoid the snow and chains. I'll be seriously stuck before I put chains on this car.

 

Sounds like a long, exciting trip. I did the same thing, buying mine from Julie and driving it back to Washington state, but in April of 03. I took a week and it only rained.

Glad to see you back home!!!

"the car"