I had a great time! I owe several thanks:

1. ShellBell who made AMVIV worth my while to attend, if it hadn't been for her help driving my MINI to Vegas for me I don't know if I would of been able to make it!

2. Jonathan, Berk and Darcy - BIG THANKS for letting me store my MINI in your garage and letting me crash at your place when we got back in from Vegas.

3. The "Package Pickup" Crew at the Vegas airport when I flew in! It was great, timing wise the Colorado group arrive about the same time I landed from Houston!

3. Everyone who helped me with the 14 DOZEN LED lights for the Vegas Strip night drive! If you haven't seen 'em, Motoring file has a recap and there is a video clip while they were still be put on!

4. Whoever gave me a couple of beers on the roof top after the Friday night drive, thanks!

5. Elvis for singing his heart out down the strip Friday night! (SHELLBell and KIKI knows what I'm talking about if you weren't anywhere near my MINI while we driving down the strip)

6. Once again Ralph Schomp came through! Somewhere through New Mexico or Arizona the Brake Pad change light came on after 37k miles or so. I had just gotten the maintenance coverage extended through my dealership in Houston at 35k, took the original maintenance of 36k miles to 100k miles and it's 100% MINI, so no problem for Ralph Schomp honoring it, and they were super, in at 7 AM, and they had me ready by 10:30 AM the same morning! They even discovered that my wiper blades needed replaced, which were also included in the covered maintenance deal!

I worked Monday and Tuesday at my company's Denver office, flew back Tuesday night, and then flew back up on Friday to work another day and then started heading back to Houston on Saturday.I took CO94 out of Colorado springs over to I-40, CO 94 was a nice quiet drive. I went down through Lamar and skippped across a little bit of Oklahoma into Texas. I made it home late Monday night after a short delay in San Antonio Sunday and Monday for a round of golf and some of the NCAA hoopla!

Oh, and those 14 dozen lights, I brought them back Tuesday night as CARRY ON luggage, I made it through security with little trouble at all! And some of 'em were still blinking!

It was great seeing my Canadian Calgary Friends, friends from the MINI5280. I throughly enjoyed the trip, the people, and the drives!

-Ronald

 

everyone here loves helping their MINI friends. And you cannot say enough about Shelley and her crew at Schomp.

BTW, I have sent you a referral for housing at the Dragon later this month. Let me know if you do not hear from him...he is from KC...and looking for a place to stay.

Travel safe, see you in a few weeks.

JPS

 

SHELL BELL

got your car"e" package today in the mail.. that is great... I will have to scan some of those pics in, a few are decent enough for the web... he he...