My wife and I left Maine four weeks ago and returned from Orlando, Fl. two weeks ago. Besides a visit to two of our three daughters who live in Florida it was wringing out drive for our 1.5 year old '05 MINI. When this intrepid twosome left the Pine Tree state the temperature was 55 degrees and very, very wet. By the time we hit the border of Virginia it was sunny and mid seventies (very nice since Maine has had one of it's wettest springs on record).

The MINI ran flawlessly for the whole 1500+ miles down to Florida and the 1400+ miles back again. This included the 105 miles of the Skyline Drive in Virginia and another 80+ miles traveled on the BlueRidge Parkway from Roanoke to the North Carolina border. What a hoot! The wee beastie handles like a dream (no cruise control in my sports car!). Once we were south of all the rain the moon roof spent most of it's time wide open and as we aren't ones to listen to fabricated tunes we listened to mother nature flying by.

We spent ten days at Disney resorts utilizing our daughters discount on rooms/food/purchases. The weather was picture perfect as we spent six days at the various theme parks, one day at Typhoon Lagoon and a day at Unversal Studios. I had my fill of roller coasters and walking...at least till next year. We will now have to people to sponge off of when we visit the Silver Haired state (my hair is headed that way fast).

The return trip of around 1400+ miles was uneventful till we once again ran into rain in New England. Just as we left the state of Maine at 55 degrees and very wet, we arrived in almost the same exact conditions. The only minor happenstance was on one of the many days our youngest used the MINI in Orlando to go to and from work in lieu of her '93 Explorer. She went to a Target store to pick up some stuff and when she came back the first and only dings were discovered just past the passanger side door. Looks like a shopping cart ding, but who knows. Now our MINI is blooded and I no longer worry about getting dings/dents/scratches. I did buy a touchup paint kit while at my first scheduled maintenance last week and one of the maintenance techs aplied the paint and clearcoat for me. He did a nice job and you can barely see the dings.

Thus ends our first road trip of this length and likely our last unless we relocate in a few years. Now the MINI sports a Thule roof rack for carting our mountain bikes to local trails. When/if the trails dry out a bit we'll be off on more adventures and hopefull they'll all go as well as this trip did.

Motor on campers!

 

Sounds awesome

If my family decides to move in the fall, I'm gonna be faced with a big decision...

Drive (almost) cross-country from New Hampshire to Texas with my younger bro in my mcs, or ship the car out and just drive with my mom.

Haven't decided yet, but I'll prob just ship it.

 

Great road trip! We've been to all those places - ah...memories!! So glad to hear your MINI was so good and you got down & back safely... Disney World is one of our favorite places....some kids never grow up..

Donna

 

Sounds like a great trip! I'm originally from Maine, but living in Washington. I'm seriously considering a cross-country road trip in the next couple of years. I would love to take a few weeks off from work and motor around the US.

 

Haha, Everyone loves Disneyworld. Have you been to Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, VA? That's a pretty awesome park, def one of my favorites.

 

Love Bush Gardens in Williamsburg. Our whole family spent a long weekend their celebrating my parents 45 wedding anniversary. Great roller coasters.