LOG 35, Day 3

Posted on August 31, 2015 by dhill

Sunday, August 23

Our first event of the day is the group drive to the summit of Pikes Peak. We had arranged with the city (the Pikes Peak road is operated by Colorado Springs) to be on the mountain before anybody else, so that meant another early rise. We left the hotel at 6:30 in a giant caravan to the North Pole parking lot where we lined up and waited for the Rangers to give us our passes. We pretty much filled their lot. Rangers passed out brochures – these were our tickets in. They did this instead of putting stickers on everybody’s windshield.

We passed the dozen or so folks lined up at the gate. It was pretty well known that we wouldn’t be staying within the speed limit, but we were told not to go crazy – if we overstepped we would be shut down. I later learned Clive Chapman led the charge. We were nowhere near the front of the line, but it was certainly the fastest I’ve ever made it to the top.

We got there 40 minutes before the store opened. It was cold and a bit windy and several folks really wanted to use the restrooms but we had to be patient. When they finally opened, the clerks said they weren’t warned so many people would be there; they were overwhelmed. It’s always cold and windy on top of 14ers, so the weather wasn’t unexpected. The smoke was bad again, but not too bad, and we were above it.

I assume most people headed out on one of the three scenic drives. We did our drive to Cripple Creek yesterday because I had autocross in the afternoon. Genae isn’t at all interested in standing around in a parking lot for three or four hours so she went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. I headed to PPIR.

We were on the schedule for 2pm. I’d been telling people it would be more like 3 or 3:30 but there was no general announcement. I wish I’d been able to get more people signed up the evening before. It was kind of hectic – I had forms and numbers and a notebook but no where to spread out. The wind was blowing, so everything had to be in the passenger seat of the car. At first I was able to deal with the entrants one by one but before long they were arriving two and three at a time, I eventually had everybody’s forms and had assigned a class and number.

The SCCA guys were great. We had a short meeting then set off to walk the course. Before the cars were let loose, Bill and Jon set the “slow” times in their wheelchairs. I’m pretty sure Bill has done this before – he had a more favorable final drive ratio or better charge in his batteries or both. Skip ran in his Baby 7, a one-third scale Lotus 7 go-kart. Eric and Kelly Dean not only had their Lotus but entered their Tesla as well.

I was working a corner for the first group. Second group was Elise and Exige, first group was everybody else. Nobody ever hit a cone in our sector, but we had several people DNF. The most fun was trying to get Skip to complete the course. The first time, he cut about a quarter of the course off. Each time after that I tried to point him in the right direction.

SCCA said we’d get four runs, I asked for 5 if we could be finished by six. In any event, we’d all miss the track day drivers meeting that somehow got scheduled for 5pm. We did get five runs and were done a few minutes before six so nobody would be late for the Mexican buffet that started at seven back at the hotel.

This was my second autocross. I had four different passengers on my five runs, going out solo only once. My first time was a 58 and I got better each run until the last, when I got sideways. Had I kept it straight, it would have been my fastest run. I’ll admit to being pleased that I was setting pretty good times. At my first autocross, I was about mid-pack among the rookies but only at the top end of the bottom quartile of all competitors. Today, most of our group were rookies or hadn’t done autocross often or recently.

Everybody seemed to have a good time, so I think it was a successful event. I hung around for a few extra minutes to collect the results, which Cynthia and Terry volunteered to collate.

I was back to the hotel just in time to stand in line for the Mexican buffet. After we ate, Ross made some announcements, then I got up and presented the results. People were very gracious and applauded everybody, even me when I said I’d gotten second in the Elise NA class. We all collected our trophies and sat down to watch Ross do a Tonight Show with Johnny Carson routine to chat with the evening’s guests – Clive Chapman, Arnie Johnson, and Dave Bean.

Unfortunately, I missed much of what was said. Just after it got underway I realized our results didn’t include Phil. He’d been running autocross with SCCA all day, so he already had done his paperwork and gotten a number. I didn’t put him on our entry list, so I never got his results. Turns out he was second in our class, so I gave him my trophy. I felt I couldn’t take the third place trophy from the guy we announced, so Tatiana and Jeremy gave me the 2nd place autocross for the race prepped car class. There were no entrants in that class.

It’s a pretty cool trophy, even if it’s not exactly what I won. Tatiana and Jeremy did a fantastic job making these; it’s a pretty neat little memento.

LOG 35, Day 2

Posted on August 30, 2015 by dhill

Saturday, August 22

The first event on the docket for Saturday was the panorama photo. We arranged a location with a view of Garden of the Gods and Pikes Peak. We first time LOG attendees were told that quite a few people want to arrive at the photo location early so they could get a prominent spot up front. So we volunteers had to arrive early; we were to direct people onto the lawn and get them lined up in good order. So I was up before six even though the photo wouldn’t actually happen until 9:30.

I didn’t count but we had something like a dozen folks directing traffic, starting in the street, winding through the parking lot, over the sidewalk, onto the lawn, then around in a large arc to get people lined up in concentric semicircles. Some had asked if we were going to try to arrange the cars by model or to abide by the “Ross Rule” – adjacent cars can’t be the same color. Attempting either of these would be futile and time consuming. Our task was simply to get them lined up.

Volunteering for this task had two nice side effects. First, I got a spot in the front of the photo. Second, and perhaps more interesting, I got a good look at every car as it came in and was able to chat with many of the owners. I never did see an official car count but there were something like 130+ cars there. Of course, I’d seen the cars in the hotel parking lot but generally the owners weren’t there.

Of note, there’s a rare Autumn Gold car with Colorado plates. Only eight of that color were imported to the USA. One was totaled and another went to Norway. I wondered how we had a local car like that and I’d never seen it before but somebody told me he’s from Pagosa Springs, so he’s not really local. Another interesting and rare color was Ice White. I’d never seen one before and asked if it was a custom color. No, just rare. A couple from California have an Isotope Green Elise. It wasn’t the only IG car there, but it was the only IG car with matching fuzzy dice and beanies.

The weather couldn’t have been much better – the morning was cloudless and clear of smoke.

Once we got everybody situated, we just had to wait until the sun was high enough to chase the shadows of all the cars. This allowed plenty of opportunity for folks to take pictures. Some put in more than the usual amount of effort – one guy brought out a drone. We take two pictures – one with people standing by their cars, one without. Each photo is comprised of about eight shots. I ordered a copy of the one with people.

After the shoot we headed back to the hotel. The rest of the morning was a Concours. Two, really – the judged one and the people’s choice. We didn’t enter the judged one, it’s more for the classic cars anyway. And we had no chance of winning the people’s choice for two reasons – first, there were a hulluva lot of great looking cars and second, we weren’t there. Most folks would be doing the road trips after Pikes Peak. I was doing autocross, though, so now was the time to do it.

First I had to try to resolve a dilemma. I was signed up for the track day but because I was out of town all week I didn’t have a chance to get the car inspected. BOE Engineering was a sponsor and had a large presence. So I went to their trailer and asked if they’d be kind enough to take care of it. The guy I talked to said I should return at 3 and they’d take car of me.

Three drives had been mapped out – a short one, a medium one, and a long one. Because we had to be back by three, we had little choice but the short one. Which worked out fine, as that was to Cripple Creek. I’ve lived in Colorado for more than forty years but have never been there. Genae’s never been there either.

US highway 24 headed west from I-25 is always crowded. On a summer weekend, it’s your basic stop-and-go bumper-to-bumper slog. It started loosening up once we passed the turnoff for Pikes Peak, tomorrow morning’s destination. Before long we were in Woodland Park. I’m pretty sure I’ve never been west of Woodland Park on US 24 before.

At Divide, we make a left turn to head south on CO 67. The road was bumpy and crowded but scenic. I say “crowded” but it wasn’t too bad. There were no long strings of cars, and we were even able to pass a few slow ones. It’s a very scenic drive. The route we took had us loop back to US 24 via Teller County Road 1. It carries less traffic and was quite pleasant.

We’d like to go back explore more of the region. The town itself is no longer interesting to us. When limited stakes gambling was first allowed, one of the big selling points was that the revenue would be means for historical preservation. I view it along the lines of the Vietnam war: “we had to destroy the village to save it”. I have no basis of comparison for Cripple Creek, but huge swaths of old buildings were removed and replaced by casinos in Black Hawk and Central City.

We stopped for a bite at Arby’s in Woodland Park and in spite of two navigational errors were back to the hotel a few minutes before three. I went over to the BOE trailer but the guy I had talked to earlier wasn’t there. The BOE guys said I should talk to the Concours Auto guy next door. He said I could show up at their shop Monday morning and get my inspection. Clearly, he wasn’t tuned in to the fact that track day was Monday. I thought I had him talked into doing one there in the parking lot but he decided not to. He said his liability insurance wouldn’t cover him if he did the inspection away from his shop. Does them doing an inspection actually imply liability? I don’t think so, but whatever.

So I went back and cornered one of the BOE guys. He and his colleagues closed up their trailer, then they abandoned him with me. I told him I’ve been throwing lean codes with the new intake. He told me a tune would run me eight hundred bucks. I think I’ll pass on that and just put the stock airbox back on. He also suggested I replace the bullet studs the previous owner installed and use the ones I have on the left rear. I will take that under advisement. He was very friendly and helpful.

Saturday evening was the big banquet. Genae had talked to Ann about the dress code so I planned to get all dressed up. My maximum is a sport coat and a tie. I think it’s the second time I’ve worn a tie in six or seven years.

The banquet starts at seven, with a social hour prelude. Instead of being social, I needed to get set up at a table and try to register my autocross attendees. We gave no notice we were doing this, and I didn’t even get a table until the last minute. Ross told me to share the table with the panorama photographer. He needed the whole table. The other table already there was for Bobby Unser to sign autographs. Finally the banquet staff brought me a table.

I needed to get each entrant to fill out SCCA’s weekend membership form and assign them a class and number. I had printed a bunch of numbers to be taped on the cars. I had a dozen of each digit. So I spread all this out on my table. It was funny watching people trying to figure out what I was selling. Something like 35 people had signed up for autocross but I only managed to get a dozen taken care of.

Not long after I got set up, Bobby Unser and his wife arrived and sat at the table to my left, signing autographs. He had a line of five or six people at one point, but generally there were only ever one or two people at his table. A woman approached me and said, “I understand you’re signing autographs.” I’ve either been mistaken for an 81 year old man or somebody was looking to get an autograph of somebody they know nothing about. I point to Unser and tell her, “You probably want him, but I’d be happy to give you my autograph.”

Later I made the same joke with another woman. She said, “You’re very attractive and all, but…” just as Genae walks up. “She was flirting with you.”

At seven I packed up my numbers and forms and headed to our table. Genae had the beef, I had the chicken. We’d been carrying the dinner coupons on the back of our name tags. Chicken was on yellow paper, salmon on pink, beef on red. When my name tag was showing the wrong side out, it identified me as “Chicken”. After we ate, Bobby Unser got up on stage and told stories of Pikes Peak and Indy, then answered questions. He’s a fairly entertaining fellow.

One question was, “How did the deaths of other drivers affect him?” He says he never feared death, and, as bad as it might sound, was indifferent to the deaths of his competitors. He had to be. He was injured many times; spent a lot of “sheet time” (time in the hospital). He now has difficulty walking and can’t stand for any amount of time.

Festivities wrapped up at ten to end a full day of LOG.

LOG 35, Day 1

Posted on August 26, 2015 by dhill

Last weekend was LOG 35. What’s that, you say?

Lotus Ltd is the national Lotus owners club. Every year they have a national meet – the Lotus Owners Gathering, or LOG. This year is LOG 35. People come from all over the country, some driving their classic cars, others flying in. Activities include a concours d’ elegance, banquets, and scenic drives. There’s always a panoramic group picture of the cars. There may be a track day or an autocross as well.

Elite

Lotus Ltd handles various administrative tasks, but the majority of the work is done by volunteers, usually members of the local chapter that is hosting the event. This year Lotus Colorado hosted it in Colorado Springs.

These are major events. We basically took over a Marriott hotel and overflowed to another hotel nearby. We used all the hotel’s conference space – ballrooms, meeting rooms, a tent pavilion outside, and, obviously, the parking lot. We had a store on the premises. They even let us take down all the art they had in the common areas and display our own. The portrait of JW Marriott himself was about the only thing of theirs we left up.

To make one of these work, pretty much everybody in the club has to contribute. I volunteered (or was selected, it’s all a bit fuzzy) to be the autocross event chair. I think I had the easiest of the jobs. On the more difficult side you had people working with the hotel, obtaining sponsors, finding guest speakers, making trophies, making signs, running the concours, running the drivers school, and the list goes on.

As I said, I had one of the easier jobs. SCCA actually put on our event, all I had to do was liaise with them and make sure the entrants filled out the right paperwork. That said, when I took on the task I had never even attended an autocross.

I knew that an autocross is a competitive, timed event. A course is laid out on a parking lot using traffic cones. Cars run the course one at a time. Competitors are divided into classes based on size, horsepower, tires, and other factors. That was about all I knew. I fixed that by attending my first autocross back in March.

So that’s the background.

Friday, August 21

Let’s actually start Thursday evening. I flew in from Albuquerque, arriving at about seven. I didn’t have a window seat (I prefer the aisle) and the guy next to me kept the blind closed for the entire flight. I was surprised, then, to find that smoke from the wildfires in California and the Pacific northwest filled the air. Visibility was only about five miles and the sun was a dull red disk. When I got home, I pulled the dirty clothes out of the suitcase and repacked it with clean.

S1 Elise

Friday morning Michael and I mounted the track tires on the car as I was doing both the autocross and the track day. I needed to wash the car as well, but there wasn’t time for that. The track wheels were clean, though, which went a long way to making the car presentable. When I backed the car out of the driveway the tires were rubbing something awful. Somehow we’d managed to mount the left rear wheel on the front. I’ll blame Michael, but it was silly of me not to see it right away. That remedied, I ran off to the barber to get myself presentable.

We packed all our stuff in Genae’s car. We had far too much to carry in the Lotus, but the real reason to take two cars was so she wouldn’t be stranded. I left the house a few minutes before she did. I mentioned to her that I’d avoid the interstate but didn’t think to mention how much longer my route might take. I w

ent through Sedalia and Palmer Lake; a much more scenic and relaxed drive than I-25.

By the time I got to the hotel, Genae had checked us in to our room. We made two or three trips carrying stuff from the car and when that was done we registered for LOG. It’s much like registering for a conference – go from table to table, signing forms, collecting a goody bag, getting a name tag. We even got signs for the parking lot so we’d be in the same spot all weekend.

Westfield Eleven

We arranged to have people park by type of car. To get into Lotus parking you had to do the “Lotus limbo” – drive under a horizontal pole. This kept the riffraff out. The more rare classic cars were closer to the festivities, the newest and most common cars (Elises, natch) were the farthest away. Conveniently, though, the car wash we set up was in our area so I took advantage and had her bathed – she was cleaner than she’d been for two years.

Genae is a big fan of Godfathers Pizza. They make a taco pizza that’s her favorite. We’ve tried making them at home but haven’t come close. A bit of research told her there was a Godfathers on the Air Force Academy, so after the car was washed we headed that way.

Civilians and visitors have to use the north entrance. It used to be that you could just drive in, but now I’m guessing its SOP to stop every vehicle. When we pulled up we were about eighth in line. Some got waved right through, some took a bit longer. When we pulled up, the sentry asked for my ID and I gave it to him. He also said “I’m gonna have to ask you to pop the trunk.”

There’s no “popping the trunk”. I shut it off, got out, opened the boot. Nobody else had to open their trunk. “What’s a car like this cost?”

Europas

Our GPS wanted us to take Parade Loop, but a sign indicated it was closed. I asked the sentry how to get to Godfathers and he said just to stay on this road. So we did. The road took us around the north side of the campus complex, past the practice fields and to a guest parking lot. No restaurant in sight.

The next turn on the road revealed the visitor center, so we stopped in there and asked for directions. “Drive your vehicle to the guest lot. There’s a glass front building there, that’s where you’re going.” These are not the best directions: all the buildings are glass front. Genae phoned Godfathers for about the fourth time and was told they were in Arnold Hall. (This, presumably, is named for General Hap Arnold, Chief of the Army Air Forces in WW II.)

We joked that this pizza better be worth all the effort it took to get here. The restaurant is part of a small food court along with a Subway and a wings place. It’s now the last Godfathers in Colorado.

The evening was spent socializing – drinks in the hotel bar, wandering around the parking lot seeing who drove which car from where, and then dinner in the pavilion. We had our choice of turkey or roast beef followed by a choice of desserts. After dark we even had a short laser light show back in the pavilion followed by announcements of the next days activities and schedule.

Elans

LOCO Black Hills – Part 2

Posted on May 22, 2015 by dhill

May 17

Although the hotel provides breakfast, nothing on offer particularly appealed to us so we decided we should head to town instead. We ate at Baker’s Bakery and Café, a little place with about ten tables and the tag line “you’ll love our buns”. After bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast we went back to the hotel for our usual drivers meeting. Today we would drive the Needles Highway and the Iron Mountain Road before visiting Mount Rushmore. Then we’d head to Sturgis for lunch and return to Custer through Deadwood and Hill City. I mounted the GoPro above the left rear wheel and we hit the road.

We headed north from Custer on Sylvan Lake Rd, SD 89. For the first few miles there are numerous houses and small ranches. One has a gate with big statues: a longhorn and a bison. He has a few dozen head of each. At Sylvan Lake we reach the junction with SD 87, through here known as the Needles Highway.

The road is quite narrow – no danger of getting stuck behind an RV here. There is no center stripe most of the way, and there are a couple of primitive narrow tunnels blasted through sheer granite walls. Mike was in the lead up to this point, but pulled over for the canyon carvers. We passed Mike and the others who wanted to take their rime but didn’t go as fast as many. We let two cars pass.

The highway is named for the granite needles that punctuate the terrain. Peter Norbeck (Governor and US Senator) plotted the route on horseback and foot and construction was completed in 1922. It cost so much at the time, locals called it the Needless Highway. The road has been well maintained but not significantly upgraded. Very nearly a one lane road, there are plenty of pullouts and overlooks.

SD 87 ends at a T-junction with US 16/16A. There’s a small parking lot there, and restrooms. We stopped there for a short break, completely filling the lot. The rangers from the Custer State Park entrance station walked over the hill and took some photos. While we were stopped, I remembered to power off the GoPro to save battery. I even remembered to turn it back on when we left.

A few miles up the road I happened to look in my left hand mirror to see the suction cup mount fail and the GoPro go flying off the car. I think it survived the initial impact intact. Colin was behind me in his new Evora and he managed to dodge it. After that I didn’t see what happened. I stopped and turned around as quickly as I could and made my way back to the “scene of the crime.”

The mount was in the middle of the road, the camera nowhere to be seen. John rolled up in his Elan and helped me search. I walked up and down the side of the road a few times, along the road and down by the stream. I found the battery and the back door of the camera, both more or less intact. But no sign of the camera or housing. I was afraid somebody ran it over, possibly damaging their car, but I asked around and nobody says they hit it. After the futile search, we figured we were now on our own, well behind the group.

Rolling again, we made our way to the Iron Mountain Road. We were a bit chagrined that the road is being resurfaced. The sixteen mile stretch we were on had had the surface ground, leaving a rough road with shallow holes and loose rocks and gravel. This road, like the Needles Highway, was laid out by Peter Norbeck and is also known as the Peter Norbeck Memorial Highway. He designed it as a scenic low speed route for tourists.

Like the Needles Highway, most of it is narrow and twisty. It features a few “pigtail” bridges and one lane tunnels. A pigtail bridge is much like it sounds – the road crosses a bridge then turns 270 degrees to pass under the bridge just crossed. The tunnels, again, are one lane and hewn from solid granite. Two of the tunnels are aligned with Mount Rushmore and obstructing trees removed. One of the tunnels dumps you directly onto a pigtail bridge. At the second tunnel with a Rushmore view, I was out of the car lining up a picture when Terry rolled up in his M100. We weren’t last ones on the road after all.

This narrow, twisty portion of US 16A meets SD 244 and widens to four lanes. We went left at this intersection, taking 244 to Mount Rushmore. When we arrived at the entrance station to pay our fee, the ranger asked if we were from Colorado: “I sent the rest of your group to level 6. Follow the red arrows.” Our cars occupied about a third of the level, and, as usual, had drawn admirers.

We last visited Mount Rushmore six years ago during a Clark family reunion. That time we came after dark to see the monument all lit up. This time we had daylight and scattered clouds. Lots of people visit Mount Rushmore and everybody tends to get the same picture, so I wanted to get away from the amphitheater. This turned out to be a good choice, as we weren’t allowed into the amphitheater because there was a high school graduation going on there. What a great place for a graduation ceremony.

We hiked on the Presidential Trail. Luckily, we went to the right. The trail makes a loop from the Grand View Terrace, down the hill and up a boardwalk slightly up the slope below the carvings. We didn’t know that half the trail was closed and might have been discouraged had we gone the other way instead. The weather was still pleasant and we enjoyed the short walk. And I got the same pictures as everybody else.

Next on the agenda was a drive to Sturgis via the outskirts of Rapid City. The weather held out until a bit before we arrived there, when it got windy and rainy. We weren’t too impressed by Sturgis and broke off from the group here, perhaps hunt buffalo in Custer before going back to the hotel.

We ate at Taco Johns then headed to Deadwood. It rained the whole way, and the main drag through much of Deadwood is under construction, a muddy pot-holed mess. The place has been overrun by casinos. Everything historical in Blackhawk and Central City were pretty much destroyed by the construction of casinos in the name of historical preservation. Deadwood looks to have suffered the same fate. We don’t gamble, so we didn’t stop other than to refuel.

The weather cleared about half way to Hill City, which boded well for a trip through the park. The drive from Deadwood to Hill City is pleasant if not dramatic. It had the bonus of having very little traffic. I caught up to no cars for several miles, and if I had there were ample passing zones. Unfortunately, when I did catch traffic, the passing zones evaporated.

When we stopped to pay the entry fee the ranger said, “Your car is too short!” As it so happens, the park is a free today. The ranger recommended Wildlife Loop Road. This is the third narrow road we’ve driven today. Instead of granite tunnels and pigtail bridges, it’s eighteen miles of riparian areas and grassy hills.

Genae was hoping we’d see the baby bison again. She was disappointed. All we saw were a few lone males. One guy was quite close to the road. When we stopped to watch them yesterday they were making a cacophony of grunts and belch-like rumbles. This lone one was quiet.

We came across a solitary pronghorn by a cattle guard. She posed for me a little bit, crossed the road, and scratched in the gravel a couple times. Then she proceeded to piss. In retrospect, I should have taken the picture. But, frankly, I was a bit offended!

There was very little traffic. If somebody was stopped, that generally meant there was an animal in the vicinity. The biggest crowd we saw were stopped to take pictures of some donkeys . The asses didn’t appeal to us, so we skipped the photo opportunity.

Dinner was a group affair. We ate at the State Game Lodge, which made for a pleasant little drive. It’s about twelve miles from Custer, five or six miles into the park. It’s a great building, built in 1920. President Coolidge booked a two week visit but stayed for thirteen. The room we were in looked to be newer construction. I considered the Cobb salad (with hard boiled quail egg) or the bison steak but went with the buffalo burger instead.

Drove 250 miles

LOCO Black Hills – Part 1

Posted on May 21, 2015 by dhill

It’s time for another long weekend road trip with Lotus Colorado. This time, Mike put together a four day excursion to the Black Hills of South Dakota. We’d drive to Custer on Saturday, visit Mount Rushmore and Sturgis on Sunday, head to Wyoming on Monday to see Devil’s Tower and return home on Tuesday.

The contact list included 22 cars and 38 people. Over a quarter were Elises – one blue, one red, two orange and two BRG. Gordon was the other green one – no stripe, silver LSS wheels, hardtop. Three Evoras, two black Exiges, two red Elans (both 1967), two M100 Elans, and a Europa round out the Lotus contingent. The others were BMW, Porsche, Saab, Volvo, and a Miata. As always, a few new faces on this trip, including a Chicago couple who rendezvoused with us in Custer.

May 16 – Denver to Custer

On past drives we’ve been pretty fortunate with the weather. We did get snowed on two years ago this weekend in Telluride and it was a bit on the warm side in Moab last year, but never anything much to complain about. But it has rained or snowed every day so far in May and the forecast doesn’t look too bright for our trip. Still, we hoped for the best.

We left the house at about 8am and fueled up. Luckily I realized I had forgotten the SLR before we got very far, so we went back home before heading to the meeting spot. We met at a gas station off exit 22 of I-76. The morning was cool and a bit breezy, with scattered, nonthreatening clouds.

Once everybody showed up we had a quick drivers meeting then hit the road, running northeast on I-76 to exit 80. There we headed northbound on Colorado SH 52 to a T-junction with CO 14 at the southern border of the Pawnee National Grassland.

After a short jog to the east, we continue north on CO 71 through the Pawnee. Here we hit a bird. I’ve hit more birds in this car than all other cars combined. On my trip to Portland last year I hit two at once. Usually it’s high on the car but this one hit the front clam and ricocheted to the windshield wiper where it got lodged in the wiper arm. For a few seconds I thought the wind might take it, but, no, it’s stuck. I turned on the wiper hoping for the best but no luck. I have no choice other than to pull over and pull it out manually.

The Pawnee Grassland gives way to a checkerboard mix of ranch and open prairie. On the south edge of Kimball we cross under I-80. Time for a pit stop. The route instructions directed us to the Kwik Stop but we followed the Miata into the station across the intersection. After fuel and potty, we lined up with the other cars at the Kwik Stop. As usual, we drew a crowd. It’s always fun to see people’s reactions – lots of smiles.

Our next stop was a picnic lunch at Scotts Bluff National Monument, a couple miles west of Gering, NE. Between Kimball and Gering is forty more miles of checkerboard. Here, more of the checker squares have checkers on them: center-pivot irrigation systems and their attendant crop circles. At Gering, the directions send us north when 71 bends slightly east, but we split up and attacked the place from several directions. We headed downtown to grab sandwiches from Subway.

We had our picnic and socialized for a while then we drove to the top of the bluff. The road to the top is 1.6 miles long. After a 180 degree sweeping turn it passes through a tunnel that curve 90 degrees the other way. It zigs and zags, passing through two more tunnels before finally dumping onto a parking lot on a wide saddle below the summit of the bluff.

Above the parking lot, a trail makes a sort of bow-tie and affords nice views. Below the bluff to the east lie the conjoined towns of Gering, Terrytown, and Scottsbluff. Immediately below the trail to the east is a nice cluster of houses – the high rent district. A national monument on one side and golf course on the other.

The North Platte valley is to the north. Both the Oregon Trail and Mormon Trail passed through here. When driving in comfort though these vast, rugged spaces in the west I often try to imagine what the pioneers went through. Sell your house, if you have one, and buy a wagon and team. Pile all your worldly possessions into the wagon and making twenty miles on a good day. Risking it all, venturing into the great unknown. Scotts Bluff was about a third of the way from St. Louis to the west coast, perhaps the easiest third.

I’m not sure why I started doing it, but whenever I come across a survey marker I take a picture of it. That doesn’t mean I have lots of pictures of survey markers; I don’t come across them every day. The one on the top of Scotts Bluff is interesting because of what has happened to it since it was placed there in 1933. Scotts Bluff is made up of soft sandstone with a cap of hard rock. Where the hard rock is gone, the sandstone is eroding away on a human time frame. Scotts Bluff is about a foot and a half lower now than it was in 1933.

Exiting the town of Scottsbluff, Mike missed a turn. We were second in line and didn’t catch the error and everybody followed us. Mike found somebody to ask directions and while we waited, Ross passed through the formation looking like he knew exactly where we were going. We took off after him. He correctly navigated us onto US 26 eastbound. I drove several hundred miles of US 26 last summer through Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming, but now we only followed it for a handful of miles before taking US 385 to Alliance.

For about twenty miles we’re out of the valley, away from the fields of checkers and back in prairie. Here we saw two pronghorn antelope running in our direction along the fence on the other side of the road. Our line of cars is probably a quarter mile long, and we slowed down considerably. The antelope switched direction a couple of times but were stymied by the fence.

In a field north of Alliance, a guy named Jim Reinders built an homage to Stonehenge out of old cars he’d gotten from nearby farms and dumps. Reinders noticed that the monolithic dimensions of cars from the fifties and sixties were similar to the stones at Stonehenge. They’ve painted the cars gray to make them look more like stones and they keep them from rusting away. There are some interesting cars in there – a Willy’s truck, a Gremlin, an old Plymouth like “Christine”.

Scattered around the property there are a number of large sculptures made out of car parts – a spawning salmon, a dinosaur, wind chimes, a Conestoga wagon. As built, Carhenge included three imported cars. These have been replaced by domestic cars and the foreigners ritually buried here, their grave marked by another junked car.

After a pass through the little gift shop, we started assembling for our departure. By now the skies were looking quite threatening. Here we had our first bit of rain, and it looked very nasty directly to the north of us. Luckily to get back on US 385 we had to jog a few miles to the west and we missed the biggest of the squalls. Along here we saw a couple of large birds in the grass along the road: a turkey and a ring neck pheasant.

Most of Nebraska looks just like what you expect Nebraska to look like – some farms, some ranches, a few feedlots. But just south of Chadron we pass through the Nebraska National Forest. I had no idea there were pine trees in Nebraska. Heck, there are hardly any trees at all. Genae found it a bit reminiscent of the area south of Flagstaff. Sadly, and perhaps obviously, this interlude was short and we were soon back to the more typical Nebraskan scenery.

After a pit stop in Chadron, we continue on 385 into South Dakota and through the Oglala National Grassland. Although the North and South Platte rivers were running high, they were within their banks. The rivers we’d been crossing lately were flooding. In addition, many low lying parts of the fields along the road had standing water.

At Oelrichs US 385 meets US 18. The two routes are conjoined until Hot Springs where 18 goes west. We continue north into Wind Cave National Park. We made another minor navigational error, missing the turn on SD 87. US 385 would take us into Custer, but we wanted the more scenic route through Custer State Park.

This is not a big park but it’s packed with things to see. It looks like parts of the place catch fire every few years so there’s an unusual mix of pine forest, recently burned areas, and open grassy hills and valleys. The hills are populated by an abundance of wildlife. In a few short miles we saw deer, antelope, and bison. A group of buffalo grazed very near the road, several cows and calves.

Our accommodations for this trip were at the Bavarian Inn, a pleasant establishment on the north side of town. We got checked in, unloaded the car, and socialized over margaritas and snacks. There were no group plans for dinner, so we were all on our own. Nonetheless, almost everybody ended up in groups of four or six or eight at the Buglin’ Bull. They weren’t really prepared for so many guests and those who arrived later after us were there quite late. We were back to the hotel and in bed by 10:30.

Today’s drive: 421 miles.

SAAC/CECA Track Day, HPR

Posted on July 1, 2014 by dhill

High Plains Raceway had club days on both Saturday (Z Car Club) and Sunday (SAAC/CECA). Being a cheapskate, I’d have rather run with ZCCC because they were forty bucks cheaper but we had a garage sale Saturday so CECA it was. Plus, it was the LoCo track day as well, an added bonus.

The day started on a bit of a down note. On my way to the track, on I-70 near East Colfax, my right turn signal assembly popped out. It has happened three or four times before, but this time the wire failed to tether it and it was gone. I spent a few minutes looking for it, hoping it made it to the grass and might be intact. But no luck on the search.

Arriving at the track, I spotted the LoCo contingent and joined them. I bummed some tape from Pete and secured the left side turn signal and covered the gaping hole on the right. I had invited Bill and he surprised me by getting there before me. I grabbed a breakfast burrito the size of my head. Took me the entire drivers meeting to eat it.

It looked to be the usual CECA contingent – Corvettes, Vipers, Porsches, a classic Ferrari, Mustangs, old and new, Minis, Miatas, and Subarus, a couple BMWs, a couple NSXs. In the Lotus paddock we had an Evora, two Exiges, and a handful of Elises. Perhaps the highlight of the day was the brand spanking new McLaren 650S.

I ran in the red group, which I think was the smallest group. Of this group, only a few cars were slower than me. Today we were short handed on corner workers, so the only legal passing zones were the straights – couldn’t pass in the short chute between 6 and 7. Bill decided to sit through the green group classroom session, so I was without passenger the first session. I had the soft top on for the first session, then took it off for the rest of the day.

In the second session, the McLaren came up behind me pretty quickly and I was able to wave him by without slowing him down too much. Lucky for me, he caught up to traffic right away and I was able to run close behind him for a short spell.

At lunch they did some parade laps and a ladies only session. Anybody could do the parade laps, so we sent Bill out. When he came back a short while later I thought he was done, but he had time for one more lap so I got a ride in his almost new Taurus SHO. I wasn’t aware they were making them again.

Most folks left after three sessions. They ran green and blue together for the fourth session. So few cars were out, the let the reds back on track. I ran 15 timed laps that session (as opposed to 10 or 11 in the others) and even came in before the checkered flag.

On the way home I stopped again to try to find my turn signal. I walked maybe a mile of that highway, between morning and afternoon. I got back in the car after seeing the same crumpled license plate on the shoulder and was about to shift to second gear when I saw it. Unfortunately, it hit concrete instead of grass. The lens and bulb were gone, and it was missing pieces and badly cracked, but surprisingly still had the grommet.

These things are on back order from Lotus, so no idea how long I’ll have to do without it. I wonder if you can get green or yellow painters tape…

31st Annual Colorado Consours d’Elegance

Posted on June 20, 2014 by dhill

Back on June 8 I entered the car show at Arapahoe Community College. This was my second year in the show. Last year I had the car judged and came in second. This time I didn’t bother with getting judged but somehow ended up with another second place ribbon!

The rules are that entrants be on site from 9am to 3pm. Any early departure requires rounding up a police officer to help navigate a safe path to the exit. And, of course, we had to be there well before 9. I left the house a bit later than I’d hoped. To make matters worse, I soon realized I left my paperwork on the kitchen counter so had to run back home. In the end, I was only a few minutes late.

This year’s show celebrated the 100th anniversary of Maserati, the 60th year of the Porsche Speedster, the 50th year of the Ford Mustang and McLaren, and the 40th year of the Porsche Turbo. There were more McLarens there than I’d seen in one place before – the Phoenix McLaren dealer trucked a few cars in, and there was a McLaren race car as well.

I was a bit delinquent in taking pictures, but so it goes. I was thinking I had plenty of time to do this, but the weather became a problem. Skies to the west were slightly threatening most of the morning, but I kept a positive attitude that we’d be spared any grief. My positive attitude didn’t help much.

It started raining before long. Lots of people scrambled for cover. Some of us sat in our cars. Others got in their cars and drove off – we were given permission to leave the grounds early. It didn’t stop with rain, though. Soon we had hail. I can only imagine what was going through the minds of those folks who brought out their seven figure museum pieces.

After the rain and hail stopped, a police cruiser was circulating with an announcement to take cover in the building. Other officers came through on foot: “Go inside now! There is a tornado warning! Take cover!”

By this time, well over half the cars had left. Most of us Lotus folks were nutty enough to stay. I think only the Saab owners adjacent to us stayed in a greater percentage.

Even with the less than ideal weather, I had a great time. I made the day for a 3 year old boy when I let him sit behind the wheel. I spotted him from thirty yards away when he first saw my car and came running toward it. “Look at this one, daddy!”

Red Rocks Ramble

Posted on June 13, 2014 by dhill

Red Rocks Ramble was the sixth edition of LoCo’s Colorado Good. This time we explored Moab. Saturday drive to Moab, Sunday a morning loop, a free afternoon followed by happy hour at the motel, Monday tour Colorado National Monument before the final blast down I-70 to home.

Saturday, May 31

We met the Denver contingent at the Fort for an 8:30 departure. We were told that photographer Mike Rodgers (Driven Imagery) would get some shots of us from an overpass at Parmalee Gulch. Turns out he went as far as the summit of Monarch Pass. I’m pretty sure I saw him shooting us in South Park, too.

Most of the drive would follow our tracks from last spring: meet folks from Breckenridge in Fairplay, Springs folks near Buena Vista, lunch in Gunnison where we picked up our last participant. But after Ridgway we went straight instead of turning left to Telluride. This took us up the Norwood grade, through the town of Bedrock and Paradox Valley. There was absolutely no traffic all the way to the junction with US 191, a high-speed blast punctuated by occasional cattle guards.

We weren’t so lucky on 191 all the way to Moab – lots of trucks and RVs. We arrived at the motels – we were in two motels, across the street from each other – in plenty of time to check in and get cleaned up before dinner with the group at the diner next to the motel.

One sad note for the day – Jeff broke the suspension on his Birkin near our fuel stop in Montrose and had to drop out.

Sunday, June 1

We woke to a beautiful morning and after breakfast assembled for a drive on the La Sal Loop Road. As it was hot the whole weekend, we kept the top on most of the time but we slathered on the SPF and went al fresco.

We made the run clockwise, going north from Moab and along the Colorado River through a dramatic red rock canyon. The river is calm through here, no whitewater. But the water looked very high. Quite a lot of traffic through here, as one would expect. We soon found our turn and headed south into the La Sal Mountains.

I’m sure it was a beautiful road, however many decades ago it was last paved. But it was very scenic and I think everybody enjoyed it. We pulled over for a break and a group picture. Some of the folks were wishing they’d brought a light jacket, which was a pleasant break from the heat we had the rest of the trip.

We broke into smaller groups for lunch and went off to explore on our own for the afternoon. A lot of folks headed to Arches, but we’d been there before so the choice was Dead Horse Point or Canyonlands. I suggested we do Canyonlands and hit Dead Horse Point on the way back if there’s time. There wasn’t.

Upheaval Dome

I’d looked at the map of the park before leaving the house. I hoped maybe there’d be a short hike we could take, not much more than a mile. Upheaval Dome fit the bill, so that’s where we headed first. Round trip is a mile, characterized by the pamphlet as a “steep” 200 foot climb.

After that, we pretty much stopped at every major scenic point on the road. We didn’t see anybody else from LoCo and in fact it seemed like most park visitors were foreigners. I chatted with a guy from Germany (“I see a lot of Lotuses in Germany!”), heard Chinese and Japanese, French and Spanish spoken.

Back at the motel, we had happy hour – margaritas, snacks and conversation. Then out to Eddie McStiff’s for dinner with the group.

The day wasn’t without glitches. One of the M100’s suffered not only a nasty rock impact and broken windshield but had a mechanical problem as well. And an Elise had to make a run to Grand Junction for tires.

Monday, June 2

The first few miles of the day were a repeat of yesterday. We stopped beneath the canyon walls for a group picture. Ross’s general rule is not to put the same color cars next to each other, but that is especially true for yellow. I think Mike parked next to him just to needle him a bit. Sometime I’d like to try lining them up like a rainbow.

At our morning pit stop in Fruita I managed to catch an impromptu group shot at the Loco station. Gotta get a shot of LoCo at Loco, right?

Gassed up and refreshed, we headed into Colorado National Monument. I’ve been by here a handful of times but never stopped for a visit so it’s about time. It is a pretty interesting place. The geography is similar in many ways to Canyonlands, but smaller and more intimate. I ran the camera for this part of the drive and will post a second video if I manage to put together anything interesting.

Lunch in Grand Junction at the Kannah Creek Brewing Company for the official end of the gathering. Several of us stuck together for a few miles of twisty roads along I-70. We took County Road 45.5 into DeBeque, then side roads up and down the side of the valley to minimize our time on the super-slab.

For the run from Rifle to Frisco, we were down to four – an Evora, two Elises, and a Miata. We find the trip through Glenwood Canyon always interesting – the highway is quite the engineering marvel, even if it is just a highway. But this time, the river was running higher than either of us recall seeing it. The bike path was flooded for long stretches, and the water looked to be within a foot or two of the railroad tracks.

Once through the canyon, we put the hammer down for a high speed run over Vail pass. A Volkswagen stayed on our tail until we got to the foot of the pass. There we passed a Pantera, who made an attempt to keep up with us. After a few minutes neither he nor the VW was in our mirrors.

We had to gas up in Frisco. At the next pump was a guy filling his Harley. I was thinking he looked familiar when he said, “You were in Moab.” We had met the day before. He arrived in Frisco along an entirely different route and was headed for Trail Ridge Road next. He had ridden 1600 miles in three days, starting in Texas.

The rest of the trip was leisurely and mostly uneventful. We were held up for a few minutes while they did some blasting at the tunnel construction east of Idaho Springs. And there was construction on one of the overpasses. They ground the asphalt off but didn’t make a little ramp as normal. I hit that edge hard at about sixty and both my turn signal assemblies popped out of their mounts and flopped around until I could get pulled over. Lost one of the grommets. It’s an $8 part, but $20 for shipping.

I can’t speak for everybody, but we had a grand time.

“Rush”

Posted on September 30, 2013 by dhill

Saturday afternoon, after we returned from Estes Park, we headed down to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema to see Ron Howard’s new movie “Rush”.

This particular screening was put on as a fund raiser for Auto-Archives. The original plan was that this screening would be the first showing after the premieres in London and LA. That didn’t work out, but so it goes. The event was sponsored by Ferrari of Denver and about a dozen other firms and was attended mostly by car club members. The theater seats 200 people and fully a quarter of those in attendance were Lotus Colorado members.

A side note here. I’m on the mailing list for Circuit of the Americas, the track in Austin, TX where F1 now holds events. I received an email about a week ago from COTA inviting me to a “Rush” premiere event which they are sponsoring at the Alamo Drafthouse. I had to look closely – this was for an event at the theater in Austin.

The evening started off with a little car show. Most of the close in parking was roped off for the car clubs. I didn’t count, but my impression was that we had more Lotus Elises than Ferraris of all models. We also had the usual assortment of Elans, Esprits, Evoras, and Caterhams. There were several models of Ferrari and a smattering of other notable cars including a Mercedes McLaren and an Excalibur. Also, in the lobby, a club member brought his Formula B Lotus 69 for display along with a bunch of other memorabilia from Auto-Archives.

We hadn’t been to the Alamo Drafthouse before. This is a chain of movie theaters that serve dinners during the movies. I was expecting a single screen facility for this but it turns out it’s a multiplex. We were in auditorium 7. For this event, we all got our choice of entree from a somewhat restricted menu and one alcoholic beverage each. We were told that this was the first time this auditorium had been sold out for a movie.

The theater is much like any other multiplex except that the rows are a bit farther apart and there are small tables attached to each pair of seats. Wait staff came through before the film started and took our orders. It took quite a while for everybody to get served; many of those around us got food before we did, but we all got served in the dark.

Rather than the usual pre-film viewing – ads and coming attractions – we were treated with a number of old car-related shorts. One was the trailer for Howard’s first movie, “Grand Theft Auto”. I’ve been saying for a while that I don’t think he’s made a bad movie. But I don’t remember seeing “Grand Theft Auto”, which looks pretty cheesy.

The food was nothing special. I had a spicy bleu cheese burger and Genae had the “Royale with Cheese”. Turns out it wasn’t so Royale and not so cheesy, either. She had asked for no mayo, no onions. She got that, but it also came with no tomato and no cheese. So it was a burger with a leaf of lettuce. Mine was better – it was constructed to specification. I always figure a burger is a risk-free item. It’s hard to serve a bad burger, but it’s also hard to serve a really good one. This was smack-dab in the middle: a mediocre burger.

Before the movie, the Alamo Drafthouse shows some rules. They’re pretty strict about talking during the film. But this was a special event, so it was announced that “this is our theater. Feel free to cheer for the good guy and boo the bad guy.” My neighbors took this to heart. They not only cheered and booed appropriately, they also talked through the entire movie. Very annoying. But I’m generally non-confrontational and didn’t tell them to STFU.

We enjoyed the movie nonetheless. I stand by my comment that Howard hasn’t made a bad movie yet. This was a fairly true retelling of the 1976 F1 season fight between Lauda and Hunt. Both actors did fine jobs with their portrayals. The action was very well done. We intend to see it again soon, in a theater with a bigger screen and better sound. (Not that the screen and sound at the Alamo were lacking, just that if we’re going to see it again so soon, we should get an “upgrade”.)

Another side note here. A number of times during the film, characters are watching TV or listening to the radio. At one point, we hear a report of the Big Thompson flood. Having just spent the day visiting Estes Park after another flood that destroyed the road through the Big Thompson canyon, it was a bit jarring.

If you’re an F1 fan, I think you’ll enjoy the movie.

Colorado Good 5

Posted on September 25, 2013 by dhill

Sorry this post is a bit late, I’ve been otherwise occupied.

Saturday, September 21

LoCo’s three day fall drive included a night in Gunnison and a night in Crested Butte. The route looked interesting, but we just have too much to do to join them. Day one, though, featured Independence Pass. I haven’t been over it in the last thirty years or so and Genae has never been over it. So we figured we’d join the group for the drive to lunch in Carbondale.

We met at a gas station near Golden and headed west on I-70. The trip up I-70 to Frisco is pretty scenic as far as interstate highways go, but not exactly a “Lotus road”. We weren’t a big group yet, missing a couple of Denver folks and not yet met with the Springs group. Even so, I was second to last in the string and lost sight of the Henrys behind me. I last saw them before Georgetown and they didn’t catch up until we exited the interstate at the junction with Colorado 91. By now we had two additional cars, both orange Elises.

Fremont Pass isn’t much twistier than I-70. On the northwest side of the highway there are a couple of large tailing ponds where there once was a mountain. And near the summit you can see another mountain being erased. At its peak, the Climax mine was the largest molybdenum mine in the world, producing three-quarters of the world’s output. It was idled in 1995 but put back into production last year, yielding over twenty million pounds per year.

We made a quick stop in Leadville before continuing on to Twin Lakes to meet the Colorado Springs contingent. There we found a patrol car parked on the side of the road with a mannequin in the drivers seat. After a short break we headed up the pass.

Rinker Peak (13,783′)

One of the objects of the drive is to see the turning of the aspen. We were a bit early, but still quite scenic.

Independence Pass tops out at 12,095′ above sea level. Twin Lakes, on the eastern end, is at 9,200′ and Aspen on the west is more like 8,000. It has a reputation for being hair-raising, and I’d say that would have been how I’d described it the first time I crossed it when I was maybe ten. At the foot of the pass, Genae said she’d compare it to Red Mountain Pass. My feeling, nostalgia isn’t what it used to be. I didn’t find it particularly thrilling. For Genae, Red Mountain is still the standard setter.

I did enjoy the narrow parts on the western side. I’d forgotten all about those. There are three or four sections where the road isn’t wide enough for two way traffic. Cars on one side or the other have to wait for oncoming cars. I bet it’s loads of fun in a motor home.

We blasted through Aspen pretty much without stopping. Hit one red light, perhaps. The road snakes through town, right, left, right, left. At one turn, three or four kids had their phones out, getting us on video. Once through town, onto the superslab – not interstate, but damn close, down to Carbondale for lunch.

I didn’t plan the day very well. I considered making a side trip to Maroon Bells. It would mean going back to Aspen, which meant back over Independence to go home. Quite a long afternoon. Instead, we decided to come back to the area and spend a night or two, have a nice dinner in Aspen, take a short hike at Maroon Bells. Perhaps next spring.

So we headed up to Glenwood Springs and I-70 for the return to Denver. A lot more interstate driving than is ideal, but a pleasant day nonetheless. Glenwood Canyon is always interesting. It was recently repaired and all lanes are open both directions.

The Colorado Grand was finishing up in Vale. When we got there, we saw some transporters along the frontage road being loaded up with some of the cars. After Vail is the quick run up Vail Pass. I don’t remember what this one was like before the interstate went through. In any event, most cars make it up at 70 mph. Not exactly a Lotus road.

We stopped to fuel up in Silverthorne for the final blast back through the tunnel, and the run down to Denver. I’m curious what sort of fuel economy we were getting. It’s about 70 miles, which would normally be about two gallons. But the gauge still indicated nearly full. If I burned a gallon and a half, I’d be surprised. Which would mean something like 45 or 50 mpg. (And also means I probably only got 20 or 25 going the other way.)

I had the camera running from Twin Lakes to Aspen, but it’s bad. Within a few minutes of heading out, the lens fogged up. I’ve never had that happen before. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

The Passes

Fremont Pass (11,318′) CD

Named for 1856 Republican presidential nominee John Charles Fremont although he never crossed it. Two narrow gauge railroads were built over the pass in the 1880’s, the Denver and Rio Grande and the Denver and South Park. The most dramatic scenery here is the mine. Entire mountains have been erased, with one undergoing the process.

Independence Pass (12,095′) CD

The town of Independence was named for the ghost town of Independence, founded July 4, 1879. Before that, it was known as Hunters Pass. It’s the highest paved crossing of the Divide but it’s only open in summers.

Vail Pass (10.663′) CD

This pass had no particular use prior to US 6 being put there in the 1940’s. Appropriately, it’s named for Charles D. Vail, chief engineer of the Colorado Department of Highways. Now it’s I-70, pretty much just another stretch of interstate highway.

Eisenhower Tunnel (11,158′) CD

Okay, this is cheating. The tunnel is not a pass. When the project was started it was called the Straight Creek Tunnel. This is two bores, one named for Eisenhower and the other for Edwin C. Johnson, a governor and senator who advocated for the interstate to cross Colorado.

I had a plane ride seated next to the guy who built much of the tunnel’s duct work. He was about ninety and missing a couple of fingertips. Quite an interesting character.

Nobody is Listening

Road Trip, Track Day, and Hiking Adventures

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