On the Road, Again

It’s time to head off on another Whimventure®! This time It’s MINI Takes The States (MTTS) which is always a lot of fun. As I prepare for the final push to leave I head to the starting point Albuquerque, New Mexico. It will take me a couple of days to get there since I am no longer allowed to drive straight through after the MTTS Lubbock to Indy drive which the court of public opinion (not as political as the Supreme Court) certified me as “insane”, but since it didn’t get dark until I was almost in Illinois, I figured it wasn’t that bad… You never realize just how big and barren Texas is until you have to drive through it.

I will be joining hundreds (if not thousands) of other MINI owners as we motor together (and apart) across the country, What MINI is call calling #CampMINI. Like many campers there are those excited, and those anxious. I’m a little in-between. The anxious ones make me anxious, but having been doing this since 2006, I’m not too worried. I know that things happen, and you just go with the flow. There are people who are packing for an expedition into the unknown. Basically like “Moto-Preppers”, (Did I just make up another new word? 🤪) people ready for the end of the world while they are on the road. I think maybe they’ve watched the various Mad Max movies too many times. Read “Along The Scenic Route” by Harlan Ellison, or ‘Why Johnny Can’t Speed” by Alan Dean Foster- I think they believe driving through the wild, wild west is like that. Then there are those who have everything planned out to the minute, and are concerned that they have not been given the second by second details.

They just announced the apps they will be using, A navigation one and an event – social connectivity one. As with any technology, some of them are a little glitchy right now. The event doesn’t officially start until Saturday so they will be working on bugs the rest of the week. I was able to make sure Cecil had his account set up- I’m superfluous. Sue is still having difficulties, so we’re trying to figure out if it is because she is set up as a co-pilot, or because she uses the same app for work. Unlike the folks with their multiple lists I’ve been putting together a notebook so I don’t forget things (like stopping mail). I started writing down Geocaches and Adventure Labs for the route, but stopped. There are just so many… except in Durango😉.

We have some plans, but mostly, it’s going to be a time to see old friends who we only see at MINI events like this. We will most likely be driving by ourselves. Although driving in a group is safer, especially when confronted by the bands of post-apocalyptic gangs roaming the nuclear wasteland known as the American west. Hmmm… bI might just need to draw a Mad Max MINIon sometime…

When it comes to groups, we have found that it is really hard to have a Whimventure® when you have to worry about a line of cars getting lost, while you are trying yourself to get lost. I’d rather deal with the stress of being on the road alone being passed by hundreds of MINIs than trying to figure out what happened to the green MINI that was behind me, and listening to radio chatter about cars missing the stop light. If you can find the right group it works, but keeping the band together over the years can be difficult. Plus that’s a lot of stress on the person leading and the one in the back.

This in NOT a Geocaching Trip

OK we will be caching, because that is a really great way to see cool things that other people miss. What we won’t be doing is trying for a cache in every county, or getting as many caches as we can along the road. We know people who would call that a vacation, I am not one of them. Sue has a list, I have a list. I’ve gone over a number of virtual caches in the cities we stop at and wrote down the logging requirements. Some are easy- “Take a picture of yourself here.” Others are being ignored- “Email me the answers to these questions as you visit these 14 different locations. Use complete sentences, proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Do not log the cache until you have heard back from me.” Ummm… I don’t think so. If you’ve read this blog for long enough, you know proper grammar, punctuation, and spelling are not my strengths.

A Typical Day

I’ve gone over this before but it might be nice to hear it all over again. If things go the way they have in the past a typical day will start with a line of cars trying to get into the “Rise & Shine” location. One year people started lining up at 3:00 AM, hopefully that won’t be the case. It may be an open field, it may be a parking lot. There will be tents and port-o-lets. During the morning people will eat breakfast and talk about stuff. We’ll check in and get our button for the day and desperately try to get whatever the coveted SWAG is this year (in 2022 it was magnets for each stop). There will be button and SWAG trading, or just handing out. Announcements, will be made, games will be played, charities will be mentioned, breakfast burritos or pancakes will be eaten. We will head off for the day, sometimes escorted by the police. People will turn left when they should turn right. People will get lost. Mid-way through the day there should be a “Surprise and Delight” some people will stop, some won’t. It could be the line of cars to get in is too long, it could be that the delight isn’t delightful enough for them. We will then drive into our next stop and search for our hotel. Next morning we’ll do it all over again.

Normally, about a day or two into the trip one of us will get grumpy over something stupid. We’ll drive in silence for a few hours and then get back to normal. When you’ve been married for over 30 years you get into a routine. It would be nice to avoid this part, but… if it happens, it happens. Too much togetherness with two introverts can lead to a little grumpiness.

We will have a lot of time on the road and at each destination city to explore. Which is why I have a list of geocaches and have been looking at Adventure Labs in each location. We’ll also be checking out local micro-breweries and brewpubs. Nothing fancy, just normal stuff with a local flair.

Our Route – A Whimventure® In The Making.

As for driving, my trip to HeroesCon in Charlotte was around the same distance (and time) as each day I’m driving solo to get to Albuquerque. Much less than my trips to New York. Don’t even get me started on my drive from Lubbock in 2014! When by myself I tend to get up early and just drive until I get to the destination. I did Denver to Los Angeles in 2014 also… that was a year filled with stupidity.

• Solo Day 1: Indianapolis to Tulsa – 635 miles (9 hours)
• Solo Day 2: Tulsa to Albuquerque – 650 miles (9 hours) Pick Up Sue at the airport
• MTTS Day 1: Albuquerque to Durango – 220 miles (5 hours)*
• MTTS Day 2: Durango to Grand Junction – 165 miles (4 hours)*
• MTTS Day 3: Grand Junction to Salt Lake City – 350 miles (5.5 hours)* Evening Event at the Gallivan Center.
• MTTS Day 4 & 5: Choose Your Own Adventure Salt Lake City to Bozeman – 410 miles
• MTTS Day 6: Bozeman to Missoula – 230 miles (4 hours)*
• MTTS Day 7: Missoula to Spokane – 260 miles (5 hours)*
• MTTS Day 8: Spokane to Yakima – 260 miles (3 hours)*
• MTTS Day 9: Yakima to Seattle – 140 miles (2.5 hours)* Evening Event at the Museum of Flight.
• Day 12: Seattle – Troll Hunting – ???
• Day 13: Seattle to Bellingham – 90 miles (we have a tour of GCHQ that morning and are spending the rest of the day with family)
• Days 14 to 17: Bellingham to Indianapolis via Fargo- 2,350 miles – Trolls in Detroit Lakes, MN!
• Total estimated mileage: 5,750 miles (not counting driving around town, getting lost, or other excursions- did I mention we still hadn’t planned out the “Choose your Own Adventure” portion of the trip?)

*MINI’s estimated time on the road. In most cases we will be entering the city before we can check into our hotels.

It’s funny, we really don’t have the “Choose Your Own Adventure” or the trip home planned out. 😱 We have a few ideas and must do bits. There’s a Thomas Dambo Troll in Jackson, Wyoming, we need to get a geocache in North Dakota, and Thomas Dambo just placed a bunch of trolls in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. We have a National Park Pass, and some ideas, it just matters what we decide to do, where we decide to go. Day 4 we are going to need a hotel room. Our route home will retrace some of MTTS, so if we hear of something awesome that we missed, we might be able to see it on the way back.

For our return, we’ll drive as far as we want, stop when we need to. We should drive about 600 miles each day, but some days will be longer than others and I usually have the rule that I rarely stop if I’m in a state bordering Indiana, I might as well push a bit and sleep in my own bed, with my cats- who I will be missing and worrying about the second the garage door closes as I head out.

I’ve loaded my phone with a couple of audiobooks: Slaying the Dragon – A Secret History of Dungeons & Dragons by Ben Riggs that I looked at when at The Book Loft in Columbus, OH. I also checked out NPCs by Drew Hayes, a comic fantasy story about a bunch of non-player characters in a game and what happens when the game isn’t being played. These should last me for the entire drive to Albuquerque. With Gen Con coming up I figured these might be interesting. I’m still figuring out what I want to focus on- Gaming & building with LEGO bricks have taken a back seat to drawing and comics. I also still need to get the classic Mini working- Oh the things to deal with after MTTS and Gen Con.