Kyle K.
06-06-2003, 04:32 AM
Well, as some of you know and some of you don't I recently (about 30 minutes ago as of now) completed a cross country drive from NJ to CA in the Cooper.
I'll have to first outline the path we took. We drove south down I 95 into North Carolina on day 1. Day 2, we stopped at the BMW plant in SC and kept on moving south down 95, to 85, and eventually along 20 through Georgia, Alabama, and into Mississippi. Day 3 took us through Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and today (day 4) we finished up passing through New Mexico and Arizona on the way.
First off... if you EVER plan on driving though the south be prepared to answer the following question repeatedly... "who makes that car?" I honestly answered this question AT LEAST once every time we stopped for gas and there were people around. The people who were curious were "unique" to say the least. Honestly, I was shocked at how friendly everyone was. I guess the 3 years in NJ made me forget how nice people can be sometimes.
I'll share with you a couple of the best encounters... I've got more too if you want.
First off, somewhere off I-20 in Alabama, at a gas station flanked by a store FIREWORKS as the only signage, I was approached by a 20-something year old guy wearing overalls. And that was it (such as... no shirt and no shoes). He came up to me as I was walking out to the car from buying a soda and says "scuse me sir, who makes that car of yers?" I told him it was a MINI but the company is owned by BMW and we talked for a couple minutes about the car. He asked how much power it had and I told him 115hp.... but they make a version with a supercharger that adds 50 more hp. His response was simply "SUPERCHARGED?" (think...."that thing got a haymi?"). He ended up having to run when his girlfriend pulled the car out on the road and began to drive away because she was annoyed he was talking to the strangers. :biglaughb :buttrock
A while later after we had gotten into Texas, we stopped at a restaurant along the highway called Bodacious BBQ for some steak sandwiches (and damnit were they good). On the way in I was asked by a man in his 60s or 70s "what kinda veHicle* is that?" *(make sure you pronounce the H here :D). I told him and we had a little conversation about it, you know... the usual. As my dad and I were finishing up our food, the man got up to leave the restaurant (at least 20 minutes after we pulled in), but before he did he came up to us and said "y'all have a safe trip now, enjoy"
And finally, last night at a gas station in western Texas, we had a small group surrounding my car. There was Arthur, some other middle aged guy, and three 30-something ladies. The ladies kept saying how adorable they thought it was. They left pretty quickly, but my dad and I actually stayed and talked with the two guys for quite a few minutes. After a while the topic was totally unrelated to cars but we were just standing in the parking lot of this gas station at 11pm talking. :buttrock As the one guy was about to leave he told us that he had just come from where we were going and there were cops all over the place. He ended up saving me a ticket because they were really ALL over the place.
Anyway, this post has gotten far too long for normal people to read. I've got a couple pictures I'll post some other time that I think are pretty cool. Anyway, if you ever get a chance to do a cross country road trip I'd definately recommend it. It's a whole hell of a lot of fun, and you get to meet cool people if you do it in a MINI (even if they don't have a shirt on :D)
Motor on,
Kyle
I'll have to first outline the path we took. We drove south down I 95 into North Carolina on day 1. Day 2, we stopped at the BMW plant in SC and kept on moving south down 95, to 85, and eventually along 20 through Georgia, Alabama, and into Mississippi. Day 3 took us through Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, and today (day 4) we finished up passing through New Mexico and Arizona on the way.
First off... if you EVER plan on driving though the south be prepared to answer the following question repeatedly... "who makes that car?" I honestly answered this question AT LEAST once every time we stopped for gas and there were people around. The people who were curious were "unique" to say the least. Honestly, I was shocked at how friendly everyone was. I guess the 3 years in NJ made me forget how nice people can be sometimes.
I'll share with you a couple of the best encounters... I've got more too if you want.
First off, somewhere off I-20 in Alabama, at a gas station flanked by a store FIREWORKS as the only signage, I was approached by a 20-something year old guy wearing overalls. And that was it (such as... no shirt and no shoes). He came up to me as I was walking out to the car from buying a soda and says "scuse me sir, who makes that car of yers?" I told him it was a MINI but the company is owned by BMW and we talked for a couple minutes about the car. He asked how much power it had and I told him 115hp.... but they make a version with a supercharger that adds 50 more hp. His response was simply "SUPERCHARGED?" (think...."that thing got a haymi?"). He ended up having to run when his girlfriend pulled the car out on the road and began to drive away because she was annoyed he was talking to the strangers. :biglaughb :buttrock
A while later after we had gotten into Texas, we stopped at a restaurant along the highway called Bodacious BBQ for some steak sandwiches (and damnit were they good). On the way in I was asked by a man in his 60s or 70s "what kinda veHicle* is that?" *(make sure you pronounce the H here :D). I told him and we had a little conversation about it, you know... the usual. As my dad and I were finishing up our food, the man got up to leave the restaurant (at least 20 minutes after we pulled in), but before he did he came up to us and said "y'all have a safe trip now, enjoy"
And finally, last night at a gas station in western Texas, we had a small group surrounding my car. There was Arthur, some other middle aged guy, and three 30-something ladies. The ladies kept saying how adorable they thought it was. They left pretty quickly, but my dad and I actually stayed and talked with the two guys for quite a few minutes. After a while the topic was totally unrelated to cars but we were just standing in the parking lot of this gas station at 11pm talking. :buttrock As the one guy was about to leave he told us that he had just come from where we were going and there were cops all over the place. He ended up saving me a ticket because they were really ALL over the place.
Anyway, this post has gotten far too long for normal people to read. I've got a couple pictures I'll post some other time that I think are pretty cool. Anyway, if you ever get a chance to do a cross country road trip I'd definately recommend it. It's a whole hell of a lot of fun, and you get to meet cool people if you do it in a MINI (even if they don't have a shirt on :D)
Motor on,
Kyle