Saturday 5/18/02

We were all up at 6am and “yep” the weatherman was right! It was raining quite nicely out and did though-out the majority of the day. I went out to the garage to put up the top, which meant removing the Cabriolet Design windscreen so the boot could be stowed in the soft top-well. We were on the road at 7:30am.

We then met up w/ Ron’s son Eric and his wife Lori right on time (8:15am) so now we were Three, even if one was a lovely turquoise Porsche 911 Carerra. (This shot was actually taken in Vermont - note the white stuff on the grass)

At 10am we pulled of into a rest stop on Route 91 to meet up w/ Eric and Jody in their new Audi TT, and new comers Larry and Susan Brodsky in their lovely 98 Arctic Silver Dinan 2.8 Z3 (making us 5). Ya gotta see this custom Red/Black interior, it’s really nice and most likely ‘one of a kind.’ (no shots here in the rain - these are from Sunday) Of course old friends Marge and Erv Farnett from Woodstock, NY were there too.

At a rest stop in pouring rain, using talkabouts (once we all got on the same channel - right Larry?) we decided to brave the rain under umbrellas and go inside to meet one another and discuss the trip! Believe it or not, there was some discussion about turning back, but Larry and I quickly put that idea to rest.

We hit Springfield, MA at 11:18a where the rain was changing to wet snow (yuck). Reports are that upper VT and NH have snow, which we later confirmed when at 12:05 heading north on Rt. 91 (one of the nicest highways I’ve ever seen and Vermont seems to have more than it’s share of them). The pics below show the wet snow accumulating on the ground, but alas NOT the road. Eric warned us of some hydro-planning so we kept out speeds down to near speed limits for a change!

We pulled off Rt. 91 to a place called Brickford’s (just a bit north of Brattleboro) where we could see some accumulation of snow on most of the parked cars. Geeze, what are we doing and where are we going? A quick shot over my shoulder to get our newest shutterbug Susan Brodsky.

3:15pm still heading north on Route 91 we actually started to see the roads drying up, but that was short-lived as we continued on in rain. We hit the New Hampshire border around 4pm with the rain continuing. Predictions now say we’ll be in Rumford around 5pm. We hit the Maine state line at 4:25, of course that far north the state is pretty narrow. Definitely not far now till we get to Judy and Duane’s. We made it to our accommodations at the Grand Summit around 5 and checked in. (a small caveat here) Judy originally had us all booked at the Madison Motor Inn but on May 11^th just one week before our trip we got his mail…

Hi Gang !!

I thought things were going too well!! Would you believe that the Madison Motor Inn, our host hotel for the MRR, Burned late yesterday afternoon!! One whole wing including the proprietor’s apartment are no more!! This was a 60 room complex and 40 of those rooms are either gone, or uninhabitable!!

I was down there last night trying to reroute us all into another Hotel...It wasn't looking promising this morning and the Madison couldn't accommodate a group of our size... We pulled a rabbit out of the hat late this afternoon!! New hotel acquired in newery, part of the Sunday River Skiway group of hotels!! Your new accommodations are at the Grand Summit Hotel off of Sunday River Road!! We are getting the same room rate of $65.00 a night ... Continental breakfast...