PaulGraz's Daily Blog for The Great Ice Cream Run!
Day 4, Tuesday June 12th: Staunton, VA
to Frackville, PA:
"And now for something completely different"... Today I
decided to run with a different group of MINIs. I had been driving with
the group led by Robyn and Ian, the organizers of this event. But today,
I'll drive with the "S'creamers". That name is a bit of a play on words -
S (as in Cooper S), cream (as in ice CREAM) - so put it all together and it's a
reference to their alleged preference for high speed driving. You see, Ian
Cull, who usually leads the S'creamers, drives a MINI GP - this is the fastest,
most powerful, and best handling MINI you can buy. Or I should say COULD
buy (past tense) - the GP was a very limited edition. Also in the group is
Murray, and although I don't have any details on this, I'm willing to bet his
car is rather nicely modded. So there's me in my over 100K well worn MINI,
just trying to keep up with these guys. Yeah. Go underdog!
So why would I run with these guys? Simple - they're going to run Skyline
Drive, and the other group is skipping it. I am NOT going to pass up on
this road after all I've heard and read. The tradeoff? I'll have to
miss the Yuengling brewery tour. No big deal, I can do that some other
time.
When we get to Skyline, we're joined by Steve (aka ravioliworld). Yeah,
another car I probably can't keep up with. So we start driving and I learn
that these guys are NOT the speed demons that they've been made out to be.
I would label our time on Skyline "spiriting driving", but we certainly kept it
safe. The scenery was great and overall the traffic was minimal.
Skyline drive seems to be a national park, so it was $15 to get on the road -
but it's well maintained - and it seems like that fee helps to keep the traffic
volume down. We did get stuck behind an occaisional RV or truck - but they
generally pulled off when they could to let us by.
We saw more wildlife on Skyline than we did on Blue Ridge. First we same
some deer from a distance - and then later, we came around a bend to find bambi
crossing the road. I don't know for sure how close Ian might have come to
hitting her, but there was no incident - we came to a stop, and bambi crossed
the road OK. As the rest of the group took off, I stayed a little long to
take some pics of the deer up close. What a ham, she just stayed there and
posed for me. But I quickly realized that the rest of the guys have left -
y'know, in those cars that I probably can't catch up with? I had to drive
a little faster, but I caught them after a few miles. They probably stuck
with first gear until I showed up...
We stopped at the last rest area to use the facilities and met someone from
Metroplex MINIs of
Texas. She was driving her Audi TT for this trip, but she was glad to see
the MINIs... We also caught up with Jarlath and Becca at this
stop, so they joined us for a while.
After we exited Skyline drive, we had to get on the highway and get up to
Frackville. But first - an ice cream stop! We hit
Bones and Cones in
Hagerstown, MD. What a great concept - ice cream and dessert bakery in one
- that also sells dog & cat treats! They were expecting us, so they had a
"Welcome MINI Coopers" sign out front, reserved parking for our cars, and
special MINI logo-shaped cookies for us! Fantastic! Not only did I
sample the ice cream, I also picked up all-natural whole wheat dog treats for my
miniature poodle back home...
We also had lunch right across the street at the Rhubarb House. The soup
of the day was corn/crab chowder. Verrrry good.....
So it's back on the highway - as we're leaving Hagerstown I was watching the nav
and assuming we were going straight to I-81 - but the rest of the guys got in a
turn-only lane. Oops. I got separated from the group. But I
caught up with them a while later up the highway at a rest stop. Soon
after we got going again the skies turned dark and opened up - it was coming
down in BUCKETS. Everyone slowed down to a crawl. I turned on the
rear fogs because it was raining so hard that visibility was limited. But
it didn't last too long and we were back up to speed.
Ian F called me and told me about the construction on I-81, forcing traffic into
a single lane - but he also gave me a route around it. We exited onto rt
125, but soon after that the problem of dueling nav units gave us a problem.
I've got the factory nav from MINI, Ian Cull has a Tom Tom - and Murray has
another unit. Needless to say - they don't always agree on the route.
So we end up a little off course. Whatever - just a slight delay, and we
got to the hotel just fine. And the Holiday Inn Express we are staying at
tonight is brand new and really great. It's also the most expensive on the
trip, but there aren't too many choices in Frackville...
Evening was a trip to Leiby's for dinner and ice cream. I've been to
Leiby's before, and although the ice cream is good, service is always slow.
And tonight service was excruciatingly slow. I almost ate my napkin
waiting for food to arrive. Leiby's has a very large selection of ice
cream flavors, so I wanted to try something that I never had before. I saw
"Teaberry" on the menu, so I asked my tablemates: "What's a Teaberry?" No
solid answer. I asked the waitress about it - she said "Well, it's Pink".
Not wanting to be rude, I didn't tell her how useless that answer was. So
I asked for a sample - 15 min later she brought me a spoonful. She was
right, it's Pink! It's also kinda minty, not really the "berry" taste I
expected. I decided to go for it. Taste is very hard to describe in
words without comparing it to the taste of something else - so I have to tell
you - at the risk of grossing you out - Teaberry tastes much like Pepto Bismol. Seriously. That's not a
bad thing, that's just what it tastes like...
BTW, I should also mention that I wore a special T-shirt today that said "FRACK!"
- it's really from the SciFi channel show, Battlestar Galactica - but I thought
it would be a riot wearing it to FRACKville. Yeah. Well. Other
than Ian F and Sharon - I'm pretty sure no one else got it...
As always - see my pictures link for the photos of the day...
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