Atlanta to Charlotte

This morning we attended the official kick-off for “Mini Takes the States 2016” at the Atlanta Motor Speedway.  The theme this year is “track to track,” and the agenda over the next two weeks will include opportunities to drive here and on other race tracks across the country such as in Charlotte, Richmond, and Palm Springs.  It was a beautiful morning, and we left our motel room in Griffin, near the Speedway, before sunrise; the early hour and the excitement in the air reminded both of us of similar mornings arriving at marathons we have run in the past.

We followed the directions of the faithful Mini crew onto the track – a group of young people who would ultimately follow us across the country, waving green flags at us, scanning our lanyards, and giving information on the days events.  The crew’s bus updated the map of our journey each day, tallying up the miles we had driven.  One particular fixture on this crew whom we came to appreciate more and more each day was Desiree Birmingham (which I initially thought might be an assumed name, a nom de guerre), who was a natural as the emcee.  At the morning festivities she livened up the “spinning of the wheel” for earning Mini and other merchandise, announced the person who had raised the most money the previous day, and reminded us how many meals we had raised for local food banks through our “Defy Hunger” program.

We had thought the previous day that we had never seen so many Minis before, but as we rolled onto the track we found ourselves with hundreds of other cars.  We wandered in amazement through aisles and aisles of little cars!  Some of them were so unique in appearance that they were easily identified, and we would see them on the road and wave at them in future days.  (Mini drivers, especially those participating in MTTS, always wave at one another).  A camaraderie developed among we far-flung Mini enthusiasts, some from as near to us as Franklin and Brevard, others as far away as Seattle and Ontario. 

  

We didn’t know quite what to expect when we were invited to sit in the stands for the kickoff program, at which we were told that three skydivers were going to land on the track.  The first did so, and right on target near the infield, amid much applause.  Bu then a second skydiver began to descend and we watched in amazement as he landed in a Mini Clubman parked on the track.  A third skydiver repeated this feat.  From the sky into a Mini, and then (even more incredibly) free-falling across America to California. . . 

And then we were off, row by row, around this famous racetrack.  We were cautioned not to go onto the “apex”or highest point of the curve.  "If you do," Desiree said, "all your oil will slide to one side in your engine and your engine light will come on."  I think I managed to get up to 70 mph, and I definitely did not climb what seemed to be a vertical wall to my right, but other fearless Mini drivers realized that if centrifugal forces were great enough there would be no sliding of oil (they were scolded at later events), and they passed slower cars like ours.

Then we filed out onto the highway, one long parade of Minis heading westward to Charlotte.  As advised on Facebook, we had purchased a pair of two-way radios and set them to Channel 7, sub-channel 21, (although we later realized we did not need both of them).  So there was a bit of chatter along the way, some of it useful ("Debris in the road up ahead!") and some of it not ("Where are we going to eat lunch?").  I persisted in calling these radios "walkie-talkies" as I had called them in my childhood, much to Martha's amusement; I suppose they were "motorie-talkies."  

Following the day's written directions (our phones were too antiquated to run the "app" that others had downloaded, so we relied on these and on Google Maps for navigation) we soon found ourselves on some of those lovely two-lane roads that connect small towns in the South.  Each day's sheet included the location of the "Surprise and Delight" mid-way on the route, which today was Laura's Tea Room in Ridgeway, South Carolina, a tiny rural Town whose citizens were very friendly but a little unprepared for the arrival of hundreds of Minis.

We waited in a line that stretched around the building as frazzled employees, aided by the Mini crew, poured big glasses of iced tea.  The building was a unique one, and we wondered how a tea room had ended up in this charming but out-of-the-way place.  Upstairs I found this portrait of Laura Thomas, the last member of the Thomas family to run the mercantile before it was closed in the mid 1990’s and re-opened under new ownership in 2008.  What an elegant lady she must have been.

I liked this little sign nestled among the tea-pots on a shelf (where I waited for nearly an hour for a simple pimento cheese sandwich) and we took it to heart.

Incredibly, we found a quiet back porch outside the bustle of the tea room and enjoyed the best pimento cheese sandwiches I think we have ever had:

From Ridgeway, we made our way into Charlotte, two-lane roads replaced now by more and more crowded highways, and finally the complexities of the interstate system which surround all our major cities; we would put the top up for these noisy, busy roads (if we had not done so already because of the temperature).  When you live in a place like Highlands it is easy to forget how much traffic there is on the road, day and night, driving very fast in very busy lives and burning incredible amounts of gasoline - nearly 400 millions gallons per day.

Our evening event was the NASCAR Hall of Fame, and although we are not NASCAR fans we thoroughly enjoyed it.  The famous early stock cars were all displayed there, many of the drivers looking like the bootleggers they likely were - tough, alert, wide-awake men who had absolutely no fear of speed and climbed to the very top of many apexes in their day!

"I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees" - Tennyson

But sip by sip!