Some of my friends have asked how I manage to insert my 6'-4" frame into such a small car, and how I imagined I could do so for 30 days on the road. I shared some of these concerns when Martha first brought up the subject of "Mini Takes the States" earlier this year. I have a recurring problem, aggravated by recent injury, that seems to affect every muscle connected with my foot pressing on a gas pedal or clutch. After driving for some time (and some of the later stages in the trip involved more than 400 miles each day), it seems that I can barely walk for the first few steps. But this stiffness goes away, and it did not prove a problem during day after day of driving, especially since we agreed to exchange driver and navigator every 50 miles or so. Moreover, the Mini is a sports car. It is comfortable, plenty of leg-room, and has seats which can be minutely adjusted (I actually did some research on the internet on how to adjust the driver's seat so that it was in the best ergonomic position). One of my Facebook friends, Mark Kayser, asked after our trip, "Maybe a bigger car next time??" I replied, "I wouldn't consider doing a trip like that in anything other than a Mini Cooper! Plenty of room. And life is too short to drive a boring car!" Yes, this car is fun to drive! And we drove it on some spectacular roads. It corners like a cat, has impressive pep in all six gears, can leave a little patch of rubber if called to do so, and makes an endearing little "popping" backfire-sound when down-shifting.
Of more concern was the need to pack light. We wanted the top down, at least as much as we could, and we did not want to have to secure a suitcase in the back seat. We were limited to two little Mini bags that Martha found, and they worked like a charm - flexible enough to fit nicely side-by-side in the "boot" and holding all we needed.
We wore light, moisture-wicking clothing (I often washed my Patagonia shirt in the shower at night, hung it up, and it was dry by morning), all of the toiletries we needed, plus a good supply of granola, fruit and nuts, and energy bars, all in those two bags. We became experts in swiftly packing and unpacking.
The night before we left, severe storms rolled through Highlands as they often due this time of year, and our power was out overnight. Fortunately it had returned by morning and we embarked on schedule early the next morning - 75 degrees, top down, filled with a mixture of excitement and trepidation . I love that word, "embark" - "to board a ship, aircraft, or other vehicle, as for a journey." We often felt as if we were on a tiny barque, a vessel tossed from wave to wave out on the rough seas of unaccustomed interstates in some of the biggest cities in the country. Other times we sailed in quiet, limpid, shady lagoons. The temperature rose as we drove through Walhalla, south to Athens, finally climbing to 99 degrees as we neared Atlanta, and we wondered if it would simply remain stuck there, as if in a pre-digital age, unable to climb into that third digit. Had we ever actually seen our thermometer reach 100? But soon it did, and then even higher. The sun is simply scorching in July and August; you are not aware of it in a convertible until you stop.
Driving through the countryside of South Carolina and Georgia is always a strangely compelling treat for me. There are sights like this all along the way - the great kudzu-engulfed wonders of the rural South, rusty pickup trucks with trees growing up through opened hoods in the junk-strewn yards of houses that may or may not still be occupied. Do country folk in South Dakota simply abandon their belongings out in the yard as they do in South Carolina?
Martha drew my attention to a particular sight to see near Walhalla: a huge, mostly-naked man sitting in a recliner pulled up to the open front doorway of his trailer, enjoying the morning breeze. You can see everything and hear everything in a convertible (and smell it as well) - the little "click" of a mailbox being closed by a rural mail-carrier, the call of doves in the trees, even the keening of a circling hawk overhead.
Since we had some extra time before we arrived at the first event, we stopped at Stone Mountain - so hot! - a place we had not visited in many years.
The faces carved into the rock were an eerie foreshadowing of Mount Rushmore, hundreds of miles west of here. We climb the tramway to the top (an equally eerie foreshadowing of the Aerial Tramway in Palm Springs). One woman somehow missed seeing the carvings as we floated by, and when she arrived at the top she looked around in a bewildered kind of way and asked, "Whar' are the Confederate Generals?" - a phrase that stayed with me for awhile..
And then we arrived at Ponce City Market and found ourselves in a parking lot with more Mini Coopers than we had ever seen before, perhaps 40 or 50, in every shape and color imaginable. Although Minis are uniquely Minis in appearance, no two are alike, and on this trip their owners not only named their cars ("Dexter is liking this 93 octane!") but they tricked them out with every imaginable kind of embellishment - eyelashes over headlights, stickers and bright custom painting that made our modest British mirrors look conventional. One man had coated his car in blue and invited people to sign their names in exchange for a donation (the trip was a fund-raiser for local food banks, and by the end of it in Palm Springs, enough had been raised for over a million meals).
We enjoyed seeing this handful of cars in Atlanta, and even more as the numbers would grow to hundreds and hundreds, no two alike. So many Minis, and so many interesting Mini owners! Sometimes I would simply wander through rows upon rows of Minis, parked on the track, reveling in the endless individualization of Mini owners, the special kind of lunatics willing to make a trip like this in such a little car.
They gave each of us identifying lanyards to wear around our necks at the morning and evening events (and the mid-day "Surprise and Delight" events); the orange ones we were given meant that we were going "all the way," while others were blue or white (only a few cities). As we arrived in each city, the Mini crew scanned our lanyards and gave us a new button, so that by the end of our trip our lanyards were weighed down with so many buttons that they looked like this.
We took a special kind of pleasure in accumulating these buttons, signifying miles and experiences and sights seen along the way.
"I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments . . . " - Tennyson
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments . . . " - Tennyson
So many cities of men! And so many motoring Minis! I like that word, too - motoring - "traveling in a car, especially when considered as a recreation." For we did consider this a recreation for us, a new chapter in our lives, and we were planning to go all the way. And then come back again.
Tomorrow morning: Atlanta Motor Speedway.
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