The Tucker Stories

It took a while but I was finally able to get all of the photos uploaded from our last trip in Europe.  Yup, there are a lot but it truly was an EPIC trip.  I really do hate to admit it but MIUK (Maggie In The UK) was a better trip that MITA08 (details here and here).  Over 9 days we went about 1200 miles driving across Scotland, Ireland and Wales and it was Awesome!!  Here’s an example of just how great the trip was.  Happy Snaps posted and details after the break.

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Today, 17 days until we leave Europe, the Clan Tucker will depart on our final European vacation to see Scotland, Ireland and Wales.  If there was another MINI goin with us, it’d be MINIs Meet The Kings, however, for now I’ll settle for Maggie Meets The Kings!  Over the next 10 days, The Crew and I are all piling into Maggie  and are gonna see Edinburgh, Inverness, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Liverpool, and some Welsh towns to get the last little bit of “culture” before our triumphant return to the United States.  This trip includes two over-night ferries, two short ferries, castles, the Glenfiddich and Glenmorangie distilleries, the Guiness brewery and the possibly the largest selection of used book stores in the UK or at least all of Wales!!  Dunno how much Intarwebz we’ll have access to during the ride but I will try to keep ya’ll posted.  Of course, we’ll take some pictures.  Lots and LOTS of pictures.

Cheers!!

I had to take Maggie into the dealership to check out the unusual seat wear and they gave me a MINI as the loaner!!  Check out this color:

Yes, my friends, that is a MINI ONE!!  I’ve loved Motoring in my MINIs and I do believe that, regardless of the engine, the car will always have that zoominess to them.  I’ve now learned that the engine has a lot to do with how much zoominess you can enjoy as this MINI One is >almost< a gutless wonder!!  And I have learned what the middle button by the shift knob is for.

That button enables/disables the stop light pause effect where the engine will shut down whilst waiting at a stop light.  The way that works is after stopping at a light, put the car into neutral, hold the brake, release the clutch and the engine will shut off.  As soon as you hit the clutch, the engine will restart automatically.  Nice.  I like the effect, however, Maggie wouldn’t take to that too well as she’s got the Auto Sport module installed and it takes a few seconds for all of that to be activated.  Regardless, still a cool effect.  I’ll let ya’ll know how Maggie’s seat repair and engine lookee comes out.

Cheers!!

Please forgive the dirt and grime but I had to get a snap of Maggie with her new Tar Heel MINI Motoring Club badge installed.

And, yes, I will be keeping the Nederlanderer plates on the car once she’s registered in NC.

Cheers!!

Back in the day, I’d get together with a crew of MINI owners in Germany and we’d do runs that Art had put together through the Odenwald, Schwarzwald and points in between.  A couple of times, we’d run out to the Nurburgring Nordschleife.  With Wednesday being the Dutch Liberation Day and a day off of work, Matt and I went with a couple of guys from work to give Maggie, Too her chance to run the ‘Ring.

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Since coming here FOUR years ago, I’ve Motored across Europe.  In my first MINI, a 2006 R53 MINI Cooper S named “Maggie”, I put 70,720 miles on her over 35 months before she was stolen.  My new MINI, a 2010 R56 MINI Cooper S John Cooper Works named “Maggie, Too”, now has just over 4000 miles on her.  Between these two excellent cars, I’ve driven in an area defined by these locales:

1. Sorrento, Italy
2. Oxford, England
3. Normandy, France
4. Frankfurt, Germany
5. Nauders, Austria

And a whole lot of points in between.  Truly a remarkable journey which has caused me to realize why Americans are so different from Continentals.  First, Europeans don’t realize just how big the United States is.  To help them visualize the distances involved, I use this example:  According to TomTom, to drive on the freeway from Calais, France to Kiev, Ukraine is about 26 hours and 1400 miles.  Compare that to driving from downtown New York City to Dallas, Texas in about 22 hours at 1500 miles!!  And that’s only about half-way across the United States.  For them, a six hour drive is a very long drive.  In the States, I think our culture has developed an almost innate sense of time in that we know we’re going to have to spend 45 minutes driving to a store and don’t want to waste any time screwing around with getting whatever it was we went to the store for in the first place!  And I think that this is why we’re perceived as pushy or rushing about.  Here in Europe, it is almost terribly easy to travel between cities because they have ALWAYS has some form of public transport infrastructure.  Remember, there are entire villages which are over a thousand years old!!  The States, on the other hand, are not limited by their history and will blast a building down to make way for another highway.  Europeans can’t understand why the nearest bus stop for me in Hope Mills is about a 10-15 minute bike ride just to get to the end of the bus line!!  Regardless.

So, what’s the point?  I have put so many miles on my cars driving around Europe that it finally dawned on me that I would like to do the same thing back in the States.  I mean, honestly, who goes to the OK Corral for a holiday?  Just the OK Corral and nothing else.  Mostly, that would be tied into a trip to Tuscon, Arizona or a PCS to Huachuca.  On the occasion of my Retirement from the Army, I thought it would be about the only time that I could spend “oot and aboot” adventuring before I had to get a real job.  Thus, the creation of my Great Loop.

What I want to do is to go to all of the cool touristy sites that we Americans know about but just don’t get around to going to in the United States.  Kelly figures that doing the East Coast sites would be fairly easy from North Carolina, so this trip focuses on the Western US.  Now, who all is going?  Dunno.  I guess whoever is in Maggie when I kick off.  The whole trip is gonna be about 35 days long, about 10700 miles long and goes to the Northern and Western Extremities of the US, over the geographic center of the United States (50 and 48 states) down the Pacific Coast Highway, through Death Valley, Vegas and, finally, through Texas before returning home.  The full itinerary is here.  The Rules of the Road is to start around 8-ish in the morning, go to about 2 or 3 in the afternoon and just pitch up at a Motel 6 or whatever for the night.  Repeat as necessary.  Along the way, there are programmed stops, besides the obvious ones like Boone, Crossville, Dallas and Houston.  I’m guessing about two days each in Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles, along with a day or two at other places along the way, like Fort Ord.

And that’s that.  I really like the whole concept of this grand adventure, however, I don’t really know if I’ll actually be able to do it what with this thing called the Real World.  This is the schedule I’m looking at:

• Gotta have Matt at school by 12 August,
• Nyssa has to be in by 15 August, and
• Kelly wants to start working with the school year, too, on the 17th of August.

So, not really sure, at this point, when/if this whole thing will kick off but at least I’m having fun planning this whole thing out.

Cheers!!

http://www.nyssa-almighty.com/Great_Loop.htm

About a month ago, I picked up Maggie, Too, my 2010 MINI Cooper S John Cooper Works and figured it was time to share my thoughts on this new, wee beastie.

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This is a snap of Maggie’s readout before her first fill-up.  The last few miles, the fuel level countdown was fluctuating between one and zero and I wasn’t quite sure that I’d make it to the pumps.  But Maggie pulled through and this was a snap a friend took for me of the display.  Note that there should be some value before the MPG.  As the computer figured there were less than zero miles left, it shows the dashed lines instead!  Yeah, 14.13 gallons of fuel later, Maggie was full up.  As of this afternoon, Maggie has 825 of the 1200 miles needed for the manufacturer’s recommended break-in mileage.  I am actually really looking forward to being able to unleash Maggie to her full potential blasting along der Autobahn to the ‘Ring, which happens to be open this weekend!!  Whatdayathink, Art?  You down for this?

Cheers!!

…gifts like this and this would help me share with ya’ll stuff like this!!

Cheers!!

One of the “joys” of MINI ownership is the thrill of anticipation as one waits, ever so patiently, for the arrival of their custom configured work of art.

What crap.

It has been 58 days since I ordered another MINI to replace Maggie and it has been complete misery.  I have driven Kelly’s 2001 Dodge Grand Caravan more since That Day that I had in the previous eight years we’ve owned it!!  Definitely a contrast.  However, things are looking up because this afternoon I paid the dealership the balance for my new car and I now have a VIN for it!  Things are still on schedule, so I’m looking at a late November delivery date.  And that is only 23 days away!!!

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