As I write this, I’ve been home from Overcrest for about a week and I’m still not sure if I’m caught up on sleep (but that could also be from chasing a toddler around + regular work/life duties).
The only casualty of the trip (for the Avocado) was the brand new Bosch starter deciding to give up the morning of Day #2, the Avocado otherwise ripped and was a blast to drive.
To start where I left off… Those with a keen eye may have noticed the wheels in the last picture are not GOLD. Nokian is a major sponsor of the Overcrest rally and gave the first ten folks that reached out a set of free tires. I was lucky enough to pick up a set of their Surpass AS01 in 215/45/17 and 245/40/17 for the set of BBS LMs I’ve had sitting in the garage for the last three years. As you’d imagine, moving from a set of R-compounds to a 550 treadwear all season was a bit of a change, but not as much as I expected. The only sections of the rally I was considerably slower were the high speed sweepers on the first day where I wasn’t too familiar with the grip level yet. They performed admirably otherwise, including during an insane rain storm on the way home.
On Monday night of the week of the rally, I got all packed up, including my tent/air mattress for Saturday night. The Avocado was fairly loaded down.
I left early Wednesday morning and got on the road from Minneapolis with two friends, Brent and Amy. Our destination was Indianapolis to spend the night with ⅗ of the full send society. We caught up with Julian along the way and then met up with Chris and Kelly for Mexican food and hangs. This was the night before Chris sold the 991, I'm glad we got a chance to see it before it left the fleet!
First rest-stop in Black River Falls, WI. Up until this point, the twin cities hadn't had much change in leaf color yet. Once we got into Wisconsin that clearly wasn't the case there. Had to snap a shot with this big, beautiful Maple.
We set our alarms at 5am to get on the road at 6am. I was parked deepest into the driveway and when Brent and Julian pulled out, my car didn’t start, not even a click. Chris gave me a push start (and a spare starter from his air-cooled hoard), and we were on our way. Next stop Buc-ees in Kentucky.
At Bucc-ees we met up with Tony, Jessie, and Andy. A few friends got to Overcrest early and hit up Tail of the Dragon. I had no idea how close it was but Tony said it was only a 15 minute detour so we set our sites on it. On our way up, we got stuck behind a Kia SUV doing 20 mph. The mountain road manners were really lacking on this trip, despite there being plenty of turn-offs. Regardless, it was awesome to finally get out on the Dragon after years of hearing about it.
We made it to Night #1 at Deer Lodge. Incredible surf and turf were had by all and once it got dark, we headed to our Airbnb in Helen, GA.
Too many pics to share for one post, to be continued!