Yesterday I had the pleasure of parcipitating in MINI's Motortober 08 Rally around northern New Jersey. Who says you have to go far to get the benefits of travel?
In this economy, it makes sense to travel locally, and participating in events like this get you out of the house and seeing places you might not have visited before, doing things you may not have done in a while, and meeting new people: all of which are benefits to travel. Of course, you're not immersing yourself in new cultures, but what the heck. Travelling for pure fun is good, too. :0)
Being in the MINI Rally was a blast... it was fun watching people's faces as first they see one MINI, then as they're pointing it out to their companion they see a second, and then their jaws drop as several more are seen following behind! I witnessed this three times, and several other times people shouted out "MINI!" as we drove by. It was hard to keep the entire group together when we were in towns, but there were at least a dozen of us as we pulled into the first stop for ice cream, and about two dozen when we pulled into a farm for some off-roading.
At the farm we went on a hayride, and saw up close some alpacas... silly little creatures that look like llamas. After that we drove through the fall foliage to the Montville Inn for an excellent late lunch/ early dinner... with a special MINI menu. All in all a fun day, and we couldn't have asked for nicer weather. And with a MINI, we didn't use up that much gas as we tooled around the countryside!
Cheers, JOHN :0)
PS That's my MINI in the third photo... you can just see it at the far right.
