Road Trips in a 30+-year-old car can be exciting…sometimes too exciting. But leaving flat Florida for some hilly/mountain driving in another part of the country is at least eight hours/400 miles away. So truck-and-trailer come into play to 1) keep miles off the Special Edition 924S Porsche, 2) make the drive more comfortable over a lot of miles and 3) insure that absolutely NOTHING will go wrong with the Porsche. So we are in the final planning phase of an over 3,500 mile trip with three weekends of Porsche events. It will be epic.
Relatives in the Minneapolis area are first on the list. With our black 924S Special Edition (named “Moe”) all prepped and loaded on the trailer, the 2018 Nissan Titan S will be doing the “heavy lifting” for a three day stroll up to Bloomington, MN. While in Bloomington, we will be taking a side trip to Keystone, South Dakota, where we will drop Moe off the trailer and take part in a three-day Porsche Club tour of Mount Rushmore and the other monuments and scenery around Rapid City. As is normally the case, we will probably be the only one there with a front-engine, water-cooled Porsche. That’s us – Ruining PCA Photos Across the Continent!
After returning to Minnesota for a few more days of visiting, we head to 944Fest 2021 at Nelson Ledges Road Course in Ohio, about forty miles from Cleveland. In a complete turnaround, we will be surrounded by 944’s and variants at Nelson. At that event, we will be joined by Nort Northam and his 924S Special Edition. Both cars will participate in the HPDE on Friday. It will be a rare occasion to see two 924S Special Edition cars at the same time…and on the track. (Note that Nort Northam is a past National Champion in PCA Club Racing with his now-deceased 1988 924S)
When the 944Fest 2021 closes, we will be headed back to Nort’s place in Hot Springs, NC. Spending a couple of days at his place and taking advantage of roads around the tail of the dragon, we will then head to Blowing Rock, North Carolina to meet the Appalachian Region PCA for their Appalachian Adventure – an annual gathering that we have attended for the past few years. After all, we have photos to ruin!
From Blowing Rock, we head home to Florida.
Now I will admit that most of the miles for this trip will be in the comfort and relliability of the Nissan Titan. But the purpose of the trip is to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations. To boldly go where no 924S has gone before. These are the voyages of MOE. We will take Moe places where we can enjoy him, then move to another place of enjoyment, then another…
The Titan will log over 3,500 miles, and probably another 1,000 miles on Moe. Moe will get to see the Presidents on Mount Rushmore and the giant Crazy Horse sculpture; he will get angry on a race track; he will tour Amish Country in Ohio, sharing the road with horse-and-buggies; make friends with others of his kind at 944Fest 2021, and make new friends from the same general family at Run-for-the-Hills in South Dakota and at the Appalachian Adventure in Blowing Rock.
And another note…while the cars are not young, neither am I. Comfy seats, cruise control, modern ride and worry-free driving are a nice bonus when you pass the age of Social Security. I have made the trip to Minnesota a few times, once in a 924S and once in a VW Eos convertible, and both were epic trips. But those days are behind me now; I will drive the truck and take my toys with me on the trailer. Yea, I am getting to be that old!
