Labcoatguy and LeVeL's day trip in the name of driving pleasure

LeVeL

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Our little story begins this past Thursday when, on impulse, I decided to cancel my Saturday plans and instead spend the day driving. Despite the short notice, Labcoatguy agreed to join me in the Bork. Our day started at 8am in Boston, took us out of the city into the middle of nowhere, and finally back home. With a few stops for dietary and biological needs, it took us almost the entire day to cover about 350 miles. It was one of the best driving days I've ever had.

Advance warning - the pictures suck. I was using my old phone on a suction cup mount as a dashcam for the first time. In order to plug in a charger, I also had to get the mount into the shot. It took still photos at five second intervals, which turned out to be too long for a timelapse. Oh well. Anyways...

After breakfast near my house, I headed downtown to meet up with LCG...


... along beautiful Storrow Drive...





... and its tunnels:


Eventually arriving at our meeting spot...


... and accidentally (no, really) getting myself into the shot as I waited:



From there we proceeded to get out of the urban setting:



Once on the highway, we ran into my friend and former roommate in his S2000:


Then hybrids got in our way:


The only way to have any fun around Boston and/or on highways is, of course, off-ramps:


We merged onto a smaller, two-lane highway:


Where the Saab almost got rear-ended when traffic stopped quickly:


After a while traffic cleared:


And, as we got further and further away from the metro area, the road became single-lane:


Once off the highway, we quickly got stuck behind a Volkswagen with a dog and a pickup with a horse...


... who we passed at the first opportunity...


... only to get stuck behind more cars. CARAVAN!!!!


We waited in the back of the pack and soldiered on despite distractions:


Finally, we got onto even smaller local roads. At first we were stuck behind yet another environmentally-friendly car...


... but eventually we turned off and had a clear road in front of us:




We stopped for lunch in a town...


... drove by the 2nd tallest library in the world...


... around a rotary...


... over a bridge...


... and finally onto more open roads:


We were now on some beautiful twisting roads:






Then we got stuck behind a couple of HOGs and had to pass them...



Only to get stuck behind a Volvo...


... and a pickup truck:


Oh well, that's what passing zones are for:


More scenic roads lay ahead:



The fun was, of course, interrupted by another Volvo...


... and a bald patch in a BMW:


The good news is that passing zones were frequent and the roads just kept getting better and better:






After some more open roads...




... came the highlight of the day: a Saab 99 96 (thanks for correcting, LCG)!


By this point we were way out in the boonies and the scenery was typical New England: flowing roads and rivers, rolling hills, and lots of trees:






After a brief stop in the bushes...


... and making some dust in a Miata...


... we moved on:





Despite the occasional work zone...


... the roads remained largely free of traffic:






The roads got better and better:






... even despite some missing pavement:


It was at this point that we hit the best roads of the day:




Having discussed riding motorcycles on these roads earlier in the day, seeing these two seemed like a sign so we followed:





Getting closer...


There is something terrifically satisfying about heel-and-toe-ing into a turn and having to back off mid-way through because you just caught up to a couple of leaned over sport bikes:




Despite holding my own in the bends, we lost the bikes pretty quickly due to the immense difference in passing power:


As we made our way back towards home, we got stuck behind quite a bit of traffic and the idea of having to pass all of them, along with being worn out from hours and hours of driving, relegated us to the back of the pack:


Soon after the previous shot, we made another pitstop, after which I turned off the camera - no one needs more pictures of highways. All in all, a terrific day!
 
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Yeah, it was a pretty awesome day of corner-crushing and passing. That 335i convertible was just shameful; that much power and the guy was pootling along as if he was in a boulevard cruiser. It did punctuate just how far Boston is from these twisty roads; it took us at least two hours to get to the good bits, though we did take the long way through some rather dense weekender traffic.

Car-wise, I'm rather proud of my Viking longship and its ability to (mostly) keep up with the Miata, though I definitely fell behind in the tighter turns and onramps. I blame my all-season tires, but I had enough fun trail-braking into some of the faster corners and feeling the grip shift. Massive thanks to those inch-thick swaybars underpinning it, otherwise it'd just be even more boat-like. Of course, straightaways were all mine; I wasn't really trying even when passing, while LeVeL mentioned that he had foot to the floor during quite a few uphill sections.
 
It took still photos at five second intervals, which turned out to be too long for a timelapse. Oh well. Anyways...

Even 2 seconds is too long. I found that out during my road trip to San Diego and back. Worse: I was doing timelapse instead of video to save SD card space but because I was taking 11MP photos, it actually would have been better to shoot 1080p video and speed it up! Ugh.

So yeah, take low res photos or just shoot video. :)
 
Of course I was ready to throw in a bit of my usual I-live-in-the-alps-and-americans-have-only-straight-roads stick as soon as I opened this thread, but the pics in here took a quick stop to that: Because these roads do look like a rather good fun time. - Damn, there goes another one of my prejudices. ;)
 
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