Pacific Northwest Meet 2015: July 18th

chizzoink

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Jun 19, 2014
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Location
Tacoma, WA
Car(s)
1997 Honda Prelude base
I figured I'd just start this up so everybody has time to come check it out and we have time to get everything worked out.

Last year we went up and around the Olympic Peninsula and it was absolutely beautiful. I had an absolute blast and definitely want to get together again (hence the February posting for a summer drive).

What does everything think would be a good day and a good route?


------------------------- EDIT BY VIPER -------------------------

We're going with July 18th. Here's the route we're probably taking. We'll confirm before we leave Exotics @ Redmond Town Center.

Be there at 9am. We'll leave at 9:30am after chatting a bit about the route and such.
 
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I'm up for whenever this year, but obviously when the weather is better. ;)

Also hopefully less oil spray this time around. :p

For the route, I think another excursion east over the mountains might be fun. It's been a few years since we did that Leavenworth loop and I think many people missed out on it. I wouldn't mind doing it again, although it is a very full day worth of driving. Here's a possible route we could take (counter-clockwise) with people who don't want to make the full loop turning around at Leavenworth and heading back west.
 
Well dang, that'd be quite the drive. I'd love to give that a shot. And if we scheduled it for a Saturday, we could always visit Exotics at RTC for a half hour to hour before heading out. It starts at 9a, but cars start arriving around 8:30a.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/ExoticsRTC/201202160220

Take off around 10a, meaning we'd finish up around 7p in Arlington (factoring in around 2 hours for stops, gas, and food). That'd be plenty of time for me to get home around 9p (in Tacoma).

Another neat thing about that route is that the Canadians (if we get any) could branch off where 530 and 20 split on the Skagit and head up north for a quick trip home.
 
Well dang, that'd be quite the drive. I'd love to give that a shot. And if we scheduled it for a Saturday, we could always visit Exotics at RTC for a half hour to hour before heading out. It starts at 9a, but cars start arriving around 8:30a.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/ExoticsRTC/201202160220

Take off around 10a, meaning we'd finish up around 7p in Arlington (factoring in around 2 hours for stops, gas, and food). That'd be plenty of time for me to get home around 9p (in Tacoma).

Another neat thing about that route is that the Canadians (if we get any) could branch off where 530 and 20 split on the Skagit and head up north for a quick trip home.

Yeah, that's exactly what we did! Met at E@RTC and Canadians took off north where appropriate.

The only issue was distance between gas stations. I had my E light come on (small tank plus glug glug) and argatoga or someone else on a motorcycle had someone haul a bit of gas for them.





 
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Oops, some posts got stuck in the moderation queue. Fixed.
 
Well hey, it sounds like a good route then! And it looks like the furthest distance we'd travel on that route without a station would be about 100 miles between Mazana and Concrete. Besides that, there's tons of stations all about 30-50 miles apart (according to GasBuddy's map).
 
Well hey, it sounds like a good route then! And it looks like the furthest distance we'd travel on that route without a station would be about 100 miles between Mazana and Concrete. Besides that, there's tons of stations all about 30-50 miles apart (according to GasBuddy's map).

We must have missed some gas stations then or something. When in full glug glug mode, I can get 150 miles easily.
 
We must have missed some gas stations then or something. When in full glug glug mode, I can get 150 miles easily.

I've been using the GasBuddy mapping: http://www.gasbuddy.com/GB_Map_Gas_Prices.aspx

I forgot to change it to premium, though, which will probably be what most of us are running.

There's enough stations around with regular at least to make it the whole way, but the furthest distance between premium stations is Okanogan and Concrete (about 147 miles). I know the Prelude runs okay enough on regular (but that point is moot because it'll get 350 miles on a highway tank), but I'm not sure how you'd feel about feeding your 8.4L V10 sub-par gas.

What'd everybody do last time this trip was made?
 
Any idea on the date? I may be able to wrangle in a friend or two for the next go.
 
I've been using the GasBuddy mapping: http://www.gasbuddy.com/GB_Map_Gas_Prices.aspx

I forgot to change it to premium, though, which will probably be what most of us are running.

There's enough stations around with regular at least to make it the whole way, but the furthest distance between premium stations is Okanogan and Concrete (about 147 miles). I know the Prelude runs okay enough on regular (but that point is moot because it'll get 350 miles on a highway tank), but I'm not sure how you'd feel about feeding your 8.4L V10 sub-par gas.

What'd everybody do last time this trip was made?

It's more likely I'll get 200-ish miles to the tank so it's all good.

Any idea on the date? I may be able to wrangle in a friend or two for the next go.

Not sure yet. Open to suggestions.
 
Any idea on the date? I may be able to wrangle in a friend or two for the next go.

What if we planned for a weekend in June? I'm guessing we'd want to do a Saturday to ensure that people can get some sleep if they'll be home late. I can't do the 13th due to my brother and sister's high school graduation. Besides that, I'll be making the drive a priority :)
 
Not sure about June. I'm doing autocross on the weekend of the 13th and I'm busy on the 27th helping a friend move his supercar collection across town (not missing a chance to drive his McLaren!).

July looks a little better but autocross is on the weekend of the 11th. There's also autocross on the weekend of August 8th.

Now mind you I could, and very well may, skip some of these autocrosses. We'll see how into them I get once they start here in the spring.
 
What about early in the year?
 
What about early in the year?

Weather could be an issue. Both June and July work for me, just some weekends (may) be out.
 
Perhaps we could do something with a focus on Eastern Washington?

What about a drive to the Hanford Museum? It's a bit of a drive, but it can be done in a day.
 
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Perhaps we could do something with a focus on Eastern Washington?

What about a drive to the Hanford Museum? It's a bit of a drive, but it can be done in a day.

Via what route? Any interesting routes? Eastern Washington and Oregon tend to be pretty flat and boring. That's why I like the idea of Leavenworth and back.
 
Via what route? Any interesting routes? Eastern Washington and Oregon tend to be pretty flat and boring. That's why I like the idea of Leavenworth and back.

You have a point. Though I'd like to try something a bit new.

How about Mt. St. Helens? It's not as far and the views on the roads up to the museum are incredible.
 
How about Mt. St. Helens? It's not as far and the views on the roads up to the museum are incredible.

The road to the observatory is kinda boring and packed with RVs and stuff during the summer.

The roads on the southern side are alright but once you start getting up in the hills, the roads are shit and you have to go super slow.

Scenic, but not that great of driving.
 
Just my 2 cents: I would still really like to do the Leavenworth drive. I'm up for anything else, but the Leavenworth one sounds amazing, especially with a group.

July works as well. The 4th is on a Saturday, so that weekend would be out. I'd be unavailable for the 25th, but the 11th and the 18th are open for me. With your autocross the 11th, what if we set the tentative date for July 18th and if we get some people unable to come, we change that later?
 
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