mdosu drives 1 Lap America - Washington DC to San Francisco

[mdosu]

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Recently, and somewhat related to my hiatus from the forums, my wife and I moved from the Washington, DC area to San Francisco, CA. We decided to take a 14-day trip to visit my parents and a few National Parks. I took a bunch of photos of my trip, but of course, most of these posted pics are M3-content-heavy.
DC to Columbus, Ohio

Last few pictures of my car with DC backdrops!


Aways mindful of the NorCal car culture related to stance and fender gap:
There’s no need for a drop, my car is loaded with 400 lbs of stuff for the trip to Ohio and CA, check out the lack of wheel gap! (not all 400 lbs were in the car during the entire trip, a good 200 lbs of crap was dropped off in Ohio, or eaten)




In Columbus, Ohio, I went to a US Men’s National Team Soccer game. There was a members-only pep rally which I attended. (lots of German-heavy photos here, notice Jurgen)

 




Thurman Café – Columbus, Ohio


Ohio State Football goodies on display.




USMNT WC Qualifier vs Mexico. Dos-a-cero




I also went to the US Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio. Lots of German-heavy photos in here.
ME-410 (I believe, also sounds much like the S65B40)


JU-88 (or 188, I’m sure some aviation buff will correct me)




FW-190 (as marked, but look at the long nose fuselage, must be a different version than standard, kind of like M3 ZCP)


The obligatory car with plane photo.


Ohio to Kansas City, Mo

Noticed a lot of BMW Motorad bikes on the road. Must be a popular touring bike, everyone had one. Also check out my impressive bug collection in 1 day of driving.






KC to Colorado Springs, Co


A popular burger place in Salina, KS.




Back drop of Pike’s Peak. Weather was really poor in Colorado, I couldn’t drive up the peak while I was there. We spent time with my HS friend and his daughter.








Colorado to Moab, Utah – Arches National Park, Canyonland National Park
Canyon carving on I-70 in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado. Out of nowhere, a McLaren zooms by!






































Milt’s Burgers in Moab, UT – seriously, go there, buy a burger.


Utah to Jackson Hole, Wyoming
Salt Lake City – Bruges Waffles and Frites (drool!)















A hidden gem! Bear Lake, Utah/Idaho








Grand Teton National Park, Jackson Hole, Wyoming






























Jackson Hole Wyoming to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

[mdosu]

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

The obligatory, geyer steam background, car foreground picture to make car have appearance of steam coming out. So guys, white smoke = coolant or oil?

Bad weather in Yellowstone! There was a freak snowstorm the day we arrived in Yellowstone National Park. Here are some pictures of the storm as I drove through it on my summer tires. We were touring that day and elected to turn back and go back to the hotel. We got about 1.5 inches of snow in south Yellowstone. The hotel we stayed in that night was the historic Yellowstone Lake Hotel.









Old classic style Yellowstone touring buses


More Yellowstone:









So this was crazy! We met 3 separate European couples doing 1-year, 2-year tours of North America while at the park. They shipped their vans to Canada, then drive their van across the continent. The first couple has been at it for over 8 weeks, and the while RV/Van, he did the Pan-American Highway!!!

[mdosu]

Yellowstone to Boise, Idaho:
Only two things to note on this leg: 1. Sandstorm east of Boise, and 2. we had dinner at a Basque place in downtown Boise. This was only an overnight stop.


Boise to Crater Lake National Park
Your eyes are not deceiving you, I got 27.6 MPGs b/c that road (US-20 in eastern Oregon) was so slow and twisty. There were some straight parts too.


We stopped in Bend, Oregon for dinner. Big Island Kaluha (or something like that)…Hawaiian food.

Unfortunately, I have very few pictures of Crater Lake National Park, the two days we were there, it rained. And Crater Lake is about 7000 feet in the air, i.e. you were IN THE STORM CLOUD. I could not see a damn thing, including the lake!






Crater Lake to San Francisco
As many west-coaster likely have seen, Mount Shasta is there to greet you as you enter via I-5 in NorCal.


We could have taken the new Bay Bridge, but heck, it was more appropriate to take the Golden Gate Bridge!

Final trip tally. That’s right, prior to my trip, I drove about 5000 miles in 9 months.

My impressive bug collection driving in farm country NorCal.

[OilPatch]

Cool pics man, glad to have you back! My brother flew to Columbus for the us-mex match said the atmosphere was epic. #DosACero

[mdosu]

Reserved - fun factoids:

Spotted (holler if this is your):
Black F10 M5 in Yellowstone's Grand Loop
White E92 M3 in south Denver - car still had dealer tags with BMW of Rockville (or BMW of Silver Spring) on the rear!


Update:

Well this is just way too unbelievable to be true. On September 19th, in Yellowstone, I crossed paths with a F10 M5 and we acknowledged each other.

I just found out today, it was a forum member doing the reverse roadtrip. He was relocating from SD to DC!!!

Check out his thread:
http://f10.m5post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=902077

[Endless619]

Nice I did the Astoria Oregon to San Diego California to Bar Harbor Maine trip last Summer and went through some of the same places. I took tons of pictures as well but drove the X5. Much easier and comfortable and easy on the gas. LOL. 600 miles per tank is much nicer than 200 in the M3. lol

Looks like you had a great time!

[Lorde]

Used my title! Perfect way to spend your time-out!

What camera are you using??

[Haywood]

Awesome trip! So jealous you went to the USMNT game. What a great game to be at beating the Mexicans. What was your favorite place to see during your drive?

[MilehighM3]

Welcome back, now get to work livening up the joint!
Btw thanks for not getting in touch while you were in the springs! Just kick us to the curb...

[davesaddiction]

Welcome back! You've been missed.

Trip looks like it was truly epic. Thanks for all the time writing it up. Great route - hope to do a similar trip one day.

[LucWerkz]

mdosu lies yet again. His wife did all of the driving. He can't even drive a 6MT.



JK. Have a good time in SF Mike! Hope you were able to procure a job out there and not living off Angela.

[gblansten]

Great pics. I'm here in Salt Lake now on a hiking trip that is wrapping up. I've been missing my M3 while driving around a Subaru. To get to drive some of those roads like you did in the M3 would have been fun.

[mdosu]

Originally Posted by OilPatch

Cool pics man, glad to have you back! My brother flew to Columbus for the us-mex match said the atmosphere was epic. #DosACero

Originally Posted by Haywood

Awesome trip! So jealous you went to the USMNT game. What a great game to be at beating the Mexicans. What was your favorite place to see during your drive?

yeah! An awesome game indeed. This was my 2nd USA - Mexico qualifier. I also attended the 2005 game in Columbus, also Dos-a-cero.

[Lorde]

[mdosu]

Originally Posted by Snig

Used my title! Perfect way to spend your time-out!

What camera are you using??

thanks for the title! I'm using the most amazing camera in the world! - Samsung Galaxy Note 2 smartphone

[mdosu]

Originally Posted by Bmw135er

Welcome back, now get to work livening up the joint!
Btw thanks for not getting in touch while you were in the springs! Just kick us to the curb...

yeah, well you wouldn't have hooked me up with a MPE anyways...

[mdosu]

Originally Posted by gblansten

Great pics. I'm here in Salt Lake now on a hiking trip that is wrapping up. I've been missing my M3 while driving around a Subaru. To get to drive some of those roads like you did in the M3 would have been fun.

There were some fantastic roads out there. My only recommendation to someone who will do a similar trip is to lighten your load. I was driving with a good 200 - 300 lbs of stuff in my back trunk with my seats folder down. So driving those twisties weren't very fun.

So do this next time:
1. no load
2. no wife.

[mdosu]

Originally Posted by Red_Baron

mdosu lies yet again. His wife did all of the driving. He can't even drive a 6MT.



JK. Have a good time in SF Mike! Hope you were able to procure a job out there and not living off Angela.

Originally Posted by davesaddiction

Welcome back! You've been missed.

Trip looks like it was truly epic. Thanks for all the time writing it up. Great route - hope to do a similar trip one day.

Originally Posted by Lute

Welcome back, looks like you had plenty to keep you busy during your time off here.

Originally Posted by Endless619

Nice I did the Astoria Oregon to San Diego California to Bar Harbor Maine trip last Summer and went through some of the same places. I took tons of pictures as well but drove the X5. Much easier and comfortable and easy on the gas. LOL. 600 miles per tank is much nicer than 200 in the M3. lol

Looks like you had a great time!

thanks for the replies!

Nominate this thread for Bimmerpost homepage! (pm a moderator)

[mdosu]

Thread updated with pics.

Nominate this thread for Bimmerpost homepage if you like it! (pm a moderator)

[Curt2000]

Reminds me of a euro delivery thread only in America!

[pkimM3r]

Awesome. No pictures of random gas stations? Becuae thats a lot of gas. Your mileage finally past your post count!

[Koldun]

Great pictures.

How much weight did you gain after all that junk food and time sitting on your ass?

On an unrelated note, the more I see painted reflectors on light cars, the more I think they look even worse than the orange ones.