Mini Takes the States-- My 2 Days on the Trip

You may have noticed a bunch of Mini Coopers in Monday(8/27) and Tuesday(8/28). They were part of the Mini Takes the States Tour that left from Monterey, Ca on August 21st and ending in lakeview CT on September 24th. A friend of mine, who owns a Mini, asked if I wanted to go with him for the Nashville, TN to St. Louis and the St. Louis to Indianapolis, IN legs. I expected to see a bunch of cool tricked out Mini's and maybe talk to a few people. I didn't expect to have as much fun as I did. Here is the synopsis of what we did.

Tuesday 8AM. We arrived at Centennial Park to check in. We walked around looking at the Minis parked there. A group of them left and we jumped in and it turned out that we stayed with them for the rest of the trip. After driving up toward Clarksville, Tennessee the group leader got lost. I volunteered to lead the group up through Land Between the Lakes Park. I have spent a lot of time up that way.

We stopped for a few minutes at the Visitor Center. There I had a chance to meet some of the people in the trip. I met a girl, Minipenny, who had quit her job in San Francisco, Ca just to go on this trip. I also met two of the coolest people from Miami, FL,who came up for part of the tour. I met Sue from Houston, TX who left the trip after St. Louis. We took off form there and zipped up through Land Between the Lakes toward Metropolis. IL.

When we got to Metropolis IL we stopped off to see the huge Superman statue there.

We hung out there for a few hours and then stopped over at Harrah's Casino for lunch. The buffet was awesome and only cost 8 bucks. We took off form there and met a few more people at the Sonic, Becky from Charleston, SC and Rene from Texas. Cool people. The next part was the drive up to St. Louis.

After checking in to the hotel in St. Louis we got a phone call saying that were extra tickets to the Cardinals - Marlins baseball game at the new Busch Stadium. The Marlins won 9-1. I'm not sure who I have to thank for that but who ever it was, thank you sooo very much.


The next morning we stopped off at the Gateway Arch for a group picture of the people. A documentary crew that filmed the trip had us leave in a big line and they filmed us driving out of St. Louis. We passed maybe 3 or 4 cameras and a van was driving with us that had a camera mounted on the outside of it. I tried to yell and make myself noticeable but don't know if I will make the film.

We stopped off in Valdiala, IL at a big metal dragon that some guy built that breathed fire. When we got there there where probably 70 to 80 Mini's parked underneath it. I took some video but it does not show the impact it had in person.

I took this with my Camera Phone. We then left on our way to Indianapolis Motor Speedway. When we arrived there were about twice as many cars then left St. Louis. There must have been about 300 Mini's parked. They let us drive on the Track at the Speedway. That was incredible.

This was taken as we came off the straightaway. The track is about 2 miles long and when we were getting on the track the front of the line was just getting off. There were 2 miles of Mini's on the track.

I am really glad my friend Dave invited me. I want to say to all the people I met, even the one I forgot to mention there, on that trip that I am very glad I got to meet you guys and thanks for being so nice to a guy who doesn't own a mini. I hope the rest of your trip was as awesome as my two legs were.

Keep on Motoring.

Below is the link to the other Video I took and a link to all the pictures I took on the trip.