Stage 6 Great Race 2018

Back to Tuesday at Mt. Washington, many of the racers chose to drive to the summit of Mt. Washington. Brad and I decided it wasn’t worth the risk of harming the car to make the climb to the 6200 foot peek. However, many of the participants went up and down the mountain with no problems. Unfortunately, the station wagon above was lucky and unlucky at the same time.

They climbed the mountain with some friends who were driving a 1964 convertible Mustang. They made the climb, took some pictures, and turned around and came back down the mountain. The Mustang was leading the charges with their GoPros filming. The Mustang started to notice the station wagon was following a little to close. They heard the occupants of the wagon yelling “no brakes”. Mt. Washington has no guard rails and a sheer drop. The Mustang saw a part of the mountain where the station wagon could slow down. There was an embankment on the left side as they were going down like a truck runaway hill (but it was just part of the landscape). The Mustang pointed to the hill, and the wagon passed the Mustang up the side of the embankment. When the wagon reached the peak, it tipped over on its side. The wagon skid quite a ways, and then flipped back over onto its tires. The Mustang saw him back on his wheels and starting to roll again. The Mustang quickly drove in front of the wagon to stop it from going over the edge.

The Mustang’s driver exemplifies the spirit of the rally. We feel so blessed to not only know these people, but consider them our friends. They all returned to the bottom of the hill with no injuries, which in itself is incredible, but they are back in the rally.

We started the morning a little later today which is good and bad. Good for me because I get a little more rest, but bad because we have time to sit around and anxiously contemplate the day ahead. We started out on the road, and the weather was less than desirable, it had started to rain late last night, and did not stop all day. Early in the day it was a lighter rain that didn’t change much of anything, but right about lunch time it started to come down in buckets. We had our lunch stop in Seal Cove, Maine at the auto museum. The rain put a bit of a damper on the day, as the spectators were all huddling under tents to watch the cars come in. We had a wonderful lunch of lobster rolls, cole slaw and fresh blueberry pie. We shared a lunch not wanting to be over tired from over eating.

After lunch we rallied around Seal Cove and headed toward Mt. Desert Island, the home of Acadia National Park. We had a shorter day of rallying so we could spend time driving around and enjoying the sites of the park.

Acadia is a 47,000 acre park with beautiful rocky coast line, woodlands, and glacier scoured granite peaks. Although it was raining and our coastal views were somewhat limited, we were treated to full and flowing waterfalls as we traveled through the park.

We finished the day in Bar Harbor, a quintessentially New England coastal town. As we pulled in, the fishing boats were moored out in the water and you could see the dark brown rocky coast with white waves splashing over the rocks. Great Race evening events were canceled do to the weather, so, we enjoyed another lobster dinner. When in Maine………EAT MoRE LOBSTER!

Thank you for your continued support and comments. We have three days to go, and we are doing our best to stay up in the top of the pack. A lot can change, but for now we are super pleased with our performance. We wouldn’t be having this success with out our mentors Barry and Irene. We can’t ever thank them enough for teaching us the

art of rallying!

Tomorrow is a new day….

Author: emcniff

This is not really about me, but about an adventure we are lucky enough to take each year. Each trip provides new discoveries, and the opportunity to see this beautiful country we are so blessed to live in. View all posts by emcniff