Tuesday, September 18, 2012

"On the Road" by Nick Psyllos


Many of you know that I convinced Adele that it would be a fun adventure for us to drive my silver 1973 911S across the US to join the R Gruppe (a car club for early 911 enthusiasts) for an event in Snowshoe West Virginia in late September.  Certainly to many, 3,000 miles in a 40 year old sports car that is loud, has no A/C, and has pretty stiff suspension seems crazy.  To my fellow R Gruppe friends, they thinks it’s awesome.  Originally, we had planned to take 6-7 days to drive from San Diego to VW taking our time and picking a route that includes very few Interstate Highways and with a number of stops along the way.  That plan has now changed and the first leg of our trip is to Telluride Colorado for a week long family vacation and then to Denver where I will store the car until late September where we will pick things up again. I got full buy-in from Adele on this idea, so I’m writing this first update from Telluride.

  Nick and his wife Adele
Our first day drive from San Diego to the Grand Canyon was fantastic; we left our driveway at 6AM to avoid the heat that has been hanging over the southwest for the past two or three weeks.  I think we made it to Yuma before my coffee was cold and then headed north on 95 toward Quartzite well before the heat was a factor.  The traffic was light (none—who goes to Quartzite?) and we made our first gas stop and break.  Next stop was Prescott, where we had lunch.  The drive up to Prescott was fun; finally found some good twisty roads to enjoy.


We made to the Grand Canyon in what must have been record time.  My radar detector never beeped and I don’t think we saw more than a dozen cars.  We had our first glimpse of the GC from the grounds at the El Tovar Lodge where we also enjoyed a great meal and watched a fast moving rain cell sweep across us in about 30 minutes.  We were surprised at how much water was produced in such a short period of time but it certainly left the air cool and clean and the colors in the canyon and sky as sunset came upon us were amazing.  It was a great first day.


Sunday morning we were up for sunrise at the canyon, near the visitors center so we could exit the park via the east gate and then work our way around Monument Valley toward Colorado.  Once again the big ditch was spectacular in the early morning light, we stayed about an hour longer than we thought we would as we just couldn’t seem to pull ourselves away.  The road that takes you around the eastern side of the canyon was great; it was smooth as glass and with no traffic we had a nice “spirited” drive through the park.  The rest of the way to Telluride was another high speed day of travel across the Navajo Nation and the varied terrain of Arizona and southern Colorado.  Again, no pesky law enforcement was present and my silver 911 hauled butt all the way to Telluride where we met our friends and settled in.  We’ve rented a beautiful house (VRBO is great) in town with our friends the Burke’s along with all the kids, except for Matthew who’s gallivanting around Europe right now.


From the perspective of a car guy, it is just a treat to experience a cross country drive in my '73 Porsche.  The driving is engaging and commands your attention the entire time.  It’s easy to appreciate the design, engineering and craftsmanship that make these cars so special.  I’m happy for the week vacation with the family in Telluride, but I also can’t wait to continue this excellent adventure. 

Footnote: Nick has nicknamed the 911S "Frenchie" because he brought the car from a French customer of Personalized Autohaus and it was shipped over to the U.S. 

Nick's '73 911S has been serviced by Personalized Autohaus since 2005




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