From the moment I’d heard about MINIS on the Dragon, I wanted to go. There are several reasons I hadn’t gone before, but this year, the stars aligned, and we decided to go.

The official event dates are May 1 through the 5th, but our friends who have gone for nearly every year since it began (this was the 21st event!), get there several days early. We (really my boyfriend David who does all of our trip planning) decided to get there early, but also take our time getting there via somewhere fun. So this is part 1, which will cover our trip TO the event.

First, a bit of context. My gym is currently having a competition, part of that competition includes attending classes, with extra points for the “workout of the week”. Another part of the competition includes rucking (at least a mile long walk with a 20# pack), but more on that later.

Day 1

We wanted to leave Thursday after work, but SURPRISE Thursday’s workout was the workout of the week. So I threw a curveball and wanted to leave AFTER my shower AFTER the gym after work. David understands my obsessiveness, I mean competitiveness, I mean desire to keep fit, so he went with it. I made sure to have everything packed the night before so we could jump in the car as soon as possible. We left around 7:30PM.

We wanted to get as far as possible before stopping for the night. I decided to play a little game on Facebook, “Where am I currently and where am I headed?”. I posted this at 9PM:

A friend accurately guessed “Mass Pike rest stop in Charlton, heading westbound”. Then at 11:30PM I posted this:

The same friend correctly guessed the Tappan Zee (presently named the Governor Mario Cuomo Bridge).

Waze’s driving directions took us along a back road for the last bit to the hotel. It was dark and winding. We saw a rabbit, then a deer, then a possum, then a fisher cat! It was a little surreal after all that driving. We arrived at our stop for the night around 2AM. David, being the world’s best boyfriend, had made a reservation at a hotel where I could have a nice ruck, The Hershey Hotel, in Hershey, PA, with very lovely grounds and a garden.

I posted this pic as part of the “where am I” game (the next morning):

A different friend correctly guessed the Hershey Hotel!

Day 1 – over 400 miles travelled. Over 6 hours. New Hampshire to Hershey, PA.

Day 2

I was up and rucking by 9:30 AM. The grounds were indeed lovely, and it was nice and sunny.

Then we were off (by 11AM) to our next stop.

Starting with the top left photo, a cool train bridge I saw as we crossed the Susquehanna River in Harrisburg, PA. We played a card game to pass the time called “We’re not really strangers”, which is mostly asking each other questions, but there are wild cards where you’re supposed to do whatever it says. We passed on this one. Not pictured, we listened to a lot of 80s music. “80s Road Trip” on Spotify. I can’t remember important things. I can’t remember why I walked into a room. But I can remember nearly every lyric to every song on that playlist. Top right, a disconcerting moment with a truck towing a truck.

Middle left, we stopped for food and gas. The McDonalds still had a Play Place, and the gas station had this pay phone. I posted it and said “The McDonald’s still had a play place. And this thing. I think the answer to where am I is 1985”. (Actual answer Rostraver Township, PA). We briefly entered West Virginia. Many years ago a friend and I drove from Rhode Island to St. Louis blindly following GPS and were somewhat startled to see this sign. I now know West Virginia has a sliver up between Pennsylvania and Ohio, which was up next.

Bottom left, a rather ominous sign. We stopped for dinner at Bob Evans. Neither of us had ever been, so why not? And finally, we entered Kentucky!

We got to watch a lovely sunset, while I took 7,483 pictures trying to capture it and a farmhouse.

We arrived in Louisville, KY around 9PM. A friend of David’s hooked us up with a room at the Marriott, and an upgrade to the Presidential Suite. The view from our room:

We stopped into the hotel bar and saw Bilbo Baggins. It wasn’t him, of course, but he definitely could have been the stunt double. A drink and it was off to bed.

Day 2 – over 580 miles travelled. Over 10 hours. Hershey, PA to Louisville, KY.

Day 3

For our third day, we would not be getting in the car. David had planned a full day in Louisville including quite a bit of bourbon, so we would stay another night in Louisville.

I got up to do my ruck, and it just so happened that the Derby Festival marathon was running right by our hotel.

I did seem to confuse some bystanders with my rucking clothes and my backpack. Even though I was on the sidewalk and didn’t have a bib, they seemed to think I was part of the race and moved out of my way. I turned to try and get a river view, and there were very few people that way. The few tourists I saw seemed to think I was to be avoided, maybe it was the backpack? I wanted to walk to the river, but there were some sketchy people that gave me a “turnaround” vibe, so I did.

Back to the hotel to shower, and we were off to the Louisville Slugger factory!

The derby was the next weekend, so the town was decked out with Derby signs everywhere. We also saw this cool building facade, which disappointingly had pickleball courts set up on the other side. I was hoping for something a bit cooler.

We took a factory tour. I posted the left most pic for “Where am I, easy edition”. They had a small exhibition of baseball-related things, like this quilt. I noticed something interesting, the Blue Jays rows only had a few squares of actual Blue Jays fabric, the rest were blue with stars. As a quilter, I imagine they only had a small amount of the Blue Jays fabric, and used the stars to complete the rows. We’ve all been there. The right-hand picture was from the tour, when they showed us some specialty bats they had made, this was a light sabre bat handle for a special Star Wars theme.

Whether it was because it was the weekend before the derby, or if it’s always like this, many bourbon tours were booked up. Luckily Michter’s has a bar. We put in our names, waited a few minutes, and were able to get a few cocktails and a flight. This might have been my favorite stop of the day. The cocktails were amazing.

We also stopped in Evan Williams’ On3 Bar, which was meh. The space was weird and the cocktails were just ok. After (before? my timeline is fuzzy) we went to Mussel & Burger bar where we had huge messy burgers.

We went for a walk and I had the brilliant idea to walk down towards the water so I could see the view I had aimed for during my ruck, but didn’t get to. Also David wanted to see the Muhammad Ali Center (which was near the water).

The walk to the water wasn’t exactly what I envisioned…

Two dudes were riding around on a bike nearby, pretty sure they were willing and able to sell us meth if we wanted. We didn’t want.

We went back to the hotel, where I took a nap, and David went to Angel’s Envy, which was apparently great and I should have gone. However, I’m glad I took a nap because next up we had a MAKE YOUR OWN BOURBON experience. Barrels and Billets (next to, and related to Louisville Slugger factory) provides a bourbon tasting, as well as some history of bourbon, and a little lesson on blending your own bourbon. I kept flashing on the wine tasting scene from Schitts Creek and cracking myself up.

Hence why I named my bourbon this,

We walked around a bit and ended up at Merle’s Whiskey Kitchen for dinner. On our way back to the hotel, David insisted we stop into the Old Spaghetti Factory. I could have sworn it was a chain, and that I’d been there before. As we waited for (subpar) meatballs and a piece of cheesecake to go, I looked it up. And yes, I’d been to the one in St. Louis during a conference many many years ago.

We got back to the hotel to watch some Bruins, and were treated to a fireworks display!

Day 3 – 0 miles – 0 hours in the car – Louisville to Louisville

Day 4

Time to head to our destination. I woke up and rucked. This time I was able to get to the river where I wanted to go the day before. No sketchy people, just a couple out for a run, and a woman with her tiny dog.

The view I thought I was taking David to yesterday. No meth dealers or river trash visible!

Shower, pack up, and off we go! We drove past Lexington, and waved at Harlan County (made famous by the show Justified). We were told Maryville would be the last cheap gas, so we stopped and figured we’d eat there as well. We’ve never been to a Shoney’s, so we parked to go in. As we were walking to the building, we passed an older couple. We walked in and realized it is a buffet, which we weren’t feeling, so we walked back out. The older gentleman said “What’s the matter?”. In the retelling, this doesn’t seem funny, but it amused us. I think I sort of mumbled “nothing” as I didn’t feel like explaining that we didn’t want a buffet and didn’t know that Shoney’s was a buffet before we walked in. I think we ended up getting McDonalds, which was a theme of the trip. The thing is, McDonalds is CONSISTENT AF. You always know what you’re going to get. Sometimes when you’re traveling, and you don’t want to risk it, consistency is a good thing, even if it’s not necessarily a healthy thing.

Having plugged our destination into Waze, I was delighted to see this:

Note that it calls it The Dragon, and even has a dragon emoji!

Then when were there! The Dragon. I was nervous. 318 turns in 11 miles. And not just “turns”, but tight curves on a two-lane mountain road. MINIs on the Dragon’s website has an entire page dedicated to safely driving this road. Neither David nor I have ever driven it or been on it as passengers. Mistakes can be deadly. Other cars and drivers are not under your control. And the big one, I wouldn’t be driving. Not that I’m a better driver than David, or would do anything different, but being a passenger can be difficult on normal roads, now add in tight curves and mountain drop offs. One actually helpful thing was Waze. I could warn David of particularly tight turns and hairpins, as well as being able to know how many miles were left. David did a great job, despite my face in the second photo. (Did I mention the road has lots of photographers set up at various pull off points?) Also, that isn’t a poor photo angle, that’s the road, it’s banked on a lot of the curves, which makes for great driving, but also means you may need to hang on.

Just before Fontana Village, you pass into North Carolina.

We made it to Fontana Village, our homebase for the rest of the trip. We got our cabin, met up with our friends, and had a well deserved beverage. I had to get this beer, obviously.

Day 4 – over 300 miles. Around 6 hours. Louisville, KY to Fontana Village, NC

Stay tuned for Part 2!