kloh’s posterous

Example of the fog at Nürburgring when we drove in on Saturday. Track was closed that day too.

The thought never crossed my mind that this fog would have prevented us driving on the Nürburgring. I found out today that the track was also closed the day this video was taken...guess this should have tipped me off. I'm very bummed that we came all this way and didn't get our track day in. Who knows when our next opportunity might be. I'm thinking it will be a LONG time from now :( 

The boy took the news of the track closure surprisingly well. I thought he was going to be cranky all day. I think taking him to Phantasia Land was a good distraction.

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Day 6: The drive to Nürburgring.

Hard to believe it's already been almost a week since we've been here. This is the last "long" drive of our trip. Tomorrow, we drive the Ring (in a rented Renault Clio Sport) and the day after that, we drive to Frankfurt to drop off my new toy and fly home. This has been a fun vacation but I can't believe it's already over. Thankfully, the highlight of the trip (aside from getting the car) is still ahead and is something we're both eagerly anticipating.
 
Today's drive was very much like yesterdays with one exception: Rain. It gave me a chance to try out the auto wipers which are really cool. You just turn it on and the speed sets itself automatically based on how much rain is coming down. I'm sure there will be some other nice features I'll discover over time. I still haven't had time to hunker down with the Owners' Manual yet (beyond the quick lookups of things I needed to know about right away). I just happened to come across this wiper thing while I was looking for something else and forgot about it until it started raining. The rain also cleaned off my windshield for me...which was getting pretty full of squashed bugs.
 
Gas in Germany is not cheap. I've filled up 3 times already and each time it's cost me over $100. Of course, it's 95 - 100 Octane so I guess I expect to pay a little premium for that, but still...that's probably twice as much as gas costs back home...maybe more!
 
Once you get off the Autobahn and into the Nürburgring surrounding areas, it seems ALL of the roads are a lot of fun to drive. I was pleasantly surprised by the hilly, twisty route that took us into Adenau. It felt like a mini, two-way version of what was soon to come, hehe.

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Day 5: Driving notes. This car just screams speed.

The previous drives were fun and all, but since there was either traffic in the city or we were driving some nice twisties (with speed limits), I hadn't had a chance to open up the car...until today.
 
Realizing that I'm still in my break-in period, I didn't want to push it too far, but being on the Autobahn and having VW's scream past me just seemed like a lost opportunity if there ever was one. I had to see what this car is capable of...and let me tell you, it's FAST. Not just the regular fast either. I was up to 130 before I even realized it. The car handled amazingly well. Didn't even feel like we were going that fast at all. The ride was smooth and the engine purr sounded great. I only pushed it up to about 5000 RPMs (redline is at 8300) so I didn't even get close to it's potential. Stupid break-in period!

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The Boy. The Ride. The Castle. The...me.

Here's a couple of pics taken from “the spot” recommended on Bimmerfest with Neuschwanstein Castle in the background. This just happens to be a private road but we got there pretty early in the morning so there was no one around. Worked out well. One guy came riding by on a bicycle – I think to check up on us, making sure we weren't doing anything weird – but other than that, it went pretty smoothly. I worked fast, hehe.

The car actually had a bunch of dew on it since it was parked outside the previous night and some birds decided to use it for target practice so I was a little worried about how the pic might come out. But for the most part, you can't really see any of the “flaws” (except for that reflection of the dork in the bumper of the second pic).

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Day 4: Driving was half fun. Two detours and traffic took some of the thrill away.

     

Click here to download:

Day_4_Driving_was_half_fun._Tw.zip (545 KB)

The boy sure looks small in that first pic, doesn't he? These pictures were taken when we went by Walchensee.
 
The hilight of today's drive was Kesselbergstrasse. It's a super-windy mountain road, but unfortunately, there was a speed limit and a decent number of cars so we didn't exactly get the FULL experience...but it was fun anyway. We had also planned on driving Wallbergstrasse as well, but I missed the turn so we just skipped it.
 
The lowlight was definitely the extra traffic and 2 detours we ended up taking. I tried to map the original and new drive out here.
 
Original:

Revised:

The two don't look THAT dis-similar, but it definitely felt longer than it should have. Both times, a road I needed was closed, and the second time, I actually got pretty far down the road before the closure came up, so I had to backtrack all the way. That was a bit annoying.
 
Needlesstosay, the drive today was pretty anti-climactic. However, it was fun to test out the M Mode :D

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The boy wanted shots of his new die cast M3 so I took a few in the hotel.

       

Click here to download:

The_boy_wanted_shots_of_his_ne.zip (674 KB)

These are very detailed models. He keeps saying he thinks German toys are better than Japanese toys, LOL.

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The boy demonstrates how to lock/unlock my M3.

 My car is equipped with Comfort Access. A convenient time-saving feature.

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Day 3: Driving through Sudelfeld-Bergstrasse.

         

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Day_3_Driving_through_Sudelfel.zip (1951 KB)

Today was our first real driving day, and let me just say it was an absolute treat! The part from Münich to Brannenburg was pretty anti-climactic since we were just getting out of the city and there was some traffic, but once with hit the outskirts, it was awesome.

I never did get the Navi to import the routes I set up on BMW-Routes.com so I had to manually enter them. Wasn't too much of a hassle, but it would have been much better if the import simply would have worked. We stopped at Milbing which is where we took the first two pics. The other three are at a spot along the way somewhere on or near the Sudelfeldstrasse. It's a beautiful mountain roads with lots of great twisties and amazing scenery on both sides. Lots of trees, open fields and mountains. That was a ton of fun. Kyle took some video using the Flip Mino which I'll try to see if they are small enough to upload later.

The map of today's route is below:

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Day 2: The M3 is mine mine mine, all mine!

           

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Day_2_The_M3_is_mine_mine_mine.zip (1376 KB)

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My M3 is built! It’s now “Awaiting Transport”

This is exciting. T-minus 6 days until I leave for my trip!! My CA told me she was still unable to connect BMW Assist to my car, but perhaps this status change will finally allow it to happen. Even though it’s really late since I stayed up working I think I'm going to have a tough time sleeping tonight...

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