After a quick nights rest it was time to Rise and Rally! I met Brian, Marc, Frank and both Georges so we could ride in together. We parked and then headed into the arena to grab breakfast.

Breakfast was baby burritos, apples, juice and coffee. Afterwards we took advantage of the photo props.

When it was time to load up the cars, Brian told me the Georges needed a pit stop first so they were going to pull out of the line and stop by the hotel. I decided to exit the venue with everyone else but pull over and wait for them. Everything was going swell and I was taking some great video until one of the rally crew politely asked me to move along!

I drove up to the end of the street and pulled in behind another MINI. Turns out they were locals who didn’t know about the rally but lived in the area and came to check it out. We had a lovely chat and then Jennifer and Nat showed up and said they wanted to tag along!

Finally the boys arrived and we took off. almost as soon as we started going I got a low tire alert. I was running behind Marc and Brian but apparently they couldn’t see me frantically flashing my high beams and pointing at gas stations as we flew past them. I was monitoring the Row pressure and it didn’t appear to be changing which was lucky for me because we drove four miles before Marc had to take a pit stop and Brian pulled into a gas station!

We drove thru a bunch of cute little towns and then decided to stop again. We pulled into a gas station and everyone got out to use the bathroom. As we prepared to load back up another driver walked by and told us there was free ice cream at the shop next door. Frank charged over and we all loped along behind him.

It turned out the guys buying everyone’s ice cream were trying to get everyone to get a MINI credit card. They were so nice and the ice cream was so delicious, I signed up for one while they were there! They also told me I’d get quadruple points on gas and wouldn’t that be helpful on my cross country road trip?

The rest of the trip was more fun driving until we finally arrived in Poconos PA!