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A quick summary: Started in the Bay Area, went up the coast to Vancouver and Vancouver Island, then to Banff and Lake Louise, across Canada to Winnipeg, down into the US through Chicago, then East back into Canada through Toronto, Montreal and Quebec, down the East Coast all the way to NC, then across the Appalachians and down to Birmingham, across the plains to Colorado, then spent a few days in Southern Utah before heading back.
Best roads I drove from a driving perspective only:
BC 99 from Whistler to Lillooet
NC 181 from Morganton to Jonas Ridge
Blue Ridge Parkway from Blowing Rock to Asheville
NC 28 from Stecoah to Deal's Gap
Tail of the Dragon (but too much traffic to really enjoy it. Plus I'm more of a 3rd gear than 2nd gear road guy. A lot of these other roads were better, but it's a fun cultural experience to go there and see all the other cars and motorcycles.)
NC 143/TN 165, Cherohala Skyway from Robbinsville, NC to Tellico Plains, TN
The Arkansas Dragon, AR 123 from AR 7 north to Mt. Judea
CO 141 from Grand Junction to Naturita
UT 12 from Torrey to Escalante (the best road I've ever been on, easily. Definitely drive it from North to South if you do it.)
US 50 from Ely to Fallon.(Great quality highway most of the way, 10-mile long straightaways with nobody on them and plenty of room to see if anyone else is coming, interspersed every 15 miles or so with fun but quick mountain passes.)
I bought this car at the end of February and now have over 18,000 miles on it overall.
It wasn't all vacation, I had to do some work for the road when we stopped for 2 or 3 day increments periodically. But yeah, been dreaming of doing something like this since I was 18. I can't recommend it more highly.
Awesome its nice to see people get out and drive rather than baby their car in the garage
Thanks. Trying hard not to think of how far upside down I am on this car right now. It was going to be my daily driver, but as soon as I got back I bought a Chevy Bolt for the grunt work around town.
Thanks for sharing such a great trip! I have had my 991.2 C2s for 3+ years now and a bit over 10000 miles Leased it and recently paid off the lease so fully own the car now plus I am retiring in a few months so the mileage on the 911 will sharply increase! Time for some road trips too!
Seattle is a great place to start from. If you can make it over to Montana and the Yellowstone area, the Beartooth Highway is one of the greats if you've never done it. Plus I'm sure you've done Highway 20, that is another one of my favorites.
Originally Posted by dflowerz
Thanks for sharing such a great trip! I have had my 991.2 C2s for 3+ years now and a bit over 10000 miles Leased it and recently paid off the lease so fully own the car now plus I am retiring in a few months so the mileage on the 911 will sharply increase! Time for some road trips too!
A quick summary: Started in the Bay Area, went up the coast to Vancouver and Vancouver Island, then to Banff and Lake Louise, across Canada to Winnipeg, down into the US through Chicago, then East back into Canada through Toronto, Montreal and Quebec, down the East Coast all the way to NC, then across the Appalachians and down to Birmingham, across the plains to Colorado, then spent a few days in Southern Utah before heading back.
Best roads I drove from a driving perspective only:
BC 99 from Whistler to Lillooet
NC 181 from Morganton to Jonas Ridge
Blue Ridge Parkway from Blowing Rock to Asheville
NC 28 from Stecoah to Deal's Gap
Tail of the Dragon (but too much traffic to really enjoy it. Plus I'm more of a 3rd gear than 2nd gear road guy. A lot of these other roads were better, but it's a fun cultural experience to go there and see all the other cars and motorcycles.)
NC 143/TN 165, Cherohala Skyway from Robbinsville, NC to Tellico Plains, TN
The Arkansas Dragon, AR 123 from AR 7 north to Mt. Judea
CO 141 from Grand Junction to Naturita
UT 12 from Torrey to Escalante (the best road I've ever been on, easily. Definitely drive it from North to South if you do it.)
US 50 from Ely to Fallon.(Great quality highway most of the way, 10-mile long straightaways with nobody on them and plenty of room to see if anyone else is coming, interspersed every 15 miles or so with fun but quick mountain passes.)
I bought this car at the end of February and now have over 18,000 miles on it overall.
Dude right on, thanks for sharing. Excited to see the full album. Dream of mine to do something similar one day, as my road trips with my 911 been 1 day only within California outside of euro delivery. I visit Vancouver Island quite often fortunately, and it is such a beautiful place (with slow speed limits). Want to take my 911 up there and through Banff /Lake Louise like you did
Some questions
- did you just hole up at a nearby holiday inn etc during the trip or make more formal arrangements?
- did you just hole up at a nearby holiday inn etc during the trip or make more formal arrangements?
Generally we'd know about where we were trying to get to a certain night and get a hotel a day or 2 in advance. On occasion we'd just pull in wherever we could, like when driving through the plains of Canada when we didn't know where we'd end up. We also spent about 50% of the nights with friends or family. There was one funny night though at, yes, a Holiday Inn in Grand Rapids where I filled out the form indicating the type of car and the woman was like "yeah, I think that's the first Porsche we've seen." So it was a little weird pulling in with a nice car at some of these places where people assume someone with a Porsche is staying at the Ritz every night, but never had any problems as far as getting broken into.
- service the car during the road trip?
Yes, got my 10k mile service done at Loeber in Chicago (I knew when I'd be there about 2 weeks in advance so was able to schedule it) and new rear tires at Porsche Birmingham.
- need the front plate for Canada?
I actually got pulled over twice in Canada and never heard anything about it. It's more of an issue in California when overzealous cops ticket me when I'm parked. First time in I got pulled over was in Saskatchewan, I passed a woman (legally, except for the speed) and she called me in and told the cops I was passing over double yellows, which I wasn't. So 2 cops pull me over (the radar detector had allowed me to slow down before they saw me) and tells me that, and then says "if you were going pretty fast in this thing, I don't blame ya" in an epic Canadian accent." So no ticket that time. And then I got a $52 (Canadian) ticket in Ontario where radar detectors are prohibited. Those were the only 2 cop encounters the whole trip.
Great Album, thanks. That pothole must have been a bit of a setback.
I bought a restored MGB in Seattle and drove it to the D.C. area. That was a fun trip, except for the head gasket blowing in the middle of Iowa.
Oof. How long did that lay you up for? I did the same to my 1991 300ZX Twin Turbo in Colorado heading up into the mountains, but it turned out there was a piece of debris which had damaged the radiator so I got a new engine covered by insurance. Unfortunately, it took the dealer a week to repair the radiator and they never realized the head gasket was blown until I got in it for 30 seconds and realized the car had about 100 horsepower. So I took it back and insurance eventually paid for the whole thing, I put in a used engine with about the same mileage and made $5,000 off the deal.
Nice trip and apologies for our inhospitable cops here in Canada. Only $52 for the radar detector fine in Ontario, I thought it was a lot more! Cops in Ontario have the ability to confiscate and dispose of radar detectors as well, that's what would happen to us locals anyway.
Originally Posted by MiamiBlues
- did you just hole up at a nearby holiday inn etc during the trip or make more formal arrangements?
Generally we'd know about where we were trying to get to a certain night and get a hotel a day or 2 in advance. On occasion we'd just pull in wherever we could, like when driving through the plains of Canada when we didn't know where we'd end up. We also spent about 50% of the nights with friends or family. There was one funny night though at, yes, a Holiday Inn in Grand Rapids where I filled out the form indicating the type of car and the woman was like "yeah, I think that's the first Porsche we've seen." So it was a little weird pulling in with a nice car at some of these places where people assume someone with a Porsche is staying at the Ritz every night, but never had any problems as far as getting broken into.
- service the car during the road trip?
Yes, got my 10k mile service done at Loeber in Chicago (I knew when I'd be there about 2 weeks in advance so was able to schedule it) and new rear tires at Porsche Birmingham.
- need the front plate for Canada?
I actually got pulled over twice in Canada and never heard anything about it. It's more of an issue in California when overzealous cops ticket me when I'm parked. First time in I got pulled over was in Saskatchewan, I passed a woman (legally, except for the speed) and she called me in and told the cops I was passing over double yellows, which I wasn't. So 2 cops pull me over (the radar detector had allowed me to slow down before they saw me) and tells me that, and then says "if you were going pretty fast in this thing, I don't blame ya" in an epic Canadian accent." So no ticket that time. And then I got a $52 (Canadian) ticket in Ontario where radar detectors are prohibited. Those were the only 2 cop encounters the whole trip.
09-16-2019, 03:24 AM
Epic 12,000 mile, 7 Week Road Trip in 991.2 4 GTS
Leased it and recently paid off the lease so fully own the car now plus I am retiring in a few months so the mileage on the 911 will sharply increase! Time for some road trips too!
