[amol4184]

Originally Posted by mobike008

My preference is shorter drive for this time as I plan to bring my mom along for this drive.

Seattle to Mt. St. Helens? The drive to Johnston Ridge Observatory is excellent. Not too far and scenery is epic.
After Toledo, no cops either..those of you have fast cars will appreciate that

Only cons? Food and gas both are scarce. There is just one river side resto after Toledo and nothing. If it is sunny, you might be lucky and find a food truck in the parking lot at the top but he is usually there during the summer in my experience.

Gas station: last one is in Toledo just like the restaurant. Nothing after that. Probably won't be a problem since everyone is in cars but I had a scary time on my bike. Just something to keep in mind.

[mobike008]

Nice pic. I miss riding a bike.

I hope you saw some of my motorcycle ownership threads on the forum-You can search and you will get them

Originally Posted by amol4184

Seattle to Mt. St. Helens? The drive to Johnston Ridge Observatory is excellent. Not too far and scenery is epic.
After Toledo, no cops either..those of you have fast cars will appreciate that

Thanks for recommendation. I looked at the map and it's pretty far (Compared to other options below) 4-hours one way drive.

Originally Posted by amol4184

Only cons? Food and gas both are scarce. There is just one river side resto after Toledo and nothing. If it is sunny, you might be lucky and find a food truck in the parking lot at the top but he is usually there during the summer in my experience.

Gas station: last one is in Toledo just like the restaurant. Nothing after that. Probably won't be a problem since everyone is in cars but I had a scary time on my bike. Just something to keep in mind.

Hmm. Sounds like an adventure. I am game for adventures but, as always we go with what the majority prefers.

P.S : When are you back in Seattle? I see now the travels have opened up and folks are traveling between India and US.

Will wait for rest of the folks on this thread to comment before we finalize a destination and date for this drive meet.

[amol4184]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Nice pic. I miss riding a bike.

I hope you saw some of my motorcycle ownership threads on the forum-You can search and you will get them

I have red your Bonnie thread from way back

Originally Posted by mobike008

P.S : When are you back in Seattle? I see now the travels have opened up and folks are traveling between India and US.

April end - May start is when we are looking to travel. Fingers crossed!

[rvracer88]

Originally Posted by mobike008

How about March 26th or April 2nd?

Open to both days. If we do the longer drive and based on what the group is up to, from Port Angeles, we can take highway 112 (Strait of Juan De Fuca), highway 113 and join 101. It's a nice road with some sharp curves that make for a fun drive. Another option to confuse the group

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by rvracer88

Open to both days. If we do the longer drive and based on what the group is up to, from Port Angeles, we can take highway 112 (Strait of Juan De Fuca), highway 113 and join 101. It's a nice road with some sharp curves that make for a fun drive. Another option to confuse the group

We can plan the longer drive as the weather improves and gets hotter. Let's stick to the shorter drive for April 2nd.

I plan to come along with family. Mom is visiting us so it would be nice to go for a shorter drive and we can make more stops and enjoy the scenery basically.

What : Team BHP Spring Drive
When : April 2nd
Time : 10:00am
Where : TBD

Confirmed Names

1. Mobike008 + Family (BMW X3 M40i)
2. Rvracer88 (BMW X3 M40i)
3. Ashir (BMW 530i)
4. Ram (Subaru Forestor)
5. Croupier + Family (Subaru Forester)
[
B]Tentative[/b]

Abhiram (BMW X5)
Abhi06dua (BMW M340i)

Here is the route plan for this drive. Only clarification I need is, do we need to take a ferry at any point of this drive?

Need someone to plan the stops for scenic places enroute. Also, where to stop for lunch.



Sounds like an awesome plan. Eh? Any more takers?

[rvracer88]

Originally Posted by mobike008

Here is the route plan for this drive. Only clarification I need is, do we need to take a ferry at any point of this drive?

Need someone to plan the stops for scenic places enroute. Also, where to stop for lunch.

The return drive will involve a ferry from Clinton to Mukilteo. We don't have to pre-book as the return always is mostly available on a first come basis. With regards to lunch, there is a great pizza place in Anacortes (nice veg and meat options) and also a thai food. We can either take out and eat in Deception pass or dine in and then head south through Deception pass back.

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by rvracer88

The return drive will involve a ferry from Clinton to Mukilteo. We don't have to pre-book as the return always is mostly available on a first come basis. With regards to lunch, there is a great pizza place in Anacortes (nice veg and meat options) and also a thai food. We can either take out and eat in Deception pass or dine in and then head south through Deception pass back.

Wow. Sounds like a good plan. I vote for some nice pizzas for lunch.

As we can have it in car/location/in-dine unlike Thai food.

If all are fine with Pizzas, we can block that place (Did you have those pizzas before? Any picture from your archives?)

Also, any recommendations on scenic stops (That has space to park 5-6 cars) so we can plan those stops also in advance.

[mobike008]

This spring drive meet is on. Yay !!

Updating the confirmation list.

What : Team BHP Spring Drive
When : April 2nd, 2022
Time : 10:00am
Where : Walmart Lynwood Parking Lot (1400 164th, St SW, Lynwood, WA 98087)

Confirmed Names

1. Mobike008 + Family (BMW X3 M40i)
2. Rvracer88 (BMW X3 M40i)
3. Ashutosh Bhardwaj-Non-BHPian- (BMW X4M)
4. Ashir (BMW 530i)
5. Ram (Subaru Forestor)
6. Croupier + Family (Subaru Forester)

Abhinav plans to meet the group at the meeting point.

Let's see how many more will join by the time we meet.

[mobike008]

This spring drive meet is on. Yay !!

Updating the confirmation list.

What : Team BHP Spring Drive
When : April 2nd, 2022
Time : 10:00am
Where : Walmart Lynwood Parking Lot (1400 164th, St SW, Lynwood, WA 98087)

Confirmed Names

1. Mobike008 + Family (BMW X3 M40i)
2. Ashutosh Bhardwaj-Non-BHPian- (BMW X4M)
3. Ashir (BMW 530e)
4. Ram (Subaru Forestor)
5. Croupier + Family (Subaru Forester)
6. Sujith ( Subaru Outback)

Now we have a level playing field (BMW vs. Subaru)

Abhinav plans to meet the group at the meeting point.

Let's see how many more will join by the time we meet.

[mobike008]

Teaser Pic of Team BHP 2.0 meet that happened on April 2nd.



Meet Report and Pics will come up soon.

[mobike008]

Team BHP Seattle Drive Meet 2.0- A Comprehensive Report

Sorry for late report as I was completely swamped at work.

Out of the two drive plans we had, shorter drive plan was finalized and I learnt something in this drive. There are so many beautiful places here in Pacific North-West (PNW) that planning any drive higher than a total of 200 miles is like passing some beautiful sights with eyes closed. Going forward, we will plan all drives 200 miles or lesser to enjoy the beauty that nature offers in this part of the world.

For this drive, we all met on time at 10:00am (We should have met earlier but, since my mom wanted to join this drive, I didn’t want to push for any early start).

However, in future a 9:00am start would be better.

It was great to see some new faces and surprisingly there were just 2 brands of cars in this meet.

BMW vs Subaru

We got a lovely white X4M along with a gorgeously looking 435i convertible with lovely RED interiors join us this time.

Good to see a M340i also join this meet after a long time (Referring to good ol’ Detroit Meets) which had an exhaust change done recently. I will let Anubhav comment in detail what he's actually done to his exhaust. It sounded sweet.

We headed in the north direction (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) and our first stop was at Skagit Valley (I was surprised as I didn’t know we will be passing Skagit Valley) which is popular for Tulips in Washington State. By the way, there are Tulip festivals only in 3 places in entire US (AFAIK) :

1. Holland, Michigan
2. Skagit Valley, Washington
3. Unknown Location, New Jersey (Don’t know the city name)

We stopped in front of fields and mom enjoyed gazing into the wide bed of tulips. This is best tulip location out of the 3 locations as it spans across several miles.

We then proceeded to head towards our route and based upon Ram’s recommendation, we took a detour to most famous Chucanet Drive which is a 22 miles (11-miles one-way) detour which is through some crazy twists and opens up towards a beautiful beach with a railway track right on top of the beach.

After spending some time at this location, we found a lovely and upscale place for lunch (Chucanut Manor) which is right by railways track and enjoyed a scrumptious lunch.

Enjoyed a crazy incident- we all sat by the window and suddenly we all spotted a human being flying in the sky and he was rapidly landing towards us and we thought for a second he might crash into the restaurant through the window (Yup, he was that close) and somehow steered himself just wide and landed on tracks below. It was a guy either sky diving or para gliding.

After that delicious lunch, we proceeded to Deception Pass which is a bridge over some of the most amazing green colored water that I ever saw. The water was so green and looked beautiful. We spend almost an hour checking out the beautiful nature here. I decided to come back to this place to spend an entire day hiking or spend time in outdoors as it’s truly a gorgeous place.

Our plan to use the ferry to mainland. Our options were, either we drive 3-hours back or 1-hour ahead to ferry point and 30-minutes Ferry ride. We all voted to take the ferry. It was a first time experience for me in US and an amazing one at that, where the ferry can take up to 130-cars at a time and drop us on mainland.

The interiors of the ferry was no less than a nice cruise ship. Superb Experience !!

We landed back on mainland at 7:30pm and a 30-minutes drive landed us back at home.

At the end of this 10-hours drive meet, we covered total of 200 miles and a perfectly enjoyable day with plenty of time spent on stops.

With summers coming in, Team BHP Seattle 3.0 Drive is not too far.

Will post pictures and videos in next few posts. Cheers until the next one !!!

[mobike008]

In continuation with previous post. Here are more pictures of Team BHP Seattle Drive Meet 2.0

I'm not captioning each and every one of them, if you read my report in previous post then most of these pictures will be self explanatory.

P.S : Next post will be dedicated to some videos from this meet.

[Ashir]

Thank you for such a detailed report Mobike008 and for taking the initiative as always. I am excited for the 3rd meet already. Maybe the scenic Mountain Loop Highway will be open by then.

Posting some of the pictures from my phone starting with the closeups of our rides -

[amitoj]

Seems you all had a wonderful time! Thanks for all the pictures of all the great rides.

Where are all my East Coast TBHPians at? WAKE UP!!
(sorry mods, this calls for all caps)

[mobike008]

Originally Posted by mobike008

P.S : Next post will be dedicated to some videos from this meet.

Here is the last set of pictures from this meet. I have also added a few videos.

Enjoy !!!

Originally Posted by Ashir

Thank you for such a detailed report Mobike008 and for taking the initiative as always. I am excited for the 3rd meet already. Maybe the scenic Mountain Loop Highway will be open by then.

Your welcome. I see that you enjoy participating in meets as much as I do.

What is this mountain loop highway? Sounds exciting. Can you elaborate the route plan (maybe post a map picture here) and then highlight scenic spots enroute?

We can probably plan the Seattle Drive meet 3.0 around Mid-May until then I am tied up.

Originally Posted by amitoj

Seems you all had a wonderful time! Thanks for all the pictures of all the great rides.Where are all my East Coast TBHPians at? WAKE UP!!
(sorry mods, this calls for all caps)

Thanks for your appreciation. Yeah, we have picked up steam and will be really having lot of fun with these drive meets as PNW is mind-blowingly beautiful.

I think you may not find lot of Indians in your area but, you can plan something with folks in and around Boston (Including CT- Where ex-Moderator TheMAG lives) and also invite folks from NJ, Pennsylvania etc.

I have organized a few meets in Detroit where folks came from as far as NJ.





























BMW M340i Exhaust Note

https://youtu.be/DOfpJlWz8Rg

Beautiful Train Passing by the Lake

https://youtu.be/YTirZR8tgEs

Really loved lunching at this beautiful restaurant by the tracks.

https://youtu.be/PH86Z7afpIo

Entering the Ferry

https://youtu.be/FQu5oMXDsOs

Inside the ferry-Beautiful isn't it?

https://youtu.be/vTC_ufykpvM