MG2017
San Diego, California
June 25-28, 2017

2017 MGB Coast to Coast Adventure

In February Roger began telling me about the 2017 MGB Coast to Coast Adventure being planned by Dick Lunney and P.J. Lenihan to attend the 2017 NAMGBR convention in San Diego. This was the twenty-sixth convention of the organization, the twenty-fifth for us. He signed us up and began preparing our 1970 MGB for the trip.

MGs at North Beach Bar and Grill

June 14th was departure day. We drove a little over 1,000 miles to Savannah, GA to meetup with the group. Friday, the 16th we all had dinner at North Beach Bar and Grill on Tybee Island, GA. Several couples from the Atlanta MG group drove down to join us for dinner and see us off on Saturday morning. We took our pictures on the beach and carried up water to pour on the tires.

The organizers started a Facebook page “2017 MGB Coast to Coast Adventure” and pictures are posted. Our first stop was Montgomery, Alabama. Two more couples joined us from Atlanta to make the trip. That evening, we were picked up at our hotel by several members of the British Motoring Club of Montgomery, taken downtown for a tour of the area around the capital and Martin Luther King’s church. Then we went to a member’s home for an MG party.

Our Sunday evening stay was in Vicksburg, MS. We drove to Pat and Barbara Cashman’s garage for a gathering of theEnglish Motoring Club of Mississippi. Pat and his wife owned a collection of interesting British cars and offered refreshments. The next morning, we toured Vicksburg National Memorial Park, including the USS Cairo which was brought up from the Mississippi and reconstructed.

On our way to our next evening’s stop, Shreveport, we stopped at Big Momma’s for a southern meal of Fried Chicken, Red Beans and Rice, Mac and Cheese, vegetables, and their specialty “hot water cornbread.”

Waco, Texas

Next stop—Waco, Texas. Home of Chip and Joanna Gaines of HGTV fame and their home business, Magnolia. Many of our group boarded a trolley to visit their shop while

Despite being located in an otherwise arid region, Cloudcroft, NM extremely high elevation—one of the highest in the U.S. - allows for a relatively mild summer that makes it a popular tourist attraction in West Texas and New Mexico. It was named by Fodor's in 2002 as the Number 3 "Most Overlooked and Underrated Destination Spot”.

others stayed back to repair a car. At this time of the afternoon temperatures were exceeding 100 degrees. By dinner time the car was repaired and everyone walked to Ninfa’s Mexican Restaurant for dinner with local club members. Leaving Waco, the longest day of driving for the group was 471 miles to Carlsbad, NM. Temperatures rose to well over 100 degrees by midday.

Early the next morning we left Carlsbad and took a northern loop through Cloudcroft, elevation 8,672 ft. We enjoyed lunch at The Lodge, a historic inn with a resident ghost.

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