It was nice talking to everyone in the parking lot at Penske Mercedes.

It's a shame I couldn't go with you all to Riley Farms in Glen Oak, but maybe next time.

Mapearso,

I e-mailed you the contact info for the guy who works on Mercedes radios that can do your antenna. Check your inbox. I am suginami@hotmail.com, so check your junk mail if you don't see it in your inbox.

I just got back home about 20 minutes ago from the GTG and Drive to Rileys in Glen Oak. Wonderful time, nice drive and a couple nice local Mb's that we saw during the drive. Got to see Kalifornia's, new to him, SEC.
I would like to especially thank Suginami for his kind words about the Blue Bird. he pointed out that she has a wonderful smooth as glass paint job. I knew it was a good job, but didn't realize how good until this morning. Thanks Paul.

Nice drive up through the apple orchards above Yucaipa. I want to go back and spend a day just going from orchard to orchard tasting the cider...

The capper for the trip for me is I drove the Blue Bird at speeds below the speed limit and with the CC on when I could and I averaged 18.459 MPG for the trip and a bit of driving around home before. Logged 287 miles from fill up to fill up, and it took just over 15 gallons to fill her up. I do the same ritual at every fill up. Let it click off and click it off, (about a second or so), two more times to get the same or nearly the same point each time. I did this to see what she could do MPG wise as I want to drive her to the east coast sometime this summer. With gas at over $3.00 a gallon, I wanted to see if she could do better than the 14-15 MPG she gets around home.

Fun day. She got a bit warm(never over 100C) pulling the hill into Glen Oak from Yucaipa. I have a small leak at the top tank and the overflow connection, so I lost some coolant, but not much. I topped off the OF tank and she never went above 82C the whole trip home.

Rich planned this GTG and drive well and we didn't loose anyone....except Jordan and Jean in the 220D, but just for a little bit at the end.

FYI is was in the middle of the pack most of the drive. I wish i had batteries in my camera, I had a couple good rear view mirror shots of Jim B., Diesel Chatter and Jordan behind me and forward shots of Kalifornia, Mclare, and Rich in front.

And the food at Rileys was really good and to smell the BBQ cooker smoke made the day more inviting.

Good GTG and DRIVE!

Hey everyone, yesterday was awesome! I had a great time and can't wait to do the next one! Thanks Rich for putting this together!!

This was my first GTG and it was so nice talking with people who have the same interest in Mercedes as you! Seeing everyones great looking cars! The interior on Buzz's still gets me! The caravan was especially awesome :)
The drive was so beautiful, and even though the 220 was getting a workout it was very nice.

Also, Charlie... It's so awesome that you saved Blue Bird, it's a beautiful car and it would have been an absolute shame had it been crushed! So cool you took it up to 150!!!! That just goes to show it still has so much life in it!! Beautiful car and thank goodness you came to the rescue!

Thanks for everyones kind words about the 220 she had a great run and aside from the power steering moaning like a whale it did great. Jean and I decided to got to LA afterwards to check it out and so I could actually drive around the inside the city and so the 220 could see the ocean once again! Got home back in Palm Springs at about 12 midnight! :D

Again thanks Rich for putting this together and hope everyone had a good safe trip back home, can't wait for the next one!

Also I'll get the pictures from Jean later on today, probably in the evening so I can post them!

GTG & Drive Photos
 

Here are some photos:
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ne20GTG003.jpg
Buzz "Dieselchatter" 1990 350 SDL

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ne20GTG004.jpg
Jordan 1970 220 D

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ne20GTG005.jpg
Mark "Mapearso"

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ne20GTG006.jpg
Charlie "Chadahar" 500 SEC

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ne20GTG007.jpg
Paul S "Suginami" 2001 E430

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ne20GTG008.jpg
Part of the group at Penske

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ne20GTG009.jpg
The rest of the group at Penske

http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ne20GTG010.jpg
The parking lot at Riley's

I want to thank my brother Dennis "Imdji" for making the Custom Name Tags. They turned out AWESOME! Even though he could not make it, he did a wonderful job. Here is a photo of them:
http://i84.photobucket.com/albums/k1...ne20GTG001.jpg
Next time we will start a little earlier to get everyone's info correct and complete (including photos).

I loved the name tags. I saved mine on a picture of the Blue Bird that graces her Receipt/information binder, covered by clear plastic. Those name tags were laid out great. Dennis Thanks so much and I hope you can make the next drive and GTG.

I had a lot of fun, and just a tiny mishap as told above.

FYI! I have not driven BB that fast since the first day I owned her, just related the story to Jordan. Now days I'm more interested in MPG than MPH.

I thank everyone for the flowers spoken for BB. She truly is a labor of love and I am making headway to get her back to where she should be.

My bad Charlie :o I'm used to Jean and some of my friends always bragging about when they went 135 and stuff so I thought i'd mention it. That's still really cool though lol :)

Also I though the name tags were awesome!!!!!!! I've saved mine also!

They provided a spot out back, but I wanted the cars somewhere out front. We ended up parking on the street between the MB & Ford Dealers. One of the sales guys came out and looked over the cars and agreed that they should be out front, and not in back.

No Problema Jordan! I was pretty jazzed(a term from the distant past) when it happened, As iI had no clue how fast I was going. Had I , I believe it might have seen 120 before backing it out. i was concentrating on the road.

Speaking of backing it out. that stop sign kinda put the sneak on you didn't it? Good recover!

Hey everyone, just wanted to post these pictures. Special thanks to Jean for taking them.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y27/tex05/100_0863.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y27/tex05/100_0864.jpg
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y27...100_0862-1.jpg

Thanks for the awesome photos!!!!