In any case, you will miss one thing at the destination of your desires: your “walking” to the destination. A quote from Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach and applied to the road trip is based on the fact that you have learned at the end of the road trip; even if things did not always go well - at the moment they happen you do not yet know what the experience will one day be good for.
The Mercedes-Benz road trip not only led from Carlsbad to Detroit, it also led to almost philosophical insights into the lives of special people. The participant in # mbrt13.
My second blog post about the road trip: “Guarding the e-Class” (mbrt13).
If you want to know what the individual stages looked like and which distances we covered during the day, the best thing to do is drop by Jan, he has divided his articles about this road trip according to the days and the stages.
My personal review of this unusual journey to the NAIAS in Detroit:
How everything began:
Actually, it was just about being able to report live from the Detroit auto show. Personally, I don't really like trade fairs, it's always way too crowded, too stuffy and right Photos you can't do it either, because there are too many people standing around the cars. As the invitation from Mercedes-Benz to the Detroit Motor Show NAIAS But I didn't have to think about it for long. I like the USA. No matter how crazy “the” Americans are. That is the USA Motorist Country # 1 and where does a petrolhead feel most comfortable?
In addition, it had long been speculated that Mercedes-Benz would have the new little one Baby Benz in Detroit, will present - a good reason to be there. That it turned out a little different in the end, I only knew shortly before the trip.
And then I got this call asking if I would like to drive from LA to Detroit with other bloggers. We would accompany the new E-Class to the trade fair and drive across the land of unlimited possibilities. Yes – holy fuck – if I don’t feel like one Road trip have, yes who then? Just between us: I love cars - and I really want to drive long distances in the car. Once across the USA - 4.500 kilometers in 4.5 days? Damn it, of course I'll be there.
Only the waiting time from the point at which it was clear that this trip would start - until the flight to Los Angeles was embarrassing - was irritating.
How Texan Highway Cops Really Are:
It was the second evening and it was just past the Texan border. Two Mercedes E-Classes drove a slow 100 miles through the night. A Highway Patrol vehicle was parked on the right side of the road and of course we slowed down at the same moment we saw the patrol car. After we passed the patrol car, I looked in the rearview mirror but couldn't see anything unusual, it seemed like everything had gone well.
Flashing lights from behind, the second car slowed down, and the moment he flashed the lights, all the lights on the Texan Highway patrol car came on behind him. The patrol car glowed like a Christmas tree on the interstate.
My road trip buddy was stopped by the patrol and of course I couldn't leave him alone at that moment. So I also steered our E-Class onto the hard shoulder.
As in the film, the entire light armada shone on the roof of the patrol car and created this typical atmosphere: Too fast, caught and now?
Taciturn and always with a thick cheek from chewing tobacco, the Texan Highway Policeman strolled from the vehicle behind us on the passenger side to our vehicle. Did he have his hand on the gun?
No. I think he saw the Californian license plates on our Mercedes models and thought the rest - he probably didn't think we were dangerous. All too fast and in your highway section you have to take responsibility for it.
After holding my driver's license and the registration of the vehicle in hand, he told us that we were lasered with 92 miles and that a speed limit of 75 miles applies here. It should cost $ 300 to $ 400 and would we have enough money with us?
Incidentally, he spoke much less in the slang of Texan cowboys than I would have expected. Only the thing with the chewing tobacco and the plastic cup he spat into over and over again, that fitted into my worldview again.
In order to deal with the paper business and to ease the wallet, we should follow his patrol car. We pulled off the highway at the same point where we stopped. Simply across the banquet, across a meadow and onto an unlit federal road. The police car's V8 was not spared, it almost seemed as if the Highway Patrol officer wanted to show who was allowed to drive fast here. And so we broke the speed limit in Texas for the umpteenth time that evening - but this time behind a patrol car.
We stopped in front of an inconspicuous police station, the tires on the frosty gravel surface of the gravel parking lot clearly indicated our displeasure with insufficient grip. The policeman was still doing paperwork in his patrol car, chewing his tobacco and repeatedly spitting the excess saliva into a cup that was in the vehicle's cup holder. I just hoped tomorrow morning, when the shift changed, there would be a mix-up between coffee and - oh, it doesn't matter.
In the end it was 240 US dollars for “Speeding”. A visit to a police station in the backcountry of America (Oldham County) and an invaluable experience. Heike also has the “restrooms” Visited the police station and actually wanted to take photos of the rest of the police station. But when exactly does the battery of an iPhone run out? Exactly…
If we hadn’t been able to find the money, no problem – we could have “served” the fine for $50 a day 😉
How junk and sand enrich the day:
Letting a bunch of automobile geeks drive across the USA can lead to you passing a junkyard in the middle of “nowhere”, the vehicles all immediately leaving the road and being the first to park before everyone has parked to hop onto the square of automobile stories with the camera at the ready.
But it was also a scrap yard the likes of which you would no longer find in Germany. The vehicles had probably been standing around in the open for decades and the ravages of time gnawed at them without consideration.
My Lifestyle blog colleague from France, who, incidentally, had bought the $240 experience with me the evening before, wanted to have another experience and drove the Mercedes E550 convertible to the place where the scrap vehicles were parked. Unfortunately, wet, sandy ground and more than 300 hp on the rear axle don't really mix. Once “vroooom” and he was stuck in the sand. Now some people would probably have liked to let dear Sebastian sit there until he fit in with the rest of the scrapyard environment - but we had a tight schedule and so he was pulled out of the sand in no time with the help of the all-wheel drive Mercedes-Benz ML .
No problem - if you work in a team 😉
Can the Hoover Dam also be seen at night?
Perfect. And it actually works much better at night :). It was the first day of the road trip and it was a long day. From Carlsbad via Las Vegas to Flagstaff. It was – just between us – a real problem at the beginning to turn this group of “bloggers” into a community and I can remember a few moments in which one could only have written a treatise about “interpersonal” crises can.
In those situations, the thought of the Hoover Dam would have helped. This stone and concrete monument - an example of human will.
The road trip from Los Angeles to Detroit
While I'm now seeing that I've reached more than 1.200 words again, so I've been back in the "tl:dr" range for a long time, I realize - there are still so many little anecdotes to tell, so many moments that we can capture in photos have held that still need to be described.
I think - I will not forget this trip anytime soon and I will probably sprinkle a few memories of this trip into the blog every now and then.
Jan dedicated a video to the trip last night - over seven minutes long, but more than worth seeing. It shows beautifully - compressed - this trip happened again:
Thanks for this video Jan - well done!
Thanks to Mercedes-Benz. Thanks to Lena and Wolfgang (MB Social Media). Thanks to the Texas cop. and THANKS an Jens, Heike, Javier, Gianluca, Omar, Sébastian and Teymur.
Keep an overview of everything? Preferably via mbrt13.com!
