Saturday, April 7, 2007

Day 12


The trip back to Munich awaited us, we had to make it back to Harms (the place to drop the car off) and drop the luggage off at the airport hotel before 4pm and we were about 300 miles from Munich. I was really paranoid about missing the drop-off time (we had a 9am flight the next morning, so we had to make the cutoff time) we were packed and out of the hotel around 9am, later than I wanted, but I remembered I had a fast car :).

I hit the road on a mission, to make sure that little trip computer that currently projected our arrival time at 3:30 pm to drop and drop. I found a few rabbits through Northern Italy to follow and we were able to average over 90 mph for a good 2 hours or so (BTW I was amazed that even at this speed I was getting 24 mpg) and before I knew it the estimated time of arrival had fallen to 1pm. Once we hit Austria I slowed down, so did everyone else, I had remembered that Rolf had said that Austria was one big speed trap, so I forced myself to drop the speed to 62mph or so, it was painful and I felt like I was moving backwards almost...this made me realize how horrid driving in the states on the highway will be, this car was made to drive 100mph plus on the freeway (I came to find 110 was my comfort zone) and driving 65 is going to suck...hopefully I can find some good twisties that will satiate this feeling....

All of the sudden I saw the holy grail, the unlimited speed sign which told me I was back in Germany, it was a great feeling to wind the engine up again and hit some top speeds. It was at this time that I looked down and realized I was nearing the break in mileage point of 1400 miles, but this was a mixed blessing as I also saw I was only 20 miles from the Hotel Kempinski and would only have a few miles that I could really wind the engine up.

We found the hotel, great location feet from the Lufthansa booking counter that we would need at 7:20am the next day, we dropped the luggage off in the room and I took my oldest daughter in search of Thomas at Harms. Dialed the address into the nav and I realized this would be the last trip for a few months in the new ride, I also realized I had just crossed 1400 miles and decided to make it a good trip. It was really invigorating to take the engine beyond 4000 rpm, this is really where this engine shines and man does it shine, I had a blast in the few corners I had over the final 20 miles and got the car up above 130mph, even at this speed I felt like I could easily go faster but this was enough from me, I will save the 153 for the next trip :)....

Harms was easy to find, once you find the street go to the end of it and take the ramp on the left. One thing we did find was a great grocery store right next to Harms that has all sorts of great chocolates and food items that we picked up for gifts. It also has a ton of cheap bier, wine and alcohol, if you need a last minute place to pick this stuff up this is a great place and is way cheaper than any of the stores I had gone to during the trip, it is called Aldi Sud.

Parked the car in front of one of the Harms parking spots and went upstairs to Thomas's office. Filled out the paperwork and he called us a cab back to the hotel, we went down to take the front license plate off and record the final mileage, 1421. We went back up to finish up the docs and ran into a fellow fester that was looking to get back to the airport as well, so we shared the cab. Back at the hotel (BTW this hotel is perfect for anyone wanting to stay at the airport, it is super nice and a great final or first place to relax before or after a flight) and spent the rest of the day having a few drinks and a final dinner at the very nice and fairly empty hotel restaurant. Went back to the room and packed everything up, we were ready to go home.

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