Lunch at the diner was OK- it was magnificent considering the only other food for miles without flies was McDonald's. (They had bees).We parked across the street.
At lunch we caught up literally and figuratively.I had much glee telling the cruisers after 97 (and 17, America's Most Scenic Highway) and 10, that in my humble opinion these were the UGLY roads compared to what we would see and drive in the afternoon.
Lunch at the Diner was the first time we had seen each other since morning at High Point.
We spoke briefly about the devastation in Bound Brook, NJ. JohnM and Dar have a sister whose house was flooded in nearby Mayfield. JonT had driven through what was left of the town, by next month he'll be living in nearby Piscataway.
The New York Post reported:
"The town of 10,000 was awash after the Raritan River, swollen by Tropical Storm Floyd, overflowed. Using boats and three helicopters, 35 NYPD officers plucked 225 people from the roofs and second-floor windows of homes submerged in as much as 15 feet of water. Helicopters and motorized rafts rescued about 1,000 people from rooftops and second-floor windows....There were helicopters with spotlights, people standing on roofs and in trees... At the peak of the flooding, the Red Cross opened 54 shelters in north Jersey, and housed 5,000 people.
The storm killed at least 40 people nationwide, including two in New York and 16 in hard-hit North Carolina."
In the same moment we felt closer to our neighbors in NJ, and our neighbors in North Carolina. Many of us had been in North Carolina last month for Homecoming,
for the Sunday Brunch, driving in or out of Spartanburg, and knowing there is a Z3 drive there at the same time as we were driving in New York. In this spirit, we
collected $310.00 in contributions to donate to the Bound Brook Flood Fund in the name of 'BMW Z Series Register'. Irene pointed out that people fortunate as
we are can afford to help out our neighbors. I have decided to collect for charity at every drive I run. Thank you cruisers for your generosity and caring!
Danny Lawrence models his Z3 Hat keeper design.
That was when I got to tell everyone that the days roads and scenery just get better.
And then it got better.
We traveled as a group for that stretch of 28, and passed many many motorcycle groups.
You know you are on the right road when you see the motorcycles. Two of our area cruisers- (Gadi, who was with us in the automatic 2.3, and Wayne Sebastiano, who was not with us )- are motorcycle enthusiasts as well as Z3 enthusiasts. I am inviting them to cruise with us on the next Best Roads cruise, with roads recommended by Top Motorcycling Roads. Gadi has give me another good lead- a copy of "Backroads". We think Burkhard Goeschel, father of the Z3, would be proud. We learned from Burkhard at Homecoming that the Z3 is born of motorcycle lineage. As we neared the end of our Route 28 ride we passed a Z3 coming the other way- top down of course.
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