Chesapeake Region
A Winter Wander
Article and Photos by Eric Tipton
P
orsche driving season ends for me in December. My Cayman has summer tires and I have an aversion to road salt, so when the temperatures dip, the Porsche gets cleaned up, covered and put away until warmer days return. However, I really wanted to take my daughter Sarah with me on a road trip. She had just survived a 17-credit semester of differential equations, thermodynamics, organic chemistry, physics and labs at University of Maryland. The savings from her in-state tuition funded my Porsche purchase and I wanted to share with her the thrill of the excellent tours my wife Kim and I have been taking with PCA since she went away to college. Sarah and I decided we would drive Aniano Arao’s “Catoctin Mountain Tour 2017 in Maryland” route. This is a lovely 2.5hour drive through central Maryland that ends in Middletown. We’d drive the route and have lunch at The Main Cup. I had originally led one of the groups on this tour in 2017, but this time I wouldn’t be driving my Porsche. This time we’d be in my 1997 Acura Integra, a car with 205,000 miles on the odometer and less than half the horsepower of my Porsche. A car whose resale value is significantly affected by the amount of gasoline in the tank. The morning of December 26th was bright and cold, only 31 degrees. There was a layer of frost outside. I started the coffeemaker then went outside to warm up the car. I turned the key in the ignition and… urgh, urgh, click, click, click… the battery was dead. I looked over at the Camry parked next to my beloved (and aged) Integra; the Camry with its automatic transmission and soft, roly-poly suspension and I thought to myself “Nah”. Part of the adrenaline rush of a long car journey is the uncertainty of whether the car is going to make it. Kim gave me a concerned look about taking my beloved and suddenly unreliable hooptie on a long trip. Nevertheless, we persisted. Our first stop was Costco where I quickly installed a new battery in the parking lot. The old, dead battery still had a few months left on the warranty and to my surprise, Costco replaced the 3+ year old battery with a brand new one at no cost! We then headed towards Kecco’s Woodfire Kitchen in Westminster, the starting point for our tour.
Sarah & Eric Tipton rd
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tween 3 and 4 gears, leaning into turns, revving the little 1.8 liter engine to power up hills. The engine buzzed and the suspension creaked and squeaked as we drove along the two lane roads at a pace that was spirited, yet explainable to law enforcement. We had the roads all to ourselves.
Well-weathered leather Hot metal and oil The scented country air*
We twisted and turned along Catoctin, then steep downhill and a sharp left turn onto Wolfsville Road. From here we sprinted along the heavily wooded section where the road undulates. The game was to see how much we could unload the suspension The weather was perfect; bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. at each crest. Then beautiful rolling vistas along Harmony Road as we approached our lunch destination in Middletown. Soon we were on twisty roads, shifting and downshifting be-
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