A Winter Wander

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 getscleaned up, covered and put away until warmer days return.However, I really wanted to take my daughter Sarah with me ona road trip. She had just survived a 17-credit semester of differentialequations, thermodynamics, organic chemistry, physicsand labs at University of Maryland. The savings from her in-statetuition funded my Porsche purchase and I wanted to share withher the thrill of the excellent tours my wife Kim and I have beentaking with PCA since she went away to college.

Sarah and I decided we would drive Aniano Arao’s “CatoctinMountain Tour 2017 in Maryland” route. This is a lovely 2.5-hour drive through central Maryland that ends in Middletown.We’d drive the route and have lunch at The Main Cup. I hadoriginally led one of the groups on this tour in 2017, but thistime I wouldn’t be driving my Porsche. This time we’d be in my1997 Acura Integra, a car with 205,000 miles on the odometerand less than half the horsepower of my Porsche. A car whoseresale value is significantly affected by the amount of gasoline inthe tank.

The morning of December 26 th 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.

The weather was perfect; bright sunshine, not a cloud in the sky. Soon we were on twisty roads, shifting and downshifting be-

Sarah & Eric Tipton tween 3 rd and 4 th 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 at each crest. Then beautiful rolling vistas along Harmony Road as we approached our lunch destination in Middletown.

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Chesapeake Region

A Winter Wander

Article and Photos by Eric Tipton

Roads app errors were easily overcome by my smartphoneadept millennial daughter.

As we headed back from Middletown, the reverse route is somehow even more scenic. Along the way we waved to the driver of a white Porsche 928, out for some driving enjoyment himself.

We stopped off for a quick hike in Catoctin, then visited the Loys Station and Utica covered bridges as the sun was fading on this short winter day. As we left the backroads and headed home along Route 32, my companion was reclined and sleeping in the passenger seat. It had been a great day.

Utica Covered BridgeSunlight on chromeThe blur of the landscape

Inside the Utica Covered Bridge

Every nerve aware!*

At lunch, our handsome young waiter was very attentive. Couldit have had anything to do with my 19-year-old coed dining companion?

We used the new Roads by Porsche app to guide us along our tour. We had previously used the GTS Routes app, but early last summer, that app unexplainedly stopped working. I’m happy to report that the new Roads app is an improvement over GTS Routes, and the GTS Routes routes are available in the Roads app. Also, the Roads app provides voice directions, a feature that was lacking in GTS Routes. However, near Wolfsville, the Roads app began losing its mind and trying to redirect us along incorrect routes. Maybe the hills were affecting the GPS. Maybe we were too close to Camp David. Who knows? Luckily, the

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Loys Station Covered Bridge

*Lyrics from the song Red Barchetta by Rush from the 1981 album Moving Pictures