NY trip, dirt road dynamics, and A8 spotting(2x)

[Brett Dikeman <brett@pdikeman.ne.mediaone.net>]

Spotted a black A8 _twice_ on Rt. 28, between Warrensburg/Indian Lake.
Once on a friday night, I think, and once on Sunday afternoon.  I presume
it was the same car...

My upstate trip went well; turns out a friend broke, smashed+dislocated(as
she said, "I did a really good job!") her toe and needed a trip to the
nearest medical facility, which turned out to be Warrensburg, about 30
miles away.

I never really thought lots of HP would ever come in so useful, but it sure
was doing the trip to the hospital.  Rt. 28 is all single-lane except for
some hills; designated, "safe"(ie, no curves+long enough) passing sections
tend to be sparse.  A friend remarked on how nice it was we were taking my
car(while doing about 85 up a hill passing several cars.)

I drove her and a friend to the hospital, drove back, got everyone into the
2 cars and drove back to find the 2 of them sitting on the pavement; the
Warrensburg health center _kicked_ them out, leaving them in the parking
lot.  We also found out later that the temporary shoe-type cast they put on
her was a total joke and completely, totally useless.  I'm considering
calling the center and bitching out the director...

The friend is doing OK(though in a lot of pain) and will hopefully get the
foot operated on tomorrow, after which she'll be fine(though she was fired
from her nanny job; the mother actually said:"We don't appreciate you doing
this to us."  She runs a high-powered marketing firm; "he" runs a
production/promotion company; they leave their children with a nanny,
usually an au pair, until 7pm, but I digress; needed to "vent" some serious
frustration here.)

Boomer behaved himself marvelously; I had fun on the way up with a guy in a
brand spankin' new corvette.  Route 28 right after North Creek has several
very large, long hills where you climb very, very high up quickly; it goes
into two lanes on each of the hills.  I passed someone, moved over to the
right.  I see a set of yellow DRL's coming up the hill fairly quickly.  I
recognized it as a new corvette, so just for fun, as he started to get
close, floored it.  Either he wasn't very interested, or I did fairly well.
I think it was probably the first, considering I had a full load(4
passengers plus luggage.)

Ok, last part here...I had my first "experience" on dirt roads in a q-car.
Very eerie.  Feels sorta like you're "crabbing" when you take corners, but
it's very different behavior from FWD.  Can't really explain it; it's just
gives an eerie feeling.  To the car's credit though, it was fairly
predicatable in how it behaved.  Interestingly, my friend approached me
when we stopped in Warrensburg and mentioned how I "shot off" down the dirt
road and he had trouble keeping up without slipping all over the place.  I
found that slightly odd, since I didn't think the AWD would make that much
difference cornering without accelerating, however, I did notice that I was
driving the same road a fair bit faster than I used to in the 5k.  I found
that slips(they were all very minor) could be corrected by a mix of
steering more into the turn+applying a little more power, or backing off a
lot and slowing down :)

Is snow behavior the same?  I fully intend to take the car out to a parking
lot with the first snowing, maybe even attend a winter driving course if
one is held nearby to MA.


Brett

------
Brett Dikeman
brett@pdikeman.ne.mediaone.net
~)-|
Hostes alienigeni me abduxerunt.  Qui annus est?
Te audire non possum.  Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
Ita, scio hunc 'sig file' veterem fieri.
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