Christian's back: the honeymoon report (some Audi content!)

[RELAYER@aol.com]

Hello all, I'm back from my wedding in North Carolina and my honeymoon in San
Francisco/Napa Valley. After 2 weeks of marriage, I seem to still have my wits
about me.  We will see how long that lasts.

Our wedding was in the North Carolina Mountains, just North of Asheville.  I
got my Valentine 1 radar detector just before I left, and was able to cruise
all the way from Orlando to NC at a nice 85mph thanks to the genius of Mike
Valentine.  Taking my A4 through those mountains was a real joy; I had the
chance to do some real driving, unlike Florida where all roads are straight
and flat.  My college roommate drove up from ATL with his new toy; A4 1.8tqs.
So we had some real fun racing up and down the mountains….the locals will be
talking for some time about those 2 screaming Audis that came to town.

The mountains were beautiful, and I am 100% serious about moving closer to
them now (ATL).  I got to spend some time playing golf with all my old college
buddies on the mountain…and when you get 7 guys and a lot of beer on a golf
course the day of your wedding, things really get out of control.  One of my
friends ended up breaking an axle on one cart.  By the end of the day we had
figured out how to unlock the reduction gear on the carts that keeps you at a
reasonable pace when going down the STEEP hills….and that's when the fun
began.  I will not reveal the details due to fear of imprisonment.

After the wedding, we came back to Orlando for a couple of days to pay some
bills and to catch our breath.  Then, it was off to Napa Valley and San Fran.
We spent 3 days in Napa valley having lots of wine and great food.  Then it
was on to SF, where we did some of the tourist sights such as Alcatraz and
Pier 39.  We toured the city for one day, and with heavy traffic coupled with
being completely lost, we found ourselves real close to divorce already!
After we found our way around again, and got some lunch and beers, we calmed
down.  We had a Mitsu Eclispe Convertable for the 8 days that we were in SF,
and boy did that make me miss my Audi.  The Mistu has a turning radius of the
Titanic, and all the noises of "Lord of the Dance."  Not the best car for a
city with NARROW pot holed streets.

I got a chance to meet up with my cousin who lives near SF, I had not seen him
in 7 years, and last time I saw him, he was a big VW GTI fan…would he still
have the same taste after all these years?  No, better, he showed me his brand
new A4 1.8tq.  We will surely be staying in touch from now on with talk of
chips and mods!  He told me that he is an occasional poster on the A4.org
forum…which is funny since we have probably seen each other's posts, and never
knew that we were relatives who lost touch.

I met up with some of the local SF/Northern California Audi guys on Friday
night for dinner and beers.  I finally got to meet Mark Nelson, Steve
Sherwood, Rick Zehr, Derek Daily, Arun Rao, Howard Dinits and the list goes on
and on...  We had a long dinner full of Audi stories and jokes.  That's what I
love most about the Quattro List; whenever I travel to an unfamiliar city, I
can always find some Quattro heads to meet up with for some beers.

The next day, Rick Zehr took Breeze and I hiking through the beautiful Muir
Woods with it's 150 year old redwoods, obviously the russians named their
space station Mir after these woods since it is equally as dirty and old.  On
the way to the woods, Rick let me take his beautiful Coupe Quattro through the
very curvy mountain roads.  With a suspension set up that is quite extensive,
I had a lot of fun racing through the mostly secluded mountain roads exploring
what kind of driving I miss out on living in Florida.  Once we reached the
park, and Breeze calmed down, we hiked through the mountains and accidentally
hiked into a control fire.  As the trail slowly was spotted with more and more
small fires, Breeze started to get nervous.  To calm her down, Rick and I
decided to do our part for making the trail safe by treating the fires as
urinals.  The mountain got real dark real fast, and we just barely found our
way down the mountain before the darkness would prohibit us from ever finding
our way out.  Once we found the car, Rick's great Euro lamps did a great
imitation of sunrise…very nice, if I still had my CQ, I would be ordering
those things right away.

Now, I am back home, and back to the old schedule.  Thanks to all the Qlisters
that met up with me, and especially Rick Zehr.

  /\        _I        Christian J. Long (& Breeze Parker-Long)
/    \ I_I I_I I      Orlando, Florida, USA
                       University of Central Florida Alumni 1994
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'98 Audi A4 1.8tm    Neuspeed .8 bar, K&N, 17" Ronal R28 P7000ss
'96 BMW 318ti         Still looking to replace with a 4KCSQ or 90Q
'90 Audi 90
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Past Audis: '84 CGT, '85CGT, '87.5 CGT, '90 CQ