finally... (light Audi content)

[Henry A Harper III <hah@srv.net>]

I get through the one month of digest backlog that has accumulated while I 
have been in-n-out of town. Wanted to catch up on all the latest threads 
before potentially jumping in on a raging "discussion". Let's see how many 
I can hit...

March 18-22 I was on a trip to Monterey for the bike race at Laguna Seca 
(site of the Monterey Historics in August) traveling with friends in their 
large smoky diesel pickup with camper. Yes, I was a truck/SUV driver. But 
not while talking on the phone, and it did have a turbo so we weren't in 
anyone's way (so it seemed). Why did I always get to drive Donner Pass? No 
snow on road, but nice big snowbanks. This was before the gas price hike 
hit, BTW.

March 24-April 5 I drove the Audi (look, Audi content) on a nice little 
3400-mile trip as far south as Houston. It ran a little too well ($105 
speeding tax in WY) with the summer tires on again, but oh the rush from 
75-100 @7000' & 20F. Didn't seem to use any oil (20w50). Economy a little 
below 25mpg. I gave (and received back) a thumbs-up to a white-bearded 
gentleman driving a nice-looking debadged bamboo 5ktq with CO plates 
somewhere around Amarillo, or was it Chillcothe.. I was expecting a little 
better off-boost performance down at sea level, but the car didn't seem to 
like the muggy air of Houston all that much - stayed even with a 4.6L 
Mustang pulling away from a toll booth though. (Sans the one-touch-up 
feature I had too few hands to get the window all the way up while 
shifting, so it sounded like he was trying, anyway.) Mom was along for her 
first Audi ride from Plano->Houston. She likes it, but isn't running out to 
trade her LeSabre (with DynaRideTM). Unfortunately. Had a nice 
teleconversation with Jason Palmer, but didn't call early enough to 
exchange drives or meet other Dallas qlisters. Stayed in Denver with a 
college buddy, we went skiing at A-Basin the 4th. He drove, his Scoobydoo - 
an Impreza wagon with the little 1.8, commonly seen in the right lane doing 
50 in 4th with the pedal to the floor. At least I got to watch all the 
traffic traveling both directions. "Audi!" "Audi!" And that was the weekend 
it got cold again, brr. Against a baseline of 24 hrs travel (via non-Audi) 
from Idaho Falls to DFW, I managed 9(zap)+12 southbound and 11+8 
northbound. Saw plenty of left-lane bandits (mostly light traffic) and 
mostly just went around.

Then April 10-13 I ran over to Boise for another bike race, talked cars 
with James Marriott and we drove each other's "little car" - his 4kq, my 
GTI. He says I have to bring the 3B over next time (will be this coming 
weekend) to compare to his chip's-in-the-mail K26 MC-1.

And no, I am not currently employed, just in case anyone was wondering 
where the free time was coming from. Probably I need to change this 
situation since one can usually have either excess time or money (choose 
one).

just trying to entertain,
Henry Harper
http://www.srv.net/~hah
1991 200 quattro, 104k, bamboo metallic
1988 GTI 16v, 190k, tornado red