John and Garry's 2018 Excellent Adventure

[John Tongish]

A travel memo from Garry Bopp and John Tongish

Hi all, this is John, and this is Garry, and we want to invite you all along on this year’s Excellent Adventure in our respective blue and yellow roadsters. John leaves July 6th to trailer through the central and northern parts of California, the Oregon and Washington coasts, and eventually run his Yellow One on three road courses in the northwest.

Come early August, Garry trailers his #98 blue Challenge Car to Walla Walla, Washington, to link up with John and Karen, a well-known FFR ambassador and her black #28 Challenge Car. We will spend a couple of quality weeks driving the back roads of Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas. Along the way we will mooch off relatives and friends, sample a lot of local foods and bars, and of course, check out some road gems Garry knows. Also on the list are road trips in the roadsters to Glacier National Park and Little Big Horn Battlefield. After visiting with Garry’s family and friends in North Dakota, Karen heads west while John and Garry continue east.

From North Dakota we trailer on to Duluth, Minnesota, and the next page in this adventure. After dumping the trailers and tow vehicles, we link up with Rick Soloway and his brother, and head off on a six-day loop around Lake Superior. We hope Canada is ready for three loud cobras tooling around the lake (and I don’t forget my passport).

After returning to our trailers in Duluth, we then head off to Racine, Wisconsin, for an architectural pilgrimage to the Johnson Wax Company designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. Constructed in the 1930s, the Johnson family have preserved this significant architectural work and offer free tours most of the year. We also hope to gain access to Wingspread, a 14,000+sf residence by FLW also done in the ‘30s, and now a business conference center. This structure is also in Racine. You can never have enough good architecture.

In late August Garry and John part company. Garry has to beat it back to Georgia to prep his RV for some road trips to Bluegrass festivals and family events along the east coast. John heads west and back to Dana Point, California, but not before visiting relatives and friends, and spending a few more days at the track. On the schedule is Road America in Wisconsin, Hi-Plains in Colorado, Miller in Salt Lake City, and Thunder Hill in Northern California. If all the tracks are visited this summer, John’s Yellow One will have driven a total of thirty different road courses in the U.S. and Canada since 2010.

We will try and slow down from time to time to update all on how we are doing and some of the trouble we are getting in to. We also hope everyone reading this shares the same love for these cars that we have built and drive, and will put together their own Excellent Adventure in the future. Don’t wait, do it sooner rather than later.

John and Garry
P.s.: Stops we made in past Excellent Adventures

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Schmoozing at the Porsche Complex in Atlanta, Georgia
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A sleepover at FLW’s Palmer House in Ann Arbor, Michigan
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John and Garry toasting the sunset in Long Island, New York