Thursday, February 26, 2026

Grosse Ride 2026, Atlanta trip and generally catching up

I've been busy with work and other projects, so I haven't posted in a long while. I finally have a little break this morning as we prepare to leave this afternoon for a few days in Genova for Spring Break. 

Last weekend Josée and I participated in the Grosse Ride navigation rally, as we do almost every year. Oscar joined us in the back seat. The event went smoothly for us, we made a few small errors, and our score was not great. We were last out of 8 in the expert class, and we were 15th out of 46 over all. Still, we had fun and there were no issues or close calls. The event it loooong though. We started at 5pm and finised at 2am. By the time we were through with the after-rally buffet and drove Josée home, it was 5am! I woke up at 9:30 to see the Canadian men's hockey team lose the gold medal game to the USA. 

Our 3-person crew for the rally

Action photo as we started the rally

Oscar and car #2

Many different types of car in the rally

I quite liked the spec of this GR Corolla

Two very different cars

Oscar was a fan of the buffet

Our classic after-rally photo

In other news, I went to Atlanta for a weekend with my brother to catch an NBA game. It was strange to travel that far, and still arrive to somewhat cold weather (low of 2, high of 13). The downtown area was strangely deserted and not that nice. Luckily, I found a nice area while walking around (Ponce City Market, the Beltline) and even managed to go for a run on the Beltline. Outside the downtown core, there was a nice vibe to the city. Before the basketball game, we went to the Coca Cola Experience (museum), which was kind of cool. I tasted soft drinks from around the world. The cars of Atlanta are different... all the sporty cars seem to be V8's... Chargers, AMG's, Lexus, M cars... all with V8's. There are few Hondas, although the ones you see have zero rust. The Atlanta Hawks lost their game and our return flight was delayed a couple of hours. Still, it was a pretty cool weekend.

The tip-off

Free Chick-fil-A sandwich if the opposing team player mises both of his fowl shots

Cool arena

Nice spec FRS

International menu sample at the Coca Cola museum

Posters from around the world

Fendi-designed Coke bottle

Fred and me in front of the vault that contains the secret Coke recipe

Nice architecture outside the city center

Delivery robot

Jimmy Carter presidential library (welcome building)

Cool modern buildings

... avant-garde design

Early Lexus LS

Flashy Mayback at our hotel

One of many AMG's

Heading back downtown in the evening

A rust-free CRX on 13" wheels

This person has good taste in cars

RHD Toyota I didn't recognize

Waymo self-driving taxi

The fronr of the basketball/hockey arena

Olympic rings from 1996

Ous surprisingly affordable hotel

Go hawks!

Finally, winter rolls on in Montreal... there is a cool development in my car situation, but I will cover this in a separate post. 

Bronco Raptor

Cool wheels on this Defender

Respect to whoever drives this Cadillac, still on the original hubcaps!

Nice W124 E-class

Nice spec Civic Si

Filthy Elantra N

New M5 wagon, I thought it was an Audi RS6 from a distance

Surprising choice of winter car, given the values of 993's these days

They finally finished the Parc St-Viateur building restoration

A Land Cruiser that we never sold here

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