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Trip Report: SFO - Jackson Hole, Wyoming.



   Just got back from vacation trip from the SF bay area to Jackson
Hole, Wyoming in our autocross car.   The car is a '88 735i, 5sp
manual with Dinan Stage III suspension and 17" Borbet wheels with Yoko
AVS-I tires.   Some BMW related observations about the trip...

- - less than 30 miles from destination, we hit a "fallen rock" in Snake
River canyon.  Merde! (pardon my French), the rock was about 5"
diameter.  I was too close to the car ahead of me to have a chance to
avoid it. Instant shimmy forces pull over and realization that right
front tire is going flat fast.  Fortunately, all autocross tire
changing tools were in trunk so change to spare tire was rapid.

- - car handled reasonably well with one 15" stock wheel and tire on
right front.   A call to Tire Rack Monday morning arranged Federal
Express delivery of replacement wheel.   It arrived by 10am Wednesday,
and local tire store moved the Yoko from the bent wheel to the new
one.

- - there just ain't many BMWs east of Reno, NV on the open road.   

- - the number of BMWs in Jackson Hole is quite large compared to what
you might expect of Wyoming, but then maybe Jackson is not really
Wyoming.  Like you wouldn't expect a packed house for a performance of
Beethoven's Fifth in a town of 5000 like we attended in Jackson.

- - we traveled a liesurely pace, not the on the edge pace we do on a
track or autocross, yet found ourselves 15-20 Mph over the speed
limits of 70-75 Mph.   

- - on "America's Loniest Highway" (U.S. 50 from Ely to Fallon, NV) our
liesurely pace was about 100+ Mph.   Only other BMW we saw was a
restored '70-73 2002 which we passed twice.   Well he was doing near
the speed limit and after we passed him once, we stopped for lunch, so
had to pass him again.

  There are some great roads out there in the Wast, how come we don't
see more BMWs out there?

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