Maine Road Trip

What a Day! What a Run!!

NELLI Makes a Trip to Maine.

Jeff Torrey put together a great drive starting at the rest stop in Seabrook, NH on Route 95.  We all met around 11 and spent some time admiring the cars and talking Lotus.  And there was some added interest with Jim Wallace's beautiful '72 Pantera, a 911 Porsche, and an MR2.  The cars, as usual attracted a lot of attention and there were all sorts of people taking photos.  We even had a couple of visitors that saw our event posted on the NELLI website and stopped by to see the cars.  They came over and said hello and let me know how much the enjoyed seeing a bunch of Lotus all together.

A guy by the name of Mark Pelley stopped by.  He owns "Fine Automobile Tops and Upholstery" in Seabrook, NH and specializes in classic and custom cars.  Mark was kind enough to take a bunch of photos and you can find them at http://cmore.dyndns.org/~cmore/Lotus2005/.  You can reach Mark at 603-674-2170.  There are a bunch more photos on the NELLI Forum, Just click on "Upcoming Events" then on the fun run posting.  Go to the second page for the photo postings.

We headed out on Route 95 north.  Fortunately, George Cheney had come down from Maine and saw that there was a huge traffic jam on the north side of the bridge over the Piscataqua River from NH into Maine.  Some sort of construction mess.  George showed us a way to by-pass the whole thing and we were on our way.  We stopped at Nubble light in York and the scenery was really beautiful.  There was a big sea running and huge waves crashed over the rocks throwing spray everywhere.  As we drove along the shorefront in York we noticed that there were lots a people, dogs and two horses on the beach.  I guess that a lot of folks were glad to see winter end.

We departed north on Shore Road towards Ogunquit and Wells.  Shore Road - now there's a bit of pavement made for a Lotus.  We kept speeds down since we didn't want to scare the locals, but the drive was pure pleasure.  We arrived at Perkins Cove for our second stop but it seems that a substantial part of the world population had the same idea.  It was jammed!  No place to park so we just looped around and headed for Kennebunkport.  A short drive and we arrived at Federal Jacks Brewery and Pub.  Managed to find enough parking spaces and found our way to the table that was reserved for us.  Everyone was in a great mood - how could you not be on a day like this.  A lot of good conversation and even a little bench racing.  I had a nice talk with Jim Wallace who is not only the owner of the Pantera but is the President of the regional Pantera club.  I was surprised to find out that they have about fifty cars in the club in the New England area alone and over a thousand nationally.

Well, all good things come to an end so after finishing a fine lunch everyone said goodbye and started home.  If you haven't been to one of these outings you are really missing out on a good time.  There will be more this summer so join us.

John White

Please send any comments, suggestions, complaints about this web page to webmaster@nelli.org

Last updated: 01 March 2007

Content is copyright (c) 2004-2008 NELLI, Inc.