Inquiring minds want to know....

How did we get all of us and all of our stuff in the Festiva!

We've been asked quite a few times how we managed to take our road trip without a trailer or roof top carrier. Our answer has been that we travelled very light! Sharon did an excellent job figuring out the packing... here's how it was done.

Rather than have each person pack a bag and bring five or more bags into the hotel each night Sharon set up one bag with swim gear for the hotels that had pools, another with toiletries and PJ's and a third with a  pair of shorts for each of us.  A couple of larger bags contained the rest of our clothing but these stayed in the back of the car. What Sharon did is pack one small grocery bag for each day with a change of clothes, except pants, for everyone. When we got to our hotel all we would have to grab is the toiletry bag, the swim bag if needed and the small bag with the next days clothes in it. That small bag would become the laundry bag for the clothes we were changing out of and that bag would go back in the car the following morning.

In addition to the bags we had a sleeping bag, a collapsible cot and a pillow. Why you ask? Well I'll tell you. Most of the hotel rooms had only two queen or double beds so we brought along the cot etc and B, E and I rotated turns on it each night. Some snack type food items, an umbrella or two and our jackets rounded out the stuff we stuffed in the car.

All packed up and ready to head out!

We didn't carry too much up front, just a couple of smaller bags for maps and snacks etc. Those in back seat where a little cozy but didn't have a lot of "stuff" in with them. We borrowed a DVD player with two screens which allowed them to pass some of the time away. We had decided who was sitting where before we left Calgary so there was no discussion each morning!

B, I, and E in the back seat on the morning of Day 3.

All of us in the car ready to head out from Raleigh NC on Day 9.

You asked and now you know... five in a Festiva for more than five thousand miles can be done!!

Festiva Madness trip... day nine

Well here we are in beautiful Raleigh NC. Except for the occasional breezy periods the weather was great!

We were the 12th Festiva to sign in and by noon the total was up to 73 Festivas and Aspires, beating last year's attendance by four. A group of five or six cars came up from Florida.

I would say that about a quarter of the cars there had engine swaps ranging from mild, like ours with a SOHC B6 to Chris's Mazda KL-ZE 2.5l V-6 shoe horned into the engine compartment. The most common swap appeared to be the Escort GT 1.8l DOHC engine.

We took the longest distance traveled (one way) with 2750 miles. Second went to Charlie from Arizona whose one way distance was 2200 miles. Third was from Sioux Falls SD with a distance of 1100 miles.

Lowest mileage went to the car with only 53100 original miles, highest went to a car with over 300,000 miles.

We had a great time meeting a lot of people who we've only met on the http://www.fordfestiva.com/ forum. Some of them have said that they are considering coming up for Westiva 2012, our upcoming Kananaskis Festiva meet in July!

Here are a few photos that we took. Here's a link to more. If you're interested I'm pretty sure that there will be a link or two to even more on http://www.festivamadness.com/.

Welcome desk!

An overview

One of the two Festiva truck conversions.

Charlies car after a 2200 mile drive! He won the "fan favorite" award.

Sharon, E, I, B and me with the Festiva.

Another overview

We left Raleigh at about three-thirty and headed off to Dandridge, Tennessee. Arrived at the hotel at around 9:45pm after a drive through some pretty twisty roads. Unfortunately it was dark when we went through the mountains and weren't able to enjoy the scenery. Tomorrow's drive takes us to St. Louis passing through four states.

CLICK HERE FOR DAY 10!