Three Marauders meet in Frechen, Germany

[Dereck]

Hi Guys

Last Friday evening (Augut 14th) a couple German Marauder owners were meeting up with an American Marauder owner on vacation in Colonge for a burger and to chew the fat for a while so I decided to join them.

I set out 3am Friday morning for the three and a half hour drive to the Eurotunnel (http://www.eurotunnel.com/uk/home/) train terminal in Folkstone, Kent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkestone) to catch a train to Calais, France (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calais). Little did I know the M4 motorway (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_motorway) was closed between exits 14 and 12 which meant I had to take to the A4 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A4_road_%28England%29) for a small diversion, also stopped for gas at Maidstone services (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maidstone_services) to save me fuelling up again until I got to Cologne (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cologne)

I actually arrived a little early for my scheduled train so had half an hour to take in the tacky souvenier and over priced food shops in the terminal building.

Boarding teh train is real quick, you drive on and sit in your car for the 35 minute journey then drive out the other end.

Heading out of the Calais Eurotunnel train terminal on the A16/E40 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_route_E40) for the four hour drive to Frechen, Germany (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frechen) I stopped briefly in De Panne, Belgium (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Panne) to pick up Jane a little Belgium chocalate from the P&J chocolate factory (http://www.p-j.be/belgian/) and again for gas just out side Frechen before arriving at The Miss PeppeR American Resturant (http://www.misspepper.de/) for the meet. Had about three hours to kill so cleaned up my car a little http://www.lincolnsonline.com/forum/images/smilies/smile.gif as it had rained just about the entire U.K drive but Euroside it was 84 degrees, bright and sunny.

The rest of the guys pulled in about 6pm and couldn't believe I had actually made it, they were amazed that I would drive five hundred miles for a burger.

We all had a burger of some description, I had the pure Angus Burger with curly fries, went giant too for a total of €19.40 ($21.50). After some bull *****ing at about 10:30pm it was time for me to leave the party and I set out on the four hours back to Calais, stopping for more gas in Grand Synthe. France (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grande-Synthe). There was a slight hold up at the Calais train terminal mostly due to only two border control kiosks open and the security guards taking forever to check passports.

One more 35 minute train ride, a three and a half hour drive with one comfort stop and I arrived home just before 6am Saturday morning.

Driving time ~ 15 hours
Train rides ~ 1 hour 10 minutes
Countries driven through = 5 including the U.K
From stepping out the door to arriving back home = 27 hours
Miles coverd = 963
Gas = £196 ($307) (roughly calculated my Marauder got 21.9mpg for the trip)
Train ride = £85 ($133)
Insurance = £30 ($47)
Having a burger with some friends - Priceless

As usual I didn't take many pictures and the ones I did suck but here are a few.

http://superstitiongold.com/lincoln/MissPeppeR/Miss%20PeppeR.JPG

Miss PeppeR American resturant- Nice electricity pylon http://www.lincolnsonline.com/forum/images/smilies/biggrin.gif


http://superstitiongold.com/lincoln/MissPeppeR/Statue%20Of%20Liberty.JPG

The Statue of Liberty at the entrance


http://superstitiongold.com/lincoln/MissPeppeR/Marauder%20Rednecks.JPG

The Marauder guys


http://superstitiongold.com/lincoln/MissPeppeR/Maruaders%20In%20Germany.JPG

Three Marauders - A sight probably seldom seen in Europe


Born to be wild baby!

Dereck

[MyBlackBeasts]

Awesome!

A true Marauder at heart!

Only a true Marauder owner would put that kind of time & miles in for a burger. That's because it's not about the burger, its about the people there having the burger with you!

Love it!
:beer:

[1stMerc]

As said the esscence of Maraudering, traveling cross country in a big ol comfy sedan, to meet up with friends for a meal and good conversation.

Glad you made the trip and thanks for sharing it with us. :burnout: :beer:

[Mr. Man]

Awesome!! I just don't see this happening with the Rover 75 crowd.

[tbone]

Way to represent!

[Bluerauder]

Real Marauder dedication to make this happen !! Way to represent the MM Community. :up:

[MMBLUE]

How cool is that !!! Very cool story.

[justbob]

Way cool meet!


Builder Of Badassery

[Shornaday]

What a ride, know you had to be tired when you got back home, that is true Marauder dedication. :beer:

[JOEMERC]

Autobahn time ! :)

[MGDriver]

Thanks for sharing your story Dereck! I'm still impressed you took the trip and I'm glad you did because it was a pleasure to meet you in person. I'll definitely let you know whenever I'm back in the UK so we can arrange another meet over there.

Back to Friday, I left work at 2pm to set off for Cologne, the drive was horrible took me 3 hours to cover 120 miles in gridlock traffic all the way so I ran an hour late than originally planned. I pulled up in front of the Marriott Hotel in the city centre at 5pm to pick up Jim (jsignorelli) and his wife Joanne. We then continued to a Hotel in Frechen that I booked for the night to check in and meet with my Marauder friend Achim and his son Max from Münster who had already spent the whole day in Cologne to look at some sights. Finally we continued to the American Restaurant which was only a few miles down the road from our hotel, as we arrived there was no sight of Dereck because we pulled into a different car park than him. Having a 500 mile trip, none of us expected him to be there before us considering the heavy traffic that we were facing on the way so we spent a while standing around the cars having a chat until we finally decided to go around the front and discovered Dereck was already there waiting... for the past 3 hours.

Dereck moved his car around the back to join the others and then we decided it was burger time. Naturally we choose a table that allowed us to view our cars, as the waiter learned about our odd meeting he was really impressed and begged us to move our cars right next to the main entrance so that everybody could see them which we declined because the car park out front was crap for taking photos of the cars together. As we were dining there was a suspicious looking Land Rover on Russian plates pulling up right next to our cars. We had reversed them into a car park with 5 bays but left so much space between them that you could barely fit another car in, the Russian folks however squeezed their Land Rover into the tiny space next to my Marauder, how they managed not to ding my door I don't know. Three of the same unique looking cars reversed into the parking spaces with lots of space between them, would you not think there is some kind of an event going on and thus leave them alone? It wasn't like there weren't any other spaces, they basically had the whole lot to themselves.

After we finished eating we walked back to our cars and Achim asked the Russians to move their car which they did so we were able to take some photos. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so I only took some crappy cell phone pictures, Jim however took a whole bunch which he will post once he arrives back in the States on Wednesday so he said. Since the weather was really pleasant, we spent the rest of the evening standing by our cars chatting until about 11PM when Dereck decided it was time to return to the Kingdom. We offered him to pay for a room in our hotel for him being so late but he declined saying he needed to get back. Achim and I then went for a cruise into Cologne city centre together to drop Jim and his wife off at their hotel. On the way there we ended up getting lost, taking the wrong turns and somehow ended up in an underground parking garage. Given the great acoustics of the place we started to make some noise, probably a bit too much as we were coming out the other end there was an unmarked cop who pulled a crotch rocket rider over, he gave us an evil stare as we were creeping past as if he wanted to say "if I wasn't already busy, you guys would have been in so much trouble now."

On the next morning Achim and I who stayed at the same hotel set off to American car show an hours drive north of Cologne were we spent half of the day. I left at noon time to head across the border into the Netherlands for some shopping with my girlfriend to make up for dragging her along to these meetings. Over in the Netherlands there is a tiny village named America, needless to say I couldn't resist posing in front of their entry sign for a photo which I'm sure they see a lot of American car owners do.

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065348/fullsize/image.jpg http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065349/fullsize/image.jpg
http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065351/fullsize/image.jpg http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065350/fullsize/image.jpg

Some of my crappy cell phone pictures from our meeting on Friday night, gotta wait from Jim to chime in for some proper photos.

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065353/fullsize/image.jpg http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065354/fullsize/image.jpg

Achim and I at the American car show on Saturday.

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065357/fullsize/image.jpg http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065358/fullsize/image.jpg

Me posing in front of the entry sign of the tiny village America in the Netherlands.

[Marauderjack]

TOO COOL!!!:beer:

Who'da thunk this could ever happen 12+ years ago??:shake:

IMPRESSIVE!!:D

[MGDriver]

I had originally invited 7 Marauders to this event but the majority couldn't make it so I guess we choose an unfortunate date which is funny since Dereck had the furthest drive and yet he came out for it. The original plan was to take a cruise down to the Nürburgring on Saturday which is an hours drive south of Cologne but it wasn't worth doing with just 2 cars in the end.

Oh well, we'll try again next year, possibly at the same location since I really liked the place.

[jaydees]

What a great post. The Marauder brotherhood (and sisters too) at its best.

[MGDriver]

Some more pictures that my friend Achim gave me to share with you, he promissed us at the meet that he would register here but still hasn't done it yet. In the background of picture #3 you can see the Russian Land Rover that I mentioned in my previous post.

From left to right: Dereck, Achim and myself.

http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065366/fullsize/image.jpg http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065367/fullsize/image.jpg
http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065368/fullsize/image.jpg http://www.supermotors.net/getfile/1065370/fullsize/image.jpg

[1Marauder]

This is so unbelievably cool.

[jsignorelli]

I am getting more items for shipping to Dereck in the UK. He deserves more than a Marauder clock for his efforts.
The next time you plan to go to Carlisle, please let me know. You will not travel alone, nor will you miss the family of owners on Marauder Mountain.