The prime ingredient to a successful weekend tour is great group of participants.   Luckily with a club like CVR we always achieve this without any effort on our part.   Another ingredient is the hotel, we do our best and some years are better than others.  For the Spring Tour we have to thank Caroline and Alan Davis for discovering the Taconic Hotel.   When they first mentioned the hotel we used Google Street View to check it out and this is what it displayed –

For a few moments we forgot the golden rule of developing a tour; “Don’t Trust the Internet”.   Even though it was early 2017, the picture on Google Street View was from 2012.   Here is what the hotel looks like today:

Not to fear because Caroline and Alan hit a homerun when they found this hotel.  The original hotel was demolished and a brand new hotel built in 2015.  The exterior design was styled to be consistent with the style period of the buildings in the neighborhood.  The interior has a more modern look but with a home-like feel.  Besides great accommodations, the staff was exceptional and in our experience that characteristic far outweighs the physical structure.

We had 114 participants with 60 cars on the tour, 21 were first time participants.  As always it was great to meet up with friends from previous tours and get to meet new friends.   We started the tour drive on Saturday morning with bright skies despite rain being in the forecast.   Vermont delivered great scenery as we drove on roads that were meant for Porsches.  

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Our midway stop point was at the Vermont Country Store in Weston, VT.   They are the purveyors of the practical and the hard-to-find.  The store is chock full of long lost products that still work as well today as they did “back in the day!”  We would definitely put it on the list of places to visit if you are in Vermont. 

From there we proceeded to our lunch stop at the Publyk House in Bennington, VT that had a magnificent buffet that was enjoyed by everyone while the rain began to fall.  This restaurant has been in operation for more than 40 years.  

Everyone gathered for our Saturday evening cocktail hour and dinner.  It was a time to converse and catch up with each other while enjoying a fine meal prepared by the hotel.  This is the time when the realization of how the weekend seemed to fly by sets in.  On Sunday morning the skies cleared as we said our goodbyes at breakfast and started on our journey home until we meet at the next tour.

Fall Tour – Crowne Plaza, Warwick, RI

For the Fall Tour we returned to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Warwick RI, we previously used this hotel as a base in 2011.  This hotel is a very active event venue for the local area.  We had 61 participants in 30 cars with 6 being first time tour participants.  The tour on Saturday started under somewhat cloudy weather as we lined up the cars at the hotel.  This tour would take us on some scenic routes through Southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island that Phil drove during his teenage years.  As the tour progressed the skies cleared and it turned into one of those fall days that rank as some of the best weather we have in New England.  The roads might be not as wide open as Vermont or New Hampshire but they did give access to some fantastic ocean vistas that come into view as you turn a corner.  Several people said they would like to return to the area to do some bicycle touring along the coastal roads.

The lunch venue on this tour was the Newport Car Museum.  The private collection of some 70 automobiles at the museum focuses on seven decades of modern industrial automotive design and celebrates cars as works of art. From the 1950s to the present, separate exhibits of Ford/Shelby Cars, Corvettes, World Cars, Fin Cars, Muscle Cars and Chrysler Mopars.   They reflect a time when artists who likely would have been the great sculptors in the Renaissance Age became stylists, designers and industrial engineers for the Big Three American auto manufacturers and leading European companies such as Jaguar, Porsche, Mercedes Benz and BMW, perhaps enjoying more creative freedom than will ever be experienced by their counterparts today.

The museum also has a room with driving simulators that were a big hit with everyone.  A surprise we encountered was that Jay Leno was visiting the museum while we were there.  He chatted with and posed for pictures with our tour members.  

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We enjoyed our Saturday evening cocktail hour and dinner at the hotel.  Another great opportunity to converse about the weekend and life events since the last tour. 

2019 Weekend Tour Plans

As we look back on 2018 we want to thank everyone that attended the tours and look forward to seeing you in 2019.  The 2019 Spring Tour will be based at the Wolfeboro Inn that is located in Wolfeboro, NH. On May 17 – 19^th, 2019. 

The PCA Treffen program will be putting on a Treffen Vermont from September 4-7^th.  Treffen stands for – ‘to meet” and that is the entire concept behind the PCA Treffens: an opportunity for PCA members to meet their fellow Porsche enthusiasts in some of the most spectacular locations around North America.  Treffens provide the opportunity for members to drive some of the best roads in North America and enjoy five-star hospitality at world-class hotels.  This is the first PCA Treffen to be located in the Northeast.

The Treffen North America emphasis is on the social side: meet your PCA friends, but perhaps, more importantly, make new friends who enjoy the same type of exclusive experience that the Treffens provide – spectacular hotels and unique driving opportunities set in locations offering unparalleled scenery and luxury.

Treffen Vermont will be based at one of CVR’s favorite hotels, the Woodstock Inn and will be using all the rooms in the hotel for this event.  PCA National has asked CVR to be one of the regions to develop the tours for the Treffen.  This honor was the result of the many years of successful weekend tours that CVR has been organizing.  The CVR tour team will be working on the Treffen in lieu of the Fall Tour for 2019.  Info on Treffen Vermont should start to be available around the April 2019 time frame.