Annual Havasupai Rallye - 2001 was a success from the start to the finish line!
Friday our group met at Flagstaff's finest, “Little America Hotel”. We want to say a special “thank you” to Stacey Button, Director of Sales and Marketing and the staff at Little America. They made our stay very enjoyable.
Little America is surrounded by beautiful green pine trees and blue skies. Our accommodations were wonderful. The temperature was made for driving at a perfect 80 degrees. Most of the members couldn’t resist the cool temperatures and took the Benz tops down, one by one along the trip.
Our cocktail party, Friday night in the Tiffany Tree Room held lots
of laughs and getting acquainted with old and new members. We snacked
on chicken shishkabobs, Swedish meatballs and an assortment of veggies
while chatting and sipping drinks. Lots of laughs and good times.
Saturday morning we pulled out for the beginning of an exciting day
of timed road rallying across the northern part of Arizona. The rallye
was exactly 148.8 miles. Just enough to get those motors humming
but not enough to get us exhausted. We headed through downtown Flagstaff,
spying clues along the way such as Porky’s Place, Licorice Hill and Where
can you get a caffeine high?...well, I guess you had to be there!
Our first major stop was the Riordan Mansion State Historical Park.
An interesting spot built in 1904
where we were impressed by a reminder of gracious living in a small, territorial
logging town. There we rested, walked, toured a little, enjoyed the
visitor’s center and surrounding scenery and were back on the road.
Driving through the area we hit Walnut Canyon, Wupatki and Sunset Crater,
to mention a few sites. We had lunch at the Camaron Indian Trading
Post, and then went on for an interesting education of American Indian
history spanning 2,000 years to the present at the Wupatki Pueblo.
Saturday night, found us back at Little America for an elegant sit down
dinner in the Western Gold Dining Room in a relaxed atmosphere with our
new and longtime Benz friends. We then had the rewar
ds
of our success... Awards and Prizes...Congratulation to the winners
of this year's rallye. They are loyal members, Chuck and Ava Stanford.
They received a traditional hand-made Kachina doll. Other prizes consisted
of the new section polo shirts and various Mercedes Benz memorabilia.
C’mon out next time and help us give Chuck and Ava a challenge.
After dining most of us adjourned to the cocktail lounge to keep the evening
going with laughs, friends and Mercedes stories.
The Havasupai Rallye each year only gets better. There is always something to see new routes, new clues, challenging and fun. The beauty is always exhilarating.... we will visit it again and again. Plan on joining us next year.
(I would like to say thanks to Dick and Mindy Sharp for helping me organize this weekend. We all had fun, learned our way around Northern Arizona and got an appreciation for the land and our beautiful cars.)
Submitted by
Franc Horvath
Board member and
Rallyemaster