A friend of mine, and long time member of the PNWR, left Seattle for the greener pastures of the Methow Valley. He’s a big outdoorsman, adventurer, racer and I love to see the photos he shares while he explores the stunning countryside. Thankfully he shares his experiences by organizing a multi-day Porsche Club overlanding tour.

While we all may think of Porsche as a sports car company, and images of 911s flash through our minds when we think about the brand…the truth is they sell way more SUVs than sports cars. It was the success of the Macan and the Cayenne, once thought of as blasphemy, that actually saved the company. While most Porsche SUVs never venture off-road, it was a blast to grab Gabe and Shep and escape for a few days to explore life off the tarmac.

The trip would have us exploring the beautiful Methow Valley in North-Central Washington for a weekend of playing in the mountains. We spent almost the whole time on gravel or dirt roads. While we didn’t do any serious rock crawling, there was plenty of off-road adventure to challenge the cars, the drivers and test the strength of those low profile tires Porsche likes to stick on even their SUVs. We spent Friday and Saturday nights at Howard’s on the River in Pateros.

I played official photographer duties for the tour which was my penance for bringing a Ford F150…I didn’t have the Cayenne yet! The 944 Safari was my favorite car on the trip, and the driver had some fun drifting a few corners to cheering fans.

Given what has become a very hectic work schedule, constant business travel and what feels like fewer scheduled events, I haven’t been spending as much time at The Shop lately. Maybe I need to make it my work from home office a few days a month! When the PNWR and The Shop join forces to host a Porsche themed Cars & Brunch, I’m not going to miss it!

Eric Jensen is one of the founders of The Shop, and his car collection is incredible. Toping the list is this amazing Porsche Carrera.

Here are some other favorite cars from a great day:

As a lifetime car nut, I’ve always been hoping that my kids would love cars as much as I do. It’s not that I want to subject them to a lifetime of poor financial choices chasing “the next one”, I just find an enormous amount of joy in and around the automobile and want to share that with them. Okay, I really just want to co-opt them into my hobby so I don’t have to choose between family time and car time!

You may have heard that this latest generation of kids doesn’t even want to drive…doesn’t bother to get their license. That wasn’t the case with Gabe. At 14 he started asking me about driving lessons and when he could get his learners. He signed up for driver’s education the second he was eligible. He took the classes seriously and we spent many hours driving together, building up the seat time he needed to qualify. He was on a mission to be a licensed driver!

Secretly, Meg and I were on a mission of our own. I wanted to get Gabe a car that would be safe, reliable and fun. Not too much fun…but fun. After a lot of searching, I settled on a new 2023 Mazda 3 hatchback with the 2.5L Turbo engine. It had all the safety features but is also a drivers car at the same time. I had to buy the car in advance of his birthday, but I worked out a plan with The Shop, the car club I belong to. They agreed to store the car, and on his 16th birthday, we would go to the onsite restaurant, Derby, for brunch. We go there pretty often, so it wouldn’t give too much away. The Shop had Gabe’s car waiting for us in the lobby and the rest is history. Huge surprise, he was blown away.

One of the first things we did after Gabe got his car, was to attend a Porsche Club Drivers Education day. You get to learn about car control, understand how ABS works, feel your car at the limits of grip in a safe environment, and generally have an awesome time! Gabe did a fantastic job and had no problems keeping up with me in the Spyder!

Considering that I’ve been a Porsche fan since I was a pre-teen, and I’ve owned Porsches over the last 30+ years, you would think that I would know every Porsche related group and event in existance. I must be living under a rock, because until a few years ago, I had never heard of Luftgekühlt. Luftgekühlt is a German word, meaning Air Cooled, a reference to the original Porsche 911 engines up to 1998 that were air/oil cooled and didn’t have radiators or water cooling.

The Luftgekühlt brand is the creation of two-time Le Mans winner Patrick Long and creative director Howie Idelson. They held their first event in 2014 and have managed to hold on to the original mission of creating highly curated events where the incredible cars are only matched by the creative staging. They are a photographers dream, and Luft has now become my entire personality and half my wardrobe 🙂

Luft 9 was held on Mare Island, the oldest Naval base on the west coast and about 25 miles from San Francisco. Day 1 was dedicated to air-cooled Porsches of all models, shapes and sizes, and day 2 featured both air and water cooled cars. The twisted, rusty backdrop of an old military base was the perfect contrast to these beautiful machines.

I absconded with both Gabe and Shep for a weekend of cars. We flew to San Francisco, stayed at a nearby hotel, and enjoyed the Luft event, the hotel pool and some late night snack runs!

What is an automotive nerd to do when their family takes a vacation in LA? The Hollywood Sign…Disneyland…Walk of Fame…I think not! When it came time for me to pick the day’s activity, I took us straight to the Peterson Museum! A good friend of mine, Dan, works with the museum from time to time, and has always spoken so highly of the collection. It didn’t disappoint. On the day we went the museum had a ton of special exhibits. The Tesla room was a huge hit and we met our future overlords, the Tesla robot. James Hetfield had a collection of hot rods, there was a 24K gold Delorean, the first Ferrari, a ton of famous movie cars, a Porsche art exhibit by Daniel Arsha, an F1 exhibit, not to mention all of the incredibly rare cars in throughout the museum. It is worth a special trip to LA just for the experience.

Shep and I joined some PNWR friends in a lovely mix of Porsches to explore some beautiful roads in the Pacific Northwest. I would describe more, but this happened so long ago that I’ve forgotten the details 🙂

If you’ve spent any time on this blog, you know how much I love really long drives. Organized tours, spontaneous road trips, late night cruising through the city…the longer the better. Nothing is better to me than when Meg, the boys, or a good friend want to come along for the ride.

The PNWR plans great day tours, but nothing compares to their multi-day adventures. When I saw they had planned a three day tour to Sun Mountain Lodge, I signed up and booked the resort. Then I told Meg about it, and she was down to be my plus-one…game on.

On Friday, we started the tour with a beautiful drive over the North Cascades Highway with stops at Diablo Lake and Washington Pass Overlook to stretch our legs and admire the scenery. On Friday evening we explored the town of Winthrop, and had a great dinner at the Sun Mountain Lidge restaurant.

On Saturday, Meg decided to stick around the lodge, we had our own cabin by the lake, while I joined some folks from the Inland Northwest Region on an epic day or twisty roads. It was honestly one of the best days of driving that I can remember. For the most part we had the roads to ourselves. Saturday night was a fun group dinner and then we took the long way home on Sunday to enjoy as many great driving roads as we could find.

Today was the All Porsche Grand Display Concurs event held annually in Kirkland, Washington. I wasn’t able to make it this year, but it reminded me that I never posted photos from the past two years. My first time attending, I entered my 718 Spyder and I won my category! The next year, I couldn’t show my car due to some other commitments, but I was able to swing by with the boys to see all of the amazing Porsche cars on display…shined up and looking their best. The PNWR club puts on one hell of a show: