M&I / GBMINI

The big X6 road trip!

Posted on July 2, 2026July 3, 2026 by Ian C.

Margaret and I have now lived in USA for 30 years and to celebrate we’ve just completed a road trip up the east coast visiting both where we lived when we first emigrated and places we went to soon after that event … our northern most point was Lubek in Maine, where we crossed over to Canada (Campobello Island) for a few hours.

While there will be a lot of visit posts on M&I, here are X6-themed photos (including getting a much needed wash again when we returned after 4,662 miles, $800 gas at just about 30mpg for the whole trip!)

30 years: Luray Caverns

Posted on June 16, 2026July 4, 2026 by Ian C.

Margaret and I have now lived in USA for 30 years and to celebrate we’ve just completed a road trip up the east coast; today we re-visited Luray Caverns (which we have been to before, and I suppose it doesn’t really change!)

There’s a maze at Luray Caverns, which I don’t remember being there last time – it was fun and not too hard to navigate, except there was an added challenge of finding hidden words which meant going to “obviously wrong” parts of the maze to find them!

After Luray Caverns we took a detour over to the Skyline Drive, before returning to our hotel for a second night.

30 years: Natural Bridge and Virginia Safari Park

Posted on June 15, 2026July 4, 2026 by Ian C.

Margaret and I have now lived in USA for 30 years and to celebrate we’ve just completed a road trip up the east coast; today we drove to Luray, VA with a first stop at Natural Bridge which is an impressive natural arch carved by water into the rock:

We then visited Virginia Safari Park which is drive-through a bit like Tupelo Buffalo Park although a bit less varied in animals. At one point I called to a distant stag with big antlers and he came over to have food and even stuck his head into the car – that was fun!