Travel – Hardway Learning

Hardway Learning Does Crown Rally 6

We had an absolute blast participating in Crown Rally 6. It was our first experience with Crown Rally and it was an absolute blast. It started off downtown Saint Paul with an overcast day and a light drizzle. Over 100 cars took off and headed to towards Iowa with a few checkpoints along the way. It was fun thrashing back roads on our way to Cedar Rapids Iowa.

This day started off great, but half way down we started to notice a loud thud within the car. We pulled over to asses the situation, but without jack stands or a lift we couldn’t determine what the problem was. We had just recently installed a downpipe and midpipe which required us to loosen the subframe as well as remove the prop shaft from the car.

Finally around 5pm we had reached Cedar Rapids and quickly got on the radio to ask around for a jack and jack stands. @therealnomnom was gracious in lending us some tools and a jack to determine what our problem was. It turns out that driving aggressively for the day had allowed our subframe bolts to become loose. There was significant play in the subframe by the time we reached Cedar Rapids and I’m amazed the car didn’t fall apart. “I’ve driven my fair share of broken cars before” Charlie said with confidence.

Here is the re-cap from our first day on the rally!

Germany Day 1

It has been a while since I have written anything on here. Brynn and I just got back from a trip in Germany. We had a rental car and drove from Frankfurt to Munich along the romantic road. After having our fun at Oktoberfest we went to an Audi factory tour in Ingolstadt where we watched robots weld sheet metal together and employees assemble the interiors of RS3 wagons and Q2 SUVs.

We spent a day touring Dachau where nearly 31,000 prisoners were murdered. The sheer size of the camp was shocking, it was the housing for 181,000 inmates over it’s course of operation.

It was then time for us to runaway from the horrid truths of German death camps and visited Neuschwanstein Castle in Fussen. This is the castle that inspired the famous Disney castle. The interior was only 1/3 furnished, but has been frozen in time since it’s original development in 1869. It is built on a hill near the alps with a bright aqua river and lake flowing nearby. It is truly picturesque and was the peak of our trip!

Our last day in Fussen I woke up with a bit of a sore throat and we had about a 5 hour drive ahead of us with a small stop in Lindau near lake Constance as we journeyed towards Baden Baden to experience the roman baths of the black forest! Our 3 hour stay at Caracalla Therme was incredibly rejuvenating as I was trying to run away from my sore throat symptoms.

We wrapped up our trip with a stay in Stuttgart in hopes of touring the Mercedes and Porsche museums, but poor planning lead us to the realization that they are closed on Mondays. Never fear, we had an amazing dinner at a local restaurant near our AirBNB where the waiter could barely speak English, but damnit if he didn’t spend 10 minutes helping us translate the menu!

Our whole experience was captured on footage and can be viewed at your leisure on our YouTube channel. Day 1 is officially released now and I plan on release a day per week!

Day 1 can be viewed here!