Best Pacific Northwest Drives - The Seattle Legstretcher
As I write winter is winding down in Seattle, and I am reminded that the convertibles have been neglected. An under-appreciated aspect of owning special cars is garage rot. There isn’t much science behind it, but experience tells us that the longer a car sits unused the more things go wrong. So if you have a special-purpose car and its special purpose has not happened lately, try to drive it every couple of weeks, or at least once a month. Of course it is best for the car and you to get out of Dodge and take one of the Best Northwest Drives here, but when you are short on time here is a pleasing two-hour outing:
(Clickable map) Leschi - Mercer Island loop
1) From wherever you start, swing by the Sunday morning Leschi cars and coffee. It starts at 10. If the weather is good go early. It is a very informal, very Northwest, very eclectic turnout of interesting cars and people. This is one of the two hours I mentioned.
2) Get yourself to the I-90 floating bridge, 1.1 miles to Mercer Island. Now the car is warm you can have an Italian tune-up exercising the rev range. There is nowhere to get pulled over on the bridge. I don’t know why I wrote that.
3) Do the Mercer Island loop, either clockwise, exiting at East Mercer Way, or anti-clockwise, exiting at West Mercer Way. I prefer anti-clockwise, on the water side. This is not the place to exercise the rev range. There are a lot of pedestrians and cyclists. I just want you to have a nice drive before going back to the garage.