BMW Z4 Trip Reports

Okay, so it wasn’t really Sherlock Holmes, and it wasn’t really a castle—but that’s not to say that the owner and dwelling were uninteresting! Read on and decide for yourself, as I continue the saga of my BMW Z4 ride to Cape Cod.

To get from Catonsville, Maryland to Cape Cod, Massachusetts, anyone with any sense flies. Enter Yr Fthfl Srvnt and his trusty BMW Z4 3.0i roadster from the lunatic fringe… Yes, with the prospect of 2 weeks on Cape Cod, I decided to fit in as many Z4 tours as I could. After all, it would be a grand opportunity to explore new sights outside of my usual Mid-Atlantic region!

Let’s face it: Some tours are better than others. This one was spectacular, from start to finish, and it had everything: Historical sites, exceptional scenery, and winding, climbing, and diving roads throughout, with smooth surfaces and minimal traffic. In fact, it would have been perfect but for the fact that Churchville had run out of their famous apple butter. But I’m quibbling already…

After an 11-week layoff from touring, courtesy of a string of 70-hour work weeks, I was anxious to get back out on the road. On April 21, I pointed the impatient Z4 3.0i toward Pennsylvania with a GPS-full of sights to see—but I wasn’t expecting to find either the country’s first roller coaster or New Jersey’s last covered bridge.

For Christmas, the Intrepid Buzz gave me a box of very old maps of the Mid-Atlantic area. The idea was to use them to plan some routes using the older, original roads in the area. As it turned out, this was a pretty good idea. One of the maps, in particular, was a 1956 National Geographic map entitled “Round About the Nation’s Capital (with Descriptive Notes),” and it proved to be a treasure trove.

On a cold, bright, day-after-Christmas, I fired up the trusty Z4 roadster and headed, once again, for that awe-inspiring state of West Virginia. My hopes were high that I would find Rippon, Capon Bridge, Blue Beach, Paw Paw, and all the places I’d planned, and a whole lot more. And in the process, I got to exercise the BMW on a great collection of interesting roads.

Yeah, I know—it sounds like a Hardy Boys book. But the Blackberry one-room schoolhouse was definitely an enigma. I never did find it, and yet I saw it over and over again. Moreover, I ended up driving around a pre-war dirt oval racetrack—strictly by accident, I’m sure…

With a stress fracture in my left foot and strict orders to stay off of it as much as possible, I decided to limit this BMW Z4 tour to just half a day. Carroll County (Maryland) was calling me, and I thought I would see how many mansions I could find in what is practically my own back yard. Despite the abbreviated time, this tour was far more fun than usual.

While I am occasionally prone to exaggerating the things I see on my BMW Z4 journeys, I’m not making this one up. Curious? Read on…