[madman23]

Me and my wife went to the food and wine festival as part of our honeymoon and it is definitely worth every penny. I would say the best dinner and a show HAS to be the Ragland Road, although if you have young kids I would go to the dinosaur restaurant called T-Rex. If you are just looking for great drinks and food, there is a little hidden gem under a bridge that is an AMAZING Italian restaurant called Enzo's Hideaway.

Looking forward to seeing more of the trip. I think I may make a thread about our 2 week Journey to Disney in the X3. (first road trip with 2 kids under 2.5)

[Wild Blue]

Day 21:
Orlando, Florida, BMW of Macon, Georgia, to Atlanta, Georgia
Total Miles: 1301

And finally, we're back on the road again in the X5, continuing the road trip.

When's the last time you put your destination into your BMW, and had to zoom out to look at the entire planet, to see your whole route?

Lol. That's what I saw when putting Alaska in, from Orlando. And that's even after having been on the road for 40 miles or so this morning.

The crazy thing is, I'm not even taking that direct route back to Alaska, much less add in the additional driving I did to take the old car down to Oklahoma City before PCD.

See the original post #1 in this thread, if you didn't see the entire trip routing yet.





The next few days will have a higher amount of highway driving, as I gradually make my way to Colorado Springs for my Air Force Academy reunion. Start it off with I-75 from Orlando.











First stop, BMW of Macon, Georgia. I had planned it out, to reach BMW of Macon right about 1200 miles, on my way to Atlanta, and pulled in the lot with 1204 on the odometer. Perfect.

I realize this is controversial to some. But I buy and keep my cars long-term. And so, I'm very deliberate and go over the top in breaking them in, and caring extra for my cars up front, which does seem to pay off in the long term with reliability.

I subscribe to the axiom, "take care of your cars, and they will take care of you".

As such, I planned on doing a supplemental oil change at 1200 miles, at the end of the break-in period. M cars (which I fully acknowledge my X5 is NOT) change the oil, filter, and rear differential fluid at 1200 miles. The BMW owners manual talks about a break-in period of 1200 miles.

Because this is an EXTRA oil change I want to do, not on the scheduled service, I have to pay for this one out of pocket. I'm willing to do this, to ensure my X5 is properly broken in and cared for.

... and so I pulled into BMW of Macon. But... hang on...








What is this? The entire dealership is under complete reconstruction. Both sales and service. I didn't expect this.








BMW of Macon is fully open for business, though, both sales and service. So I pulled in, and met the service team, who were also a little puzzled as to why I wanted to do an extra oil change.





The temporary customer waiting area during construction was a single-wide trailer, basic but clean. I sat and ate a lunch of yummy leftovers from the past couple days' meals.





I just had to peek in and get an "in-process action shot" of the work being done.





In no time at all, the service was done, with complimentary car wash.

Because this time I did not have Extreme Colors ceramic coat the car from the factory, it was okay to have the car washed with a minimal 48 hour wait period. Everything looked great, and I was back on the road.

With the break-in period now behind me, I was able to use higher highway speeds, and cruise control. Ah... much better.





Again. This guy. This guy is found all over the world. He gets on the highway, moves straight to the far left passing lane, no matter how many lanes or how much traffic there is, and just sits there.

Who is he passing?

That's right.

NOBODY.

It's great for him. He passes everybody going slower than him, that's doing what they're supposed to be doing, and driving in the right lanes. He makes everybody behind him go around him, and he doesn't want to move.

And so, THIS GUY causes traffic and back-ups, and pisses everybody else off, because he's selfish and doesn't care about anybody else.

Sigh.





Getting to Atlanta, I got close to rush hour, and hit a decent amount of traffic.





Seeing the Atlanta skyline as I get closer to downtown.





And checking in to the Hyatt Regency in downtown Atlanta.








Quite the nice hotel inside. Being a higher-end Regency Hyatt property, I was able to get an upgrade through my Hyatt loyalty status, and got an executive suite.




















I'm a big Hard Rock Cafe fan, and the last I checked my list, I've been to 226 Hard Rock properties all around the world. It's not about the food, it's the ambience and the global locations, which are almost always built in nice travel destinations.

I often get asked what my favorite Hard Rock is, which has multiple answers.

Atlanta has long been my favorite for one specific menu item. Hard Rock had this tradition, where every location got to invent their own hamburger type, toppings and all. For whatever reason, Atlanta had the best "Local Legendary Burger" of any HRC I've been to.

I was looking forward to trying it again... but alas, it's no more! The waitress said it used to be a "peach burger", but they don't have it anymore. Sad.





Instead, I got another HRC favorite of mine, the chicken twisted mac n' cheese. Sadly, though, this too was just so-so.

Oh well, not the end of the world. Been a long day of driving, time to relax back in the room after this dinner and do some journaling!





Nice night time view of downtown from the hotel suite.

Some barbecue lessons and fun tomorrow!

[Wild Blue]

Day 22:
Atlanta, Georgia, to Louisville, Kentucky
Total Miles: 1712

Have a really neat BBQ meet-up planned today. (meat-up?). Will have to get through another day of highway travel to get to it, first, though.








Lovely breakfast at the Hyatt Regency to start the day. I thought this honey station was pretty cool, dripping honey from honeycomb.





Got her back from the valet in the underground parking garage. She's ready to hit the road!

I got a good use out of the MyBMW app. After I dropped her off at the valet the night prior, I checked the vehicle status. It showed unlocked, and even a door open. I talked to the valet and asked them to secure my vehicle, particularly as I had left some personal effects in there, including my light sabers.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, I checked again, and saw the "All Good" on my app. Yay!





Steadily working my way out of Atlanta, I got on I-75 north to Chattanooga, Tennessee





Fascinating old commercial building past the outskirts of town.




















Just past Chattanooga, the highway gets real pretty and interesting, dipping back down into Georgia briefly, too.

Thick forests, trees that are just barely starting to change color here at the very end of summer. Some windy and steep climbs through low mountains.





And then the turn onto the last highway to Louisville.

Hey, we're also going to Clarksville. You know, if you take the last train to Clarksville, I'll meet you at the station.








And then this is the fun part of the day. I've been getting more into BBQ the last few years, really trying to learn, and up my game.

One guy that has helped greatly is Jeremy Yoder, a somewhat guru in the BBQ world. Jeremy runs his own BBQ Youtube channel, where he expirements with all sorts of different meats, equipment, and techniques, doing various taste tests. I've also joined his Patreon barbecue group.

When I planned out my road trip, I saw that I could bend this portion of my route northeast a bit more, to go through Louisville, so I could meet Jeremy and do some barbecue fun. I'm always looking to learn from the best.

Scott, another of the Patreon group in the local area, joined us as well.

Jeremy had us meet in a church parking lot, where one of his massive custom grills is parked. This beast is an 1100 gallon wood burning offset smoker, a type of grill that is used by the best experts to get yummy, smokey flavored meats.





Today, Jeremy was cooking a variety of lamb and pork ribs in a comparison expirement. Foil on the left. He also indulged a request of mine, and was cooking a brisket on the right. My personal favorite.

The chunk of wood you see on the right, is being used as a heat shield, so the direct heat from the wood burn box on the end doesn't smack straight into the meats, and gets smoothed out.





Jeremy really emphasizes the importance of fire management. Proper wood placement, coal stirring, etc. Controls the temperatures in the grill, along with generating the proper smoke to flavor the meat.

Today, we used hickory wood.











When ready, Jeremy pulled the ribs off, and sliced them up, getting shots for his Youtube channel. They were delicious.

There were 7 groups of different ribs. Jeremy had put the same rub onto each of three pairs of lamb and pork ribs, and then a bonus seventh rib rub. So we got to taste with a direct A-B comparison, how each rub tasted, complimenting the pork or lamb. And also how the lamb ribs compared to the pork ribs.

No sauce on these ribs, we were comparing meats and rubs.

I'm not a sweet-type guy, but for me, the sweeter rub complimented the lamb ribs best. On pork, I like the richer savory flavor.





After that, we used a Thermapen to periodically judge how the brisket was coming along. Even more important than the temperature reading, using the Thermapen as a probe allows you to feel you tender the meat and intramuscular fat is getting.





Properly smoking a brisket takes 12-18 hours, followed by 12-24 hours of resting. It's not a quick and easy project, by any means.

Jeremy had been cooking all day, before I even got there. It was really, really, helpful for him to show me exactly what he's looking for as far as when to wrap, and when to pull the brisket off the grill.

But because I unfortunately didn't have the ability to stay even further into the night, or come back the next day after properly resting the brisket, we had to modify the process, which of course was sub-optimal.

So we cut into the brisket that night, seeing how the process modification had affected the brisket, and how it could have been improved. Especially with a proper rest before slicing.

But dang... the flavor was on point. On this one, Jeremy just did the basic salt and pepper rub. No additions, no tallow. Still just oh-so-rich.





Got to my Hyatt House fairly late at night.














Slightly different arrangement of this Hyatt House. Nice getup!

Tomorrow, we make a big left turn. Go West, young man, go West!

[Wild Blue]

Day 23:
Louisville, Kentucky, to St. Louis, Missouri, to Kansas City, Missouri
Total Miles: 2,230


Big turn west today, headed to the central plains, followed by the Rocky Mountains.





Quick easy breakfast on the way out the door of the Hyatt, and I was on the road mid morning.





Louisville is an interesting city, with interesting culture.

First, residents laugh at how the rest of us pronounce "Louisville". Several possible pronounciations. To locals, it's said with a bit of what sounds like a southern accent, and kind of in the back of the throat. Like, LOO-UH-VUL.

Big river borders the north side of downtown, with several bridges.





I helped host a non-profit banquet at the Muhammad Ali Center once. Interesting place, about a quite interesting man. I disagreed with him on many things, but I have great respect for his power and accomplishments. The Center has many displays and stories about his life.





And we're off to St. Louis!





One thing I wanted to point out, in my two cars with iDrive 7, including this X5, it seems that "automatic time setting" doesn't automatically change the time when you change time zones. The way, for example, that cell phones do.

I'm getting to the point of the trip where I'm changing time zones every couple days, and it seems I have to manually go in and adjust each time. Even if it is just to get into the time settings, uncheck the automatic box, then recheck it again to change.

Anybody found something, where I'm doing it wrong?





The landscape gradually starts to flatten out, on the way to St. Louis





Getting close to St. Louis, still in Illinois, this sight was of personal interest to me. When I was a baby, my father was stationed at Scott Air Force Base, and we lived in O'Fallon, Illinois. I don't remember any of it, though.





Crossing over the "Mighty Mississippi River", you get a good view of the St. Louis arch.

The Mississippi is a significant geographic dividing line in the USA. Because the Anglo-Saxon part of US history settled on the east coast, and gradually moved west, there's still a mindset, especially among eastern USA residents, that anything west of them is "Western USA". So even though the Mississippi is FAR east of running down the middle of the USA, it's still considered a dividing line.

See the road trip map at the beginning of this post for reference. You'll notice I'm still on the eastern half of the USA.

One example of this strange eastern mindset: The American "Midwest", really isn't. It's still on the eastern side of the US, and if named appropriately, would probably be the "Mideast". Another example: All TV and radio station identification call signs start with "W" on the east side of the Mississippi. They all start with "K" on the west side.

Fun facts.





The Mississippi also denotes the crossing from Illinois to Missouri, and the entrance into the city of St. Louis





There it is, the St. Louis Arch, known as the "Gateway to the West".








In select locations across the Midwest, there are some very, very good barbecue joints. Some are very well known.

I've previously spent some time in St. Louis, where there are a few, so I had to do BBQ for lunch. This time, I chose to go back to Sugarfire. They have a couple locations around St. Louis, and I went to one I hadn't been to before, downtown by the arch.





That's brisket and ribs, with sides of coleslaw and baked beans. Not as good as I remember it being previously, but still tasty.

That craft root beer was great.





I'm constantly on the hunt for barbecue sauces that I like. I find many to be okay, but many are sweet, and I definitely prefer the savory taste.

Most of Sugarfire's sauces are good, but this one white sauce they have is different from anything I've found anywhere else, and really great. I got a tub to go. Let's see if I can make it back to Alaska, refrigerated in my car and hotel rooms.





Back on the road from St. Louis, I'll be on I-70 for the next day and a half.

Having driven all over the country, if I'm honest, this is one of the more boring portions of highway in the USA, until you get to Denver.





A lot of this part of the drive just looks like this. Straight highway, farm fields edged by a bit of greenery. I'll talk about other stuff instead of just the view from the car.





My mom lives in Kansas City, so I met up with her for the night. I also took her out to dinner for her birthday. Asking where she wanted to go, she knows I also like barbecue, so she chose the popular "Q39" restaurant. Kansas City is also know for its BBQ joints, and this is one of them.





Brisket was average. Burnt ends were good. The sausage was excellent, as were the baked beans.

After 2 consecutive days of barbecue, I'll be taking a break, and giving my pallet a rest for a bit!

Tomorrow, we're off to Colorado and the Rocky Mountains!

[Wild Blue]

Days 24-26 PART 1:
Kansas City, Missouri, to US Air Force Academy, Colorado and Pikes Peak
Total Miles: 2,973


I attended the US Air Force Academy for college, and have a reunion this weekend. So that's another thing that I worked into this road trip plan routing.

To be honest, the drive from Kansas City to the Denver/Colorado Springs area is pretty brutal. It's 587 miles, taking 9.5 hours or so, between those major cities. You either do the whole thing at once, or break it up into two very short driving days, with really nothing to see or do inbetween to round out the journey.

It's also a quite boring drive. Straight highways, very flat terrain. The only elevation change is so gradual as you rise towards Colorado, that you're not even aware of it.

Being that I needed to get to my reunion, I chose to do it all in 1 day. Since the drive isn't very significant, and that you probably don't want to see some of the activities of old fart alumni standing around talking about the "good" old days, I'll combine these three days into JUST one or two posts.

That will also give me a chance to finally catch up to real time posting on the trip!





Said goodbyes to mom in the morning, and back onto I-70 toward Colorado!





This was the sight of a lot of the drive, straight, flat, and lots of farm fields





Hey, I'm helping bring Santa Claus to the west, bringing fun BMW's to all the good girls and boys. Who wants one?





And I think I took a secret spy shot of the wheels being transported for the upcoming BMW X9 Monster Truck.

You should have seen the huge front grill for the X9 on the next truck. Didn't get a picture of it. But boy, was that a WIDE LOAD.





Passed Ft. Riley, Kansas on the way. I guess I didn't get a good shot including the unit patch just to the right of "Riley" on the watertower there. The "Big Red 1" has a storied history in the US military, especially in World War II, fighting in the European theater. Worth a study.





A little gee whiz, I think this is where I crossed my path, of the first part of this trip when I took the old car south to Oklahoma City. So this is the first of what will be a few driving-in-circle route crossings.





It started to get pretty rainy, with the clouds coming down. The rain wasn't steady, though, with the intensity getting stronger and softer.

I just love BMW's rain sensitive wipers, for this exact scenario. You encounter that a LOT in the Pacific Northwest. It's not quite enough rain for steady low wipers. But if you try and choose an interval speed, you're constantly chasing the right speed, as the rain gets heavier and lighter.

Love this feature. Automatic. Just engage (or leave it always engaged), and let it take care of itself.





Once again...











A little ways into Colorado, the weather started getting pretty bad. Cloud ceilings dropped to about 100 feet overcast, where you couldn't see any parts of windmills in the fields, beyond just the bottom stump. Visibility maybe 500-1000 feet.

The thing is, this is the part of the drive westbound, where you normally start seeing the Rocky Mountains. Where Zebulon Pike and others saw the high mountains of Colorado when journeying west, only to find out they were still 100 or more miles away.

This is where the "Purple Mountain Majesty" comes in, from "America the Beautiful".

But not today. To quote Lloyd and Harry...





It was like that, to varying degrees, all the way to Colorado Springs. No seeing mountains today.





Very strange weather for this time of year. I grew up here, and Colorado has some quite variable weather, but this is still strange.





Just passing by Denver, the "Mile High City". True to its name in elevation!

(and other meanings, now that marijuana is legal in Colorado).














Reaching Colorado Spring, I crashed in Hyatt Place Garden of the Gods for the night. Pretty standard Hyatt Place room.





Ta-DA!!!!!!! Next morning, woke up to clear blue skies.

THERE's the mountains! Pikes Peak is actually just behind the jet.

This is "Thunderbird Overlook", as I entered the Air Force Academy the next morning, for my reunion. The Thunderbirds are the USAF demonstration jet team, performing some great shows. This aircraft is a T-38, which the Thunderbird team used back in their history, before the current F-16's they use.





The cadet area of the AF Academy was built in the late 1950's, designed to look very modern, with lots of glass and aluminum.





This is the terrazzo, the open area in the middle of the cadet area, where cadets transition from one place to another. Cadets have different uniforms they are prescribed to wear on different days. Today, they were in flight suits.

The cadets you see on the right side, running along the wall, are freshmen. Freshman life is designed to be VERY hard. They're only allowed to use the white marble strips around the far edges of the terrazzo, and except for snowy/rainy days, have to run every time they're travelling outside.

Here's the sucky part of this nice picture. That big white box? That's the cadet chapel. It's the most beautiful part of the whole AF Academy, and is the #1 tourist attraction for the whole state of Colorado. Unfortunately, it's also being entirely overhauled, top to bottom, so it's encased in that sarcophagus for the next few years while it's rebuilt.

Here's what it normally looks like:











Just stunning. (not my pictures)





A memorial wall at the base of the flagpole.





The Air Gardens, on the edge of the terrazzo by the academic building. One tradition is, after passing your very last final exam, of your last class, you go running out and jump in one of the pools.

Like many college students, Academy cadets are quite silly and come up with all sorts of goofy things to do, to blow off stress.





Here, you see half of the cadet wing lining up on the left side of the picture, by one of the dorms, for Noon Meal Formation. Happens every day, the entire Wing marching to lunch with their squadrons.

On the right, just behind the F-4 Phantom, is the small "spirit hill", occasionally mob rushed by cadets breaking formation ranks to "take the hill".

The cadet dining hall feeds all 4,400+ cadets in the wing at the same time. (and other guests like me and the other old farts)





This is an interesting sight at meals. The cadet standing at attention there on the left side, holding a little red book up in front of his face, is a freshman.

Freshmen, also known as "4 Degrees", "Smacks", or other fun names, are always at attention outside of their rooms or classrooms. Before the meal, they pour drinks for the table. Whenever they run out of things to do, they are supposed to pull out and study their "Contrails" knowledge book, which they always have on them, and are supposed to have memorized, full of various military facts and quotes and such. Upperclassmen will regularly quiz them.

The meal starts with the entire wing at attention and the day's announcements, before taking seats. Today there was extra talk, partially for us alumni, back for various reunions.





Although the Academy is returning to somewhat normal ops, stuff like the table settings and the food itself is still somewhat impacted by it.





Cadet dorms are arranged by squadron, usually 2 to a room, and 100 in a squadron.





Somewhat typical cadet dorm room. They'll clean them up extra spiffy for inspections.





Ah, memories of those showers, especially after trecking through the woods, or diving in the mud, in training.





Wandered the cadet area after lunch, revisiting my old stomping grounds, dragging up memories. Some good, some repressed. Four years at the Academy is really, really rough.

This was named the "Bring Me Men" ramp, and had the beginning of a poem on it. Cadets march up the ramp at the beginning of their 4 years, to the terrazzo, and march down it for parades and such. For gender sensitivity, it has been renamed the Air Force "Core Values" ramp, with the values you see there.





This is a significant room. Note the Cadet Honor Code there on the wall. "We will not lie, steal, or cheat, nor tolerate among us anyone who does." Cadets live by this, and if accused of violating this code, sit at the table with a "jury" of their peers, who determine whether they are in violation. Taken very seriously.





In this part of the social hall, is held one of the most significant events of a cadet's 4 years, the Ring Dance. At the end of their junior year, cadets receive their class rings, which they wear as seniors, and keep their whole lives. The USAFA class ring is very special. The event is formal for cadets and their dates, in full tuxedo mess dress.

In the back of the room there, you can see a giant ring, used for pictures at the ball.





I also toured the academic building, and asked to see this room specifically.

This is what's known as an "anechoic chamber", constructed to absorb energy. A true anechoic chamber for sound, while theoretical, would absorb every sound emitted in the room, and you would not be able to hear anything.

I've been in a chamber before, and it's FREAKY. It's deader than quiet. So quiet, you can hear your own heartbeat in your ears. It's psychologically very uncomfortable, and you feel compelled to talk, scream, shout, clap your hands, ANYTHING to make noise. Even then, you only hear directly transmitted sound, like the soundwaves of your vocal cords vibrating through your neck and into your eardrums. There are no sound reflections from anything. We humans are used to always having some sort of background noise around us.

This particular anechoic chamber wasn't built for sound, though, it was designed for radio emissions. So engineers can test radio antennas and other objects, for how they emit and/or reflect radio energy, without interference from energy reflections off the walls, ceilings, floors, or other objects.

All USAFA cadets, regardless of their eventual major, take a robust level of various engineering courses, preparing them for technical Air Force (and now Space Force) careers.

I'll break off this post here, and post part 2 of the USAF Academy and Colorado Springs area next.

[X519]

Awesome journey

[kkratochvil]

Idrive 7 and time zone changes always work the same for me…I've let them go a long time to see if it updates automatically, but it never does. I typically just uncheck the box, wait at least 30 seconds and then check it again. Timezone then updates.

Love the journey! Enjoying the first day from Colorado Springs. I was just there about 3 months ago for the Pike's Peak International Hill Climb and spent about a week up and down the front range. So, bringing back some recent memories and a great time with my wife and son!

And when this is done, I'm going to have to mine the thread for all of the barbecue joints. My wife loves barbecue and I'm confident you've narrowed it down to many of the best!

Thanks for your service in the USAF!

[lknbimmers]

Thank you for taking us on Round 2 of your PCD delivery to Alaska trek!

[snowbimmer]

Wow, Wild Blue. Just gonna miss you. I'm swinging by the Air Force Academy on Tues.

You trip looks awesome. And long.

[Wild Blue]

Much thanks to you guys. I appreciate the thread participation!

[Wild Blue]

Days 24-26 PART 2:
US Air Force Academy, Colorado, Garden of the Gods, and Pikes Peak
Total Miles: 2,973

I decided to take advantage of the available morning, and BEAUTIFUL clear blue Colorado skies, to do some sightseeing.





Just down the road from my hotel, is Garden of the Gods.

The Front Range of Colorado has some simply amazing red rock formations. A clump of these formations, on the edge of Colorado Springs, is called Garden of the Gods.

These Colorado red rock formations are very reminiscent of the famous (and naturally occurring) outdoor Red Rocks Ampitheater, outside of Denver.





(not my photo). I've been fortunate to have watched several concerts at Red Rocks, growing up.





Back to Garden of the Gods.














Then I was off to Pikes Peak. Lots of steep mountain twists and turns, both enroute, and climbing the mountain itself. Lots of fun driving, carving up the curves.

The 40i engine proved plenty powerful, even at very high Colorado mountain altitudes and steep inclines. I've long maintained that the 40i has plenty of power. The M50i has over the top power, and the X5M, XB7, and new M60i have just "holy crap" power. (my X7 is an M50i) Today proved that again to me.








You have to make a timed reservation now, to drive up Pikes Peak. Looks like lots of people didn't do their homework, lol





Bigfoot? Um... okay.

(look on the right side of the picture)





We're officially in fall now! Mountain drives in Colorado are amazing this time of year, with the Aspen and other deciduous tree leaves changing, while the evergreen trees stay green. Lots of beautiful colors.











The climb drive is no joke, and gets pretty hairy at times.





Okay, I'm officially a fat, lazy slob. I climbed a couple Colorado "Fourteeners" (mountains over 14,000 feet) when I was a kid. Here this guy is, riding his bike up, while others hike up. And the only way my old gimpy butt will summit any more Fourteeners will be like this, driving my luxury BMW SUV up a mountain, plush seating and air conditioning, sipping my water, and listening to satellite radio.














Each of those panoramas is a different view, taken in a different direction from the summit. May be worth a zoomed look.

It was an absolutely perfect day for sightseeing. Nice and mild temperatures at the peak. Clear, blue skies, no clouds interfering with visibility or pictures. Only a light breeze, not too windy. Couldn't have ordered it any better.

This is totally my thing. Mountains, beautiful, expansive, peaceful scenery.





You can also take a cool cable car up to the top.





So... those hairy drive pics I just shared above, with hairpin turns and such? Yeah. They run RALLY RACES up the mountain, on the same roads.

Hell noooooo.... I'll watch such an exciting thing, but no way will I drive a race like that. Just begging to go sliding off a cliff to your death.











A discussion on the altitude. It's a real issue.

We pilots are prohibited from flying airplanes above 10,000 feet, unless the cabin is pressurized, and/or everybody is on oxygen masks. Pikes Peak is 14,115 feet.

After spending some time above 10,000' altitude, you can start to get hypoxic, where your body (and particularly brain) starts lacking sufficient oxygen. Pilots train in altitude chambers, to identify their personal hypoxia symptoms, and practice taking proper corrective actions. After spending some time on the peak today, I starting noticing very mild symptoms, including the increased heart rate, as your heart tries to push oxygen through your body. It's a real thing.























Took several pictures on the way down.

Rather rough climbing out of this offroad area. The X5 handled it like a champ. Have had lots of practice on the BMW Performance Center offroad course!





What I'm trying to show in this pic, is using manual control of low gears, for control speed during the steep descents. I engaged Sport Plus mode, to put the visual tachometer in the Heads Up Display. Then bumped the shifter to the left, and used the steering wheel shifter paddles for manual gear control.

A lot of 2nd gear on the way down. I'm very glad my engine's fully broken in. Got the full range of RPM's today, and a full engine workout!





Halfway down the mountain, there's a checkpoint, where a ranger shoots your brakes with an IR heat gun. If you're over 300 degrees F, they request that you wait at the visitors center there for a half hour before continuing down.

Happened to the person in front of me. They were from California--Colorado seems to get a lot of people like that, fleeing California and other states to Colorado, but don't know how to drive mountains or especially snow in wintertime, and get in trouble.

Me? 86 F! Woot! That's using low gearing, and good new X5 brakes. Got an "attaboy" from the ranger, and continued on.

"Hot Brakes" are a very important and dangerous topic for pilots. Especially when you're trying to stop a 600,000 lb airplane after landing, and you have relatively small brakes on your wheels. (planes have other stopping devices like jet engine thrust reversers too)

Pilots know that getting hot brakes can greatly impair, or even completely negate, the brakes' effectiveness to stop the car, or airplane. After a while, as the temperature rises, the brakes just turn into goo, and don't work as designed.

Equally dangerous, hot brakes can literally catch on fire, melting wheels, blowing tires, and catching the entire vehicle on fire. It's no joke.








When I brought up the energy flow page during descent, got a lot of these looks, since the 40i is a mild hybrid engine now.





Just one thing I wanted to point out. With the big messy rain, driving from Kansas to Colorado, and a little dirt and offroad driving today, I got to see how functional the mudflap additions are proving to be.

And... they are, very much! Again, since BMW doesn't make OEM mud flaps, these are cheap China products from Amazon. The fit isn't perfect, but they look good, and are working well so far.

You can see in this picture, the mud/dirt spray that this front mud flap has taken, and that the body behind the mud flap has been spared from a lot of spray.

I like it. They're staying on for now.





Driving back in the Air Force Academy, I stopped by the Academy cemetary. My dad was also an Academy graduate, and is buried there, so it was nice to visit.








Okay, it's time for some football!!! (American type, for the rest-of-the-worlders here)

Air Force is playing Nevada tonight.





Of course, every football game needs to start with a tailgate. My reunion put on one for us alumns.





More barbecue? Lol. Of course. This one catered by Famous Daves. Ended up being mass produced catering quality. Still not bad, considering.





Fencing matches before a football game? Okay, why not?





One cool thing about the AF Academy, is we get some cool aircraft flybys, from our own stuff.

Here, a glider flown by the cadet soaring team does a flyby overhead, before the game, with wingtip smoke.





Part of the cadet wing always marches onto the field, before the National Anthem, then scattering to take the stands.

Oh, what do I see? A C-17 Globemaster III, on approach to do a REAL pre-game flyby!





Another tradition, every time we score a touchdown, cadets do pushups equal to the current score. Keep scoring, more pushups. High scoring game today, so cadets did hundreds of them.





Yayyyyy, we won. Pretty decent game, too.

This is another very, very special tradition at the Academy. When one of our own passes away, we sing the 3rd verse of the Air Force song. It's sung quietly, in a whisper, in reverence.

Please excuse my cracking voice during the vid. It's a very emotional thing. I sung it at my father's funeral.

Win or lose, at the end of every game, we gather and sing the 3rd verse as well. Notice everybody, still and quiet at attention, the whole stadium quietly singing in reverence.

Very special.

Okay, tomorrow, we move on with more sighseeing as we resume the road trip!

[Wild Blue]

Day 27:
US Air Force Academy, Colorado, to Royal Gorge, Great Sand Dunes National Park, and Taos, New Mexico
Total Miles: 3,326

Okay, we're just over halfway through the road trip.

There's been some awesome stuff, but some of the best is yet to come. Especially the last third of the trip, I'll be hitting very scenic national parks, left and right. If the weather cooperates, I hope to be seeing a lot more beautiful, very scenic stuff.

You all enjoying this so far? I'm having fun.





Leaving Colorado Springs. That mountain on the far left is Cheyenne Mountain, where the North American Air Defense (NORAD) is based, in a bunker deep inside the mountain.

Anyone remember the 1980's movie "War Games" that took place inside NORAD?





Good Morning, Professor Falken. Shall we play a game?

I grew up in Colorado, not too far from Colorado Springs. Growing up in the 1980's, with the Cold War, we were pretty sure that NORAD was a juicy target for Soviet Union nuclear missiles. If true "Global Thermonuclear War" ever kicked off, we were pretty sure we'd be gone in the first few minutes, as NORAD would be bombarded.





The next event I have scheduled to be to, is in Dallas, Texas next weekend. So I'm going to take some leisurely time over the next several days, wandering through the mountains as I make my way to Dallas. Gonna take routes I haven't been on before.

To start, I'm heading west from Colorado Springs to see more of the beautiful Colorado foliage, as the leaves turn colors.

As before, my route takes me by Pikes Peak again. And more fun mountain canyon carving.





More fall foliage




Taking a lot of back roads through the high Colorado mountains. Scenic route on this one.

This is part of what a road trip should be.





Cool old time classic mountain homestead, the way the settlers would have built.





To note, I miss the old "red/blue" temp wheels on the BMW dash. Today proved why.

Once I got into the mountains and turned south, I had the sun directly in front of me. High altitude, there's less atmosphere to slow down radiation, so the sun shining through the dash can make your upper body toasty.

The red/blue temp balance function is now buried in about 5 levels of iDrive menus. And this is iDrive 7. I'm guessing, since iDrive 8 removes even MORE physical buttons, this function is buried even further.

So, once accessing it, I adjusted it to blow colder air up top on my torso, than it was blowing on my lower body, to compensate for the extra sun. Note, though, that the screen also is not exactly explicit on WHICH temperature you're adjusting. It can be confusing, trying to figure out, are you adjusting the 68 degree temperature? The dash temps? Floor?

Also note, that because it's buried 5 or so levels deep, if later in the drive I don't have the same sun, or tomorrow there's different weather, I have to consciously remember to re-adjust, then dig into the levels to put this back.

Just a little frustration.

And yes... I realize the sunlight right there is highlighting all the dust on my screen. Time to do a little car cleaning when I get a chance!





Getting closer to the Royal Gorge location





And there it is! Oh my gosh, is it magnificent. Just massive, and you don't know it's there, until you actually reach it.

I always wonder about special places like this. Who the first person was, way back when, to stumble across this. Like, you're just on a hike or trek through the mountains, and suddenly come across this massive gorge. Nobody else around. You're the first person to find this.





Best to take the cable car across, and then walk downhill to the bridge, to walk back.





Just breathtaking views from the cable car.





... or you can just zipline back, lol.





Goats part of the stuff on the far side.





This is an old school bridge across the gorge. Wooden planks, that you can see through the gaps, all the way down.

I had researched whether I could drive my X5 onto the bridge for a photo. But they only allow certain car clubs to drive the bridge anymore, for special occasions.

Oh well. That would have been cool, though.








Views from the middle of the bridge, off each side. Note the train running along the river, all the way at the bottom. You can ride a scenic train through that as well.





Oh, be patient, Alaska! I'll be coming back to you soon enough!





Another view of zipliners going across. You can really get the sense in this one of the scale.





Cable anchors at the bridge end.








And then we're back on the road, meandering southward. The roads take us through mountains and valleys and passes. Lots of nature.





Lots more foliage changes along the way.





And eventually we get to the Great Sand Dunes National Park. This is quite the oddity. Nestled up in the backside of the Rocky Mountains, is this large patch of sand dunes, that don't seem like they belong, like they've been transported from Saharan Africa, and plunked down in an entirely different ecosystem.





Once inside the park, you can park your car, and freely walk into the dunes. Sadly, my days of being able to safely walk in soft sand have passed, but I got to sightsee and take pictures.





I had planned to reach the sand dunes later in the day, but think I got there a little later than ideal. It was the "golden hour" around sunset, where pictures take on a nice color, but unfortunately, I think I got more shadows in these pictures than I would have wanted.

No worries. I'm here to enjoy.





A beautiful Colorado sunset, between mountain ranges. Colorado sunsets can be astounding, if you catch the right cloud and mountain combination.





As the sun set, my route down to Taos turned east for a few miles, and I got to watch the setting sunlight reflected off the Rocky Mountain range and clouds to the east.





My final drive portion to Taos got darker than I would have liked. This is the "Welcome to New Mexico" sign on the side of the road.

What, you can't read that, as my phone camera struggles to capture it at 80 mph in the dark?





There are no Hyatt hotels in this region of southwest Colorado/Northwest New Mexico. So I checked in to the Hotel Don Fernando de Taos by Hilton, in Taos, New Mexico.

I think that's enough for today, so I'll include the hotel as part of my journal tomorrow. See you then!

[nordring]

Originally Posted by Wild Blue

To be honest, the drive from Kansas City to the Denver/Colorado Springs area is pretty brutal. It's 587 miles, taking 9.5 hours or so, between those major cities.

These types of areas make the case for an American Autobahn.
Imagine the time saved and hours of productivity gained for the nation, if you could set the adaptive cruise for 150 on these sections...
Well, at least on the M cars

[pmgreenwood]

This part of the trip is bringing back memories of three USA fly drives out of Denver including my first in 1988 from Denver to Dallas via Rocky Mountain NP and Grand Canyon. did Grand dunes on a later trip

[Wild Blue]

Originally Posted by nordring

These types of areas make the case for an American Autobahn.
Imagine the time saved and hours of productivity gained for the nation, if you could set the adaptive cruise for 150 on these sections...
Well, at least on the M cars

Exactly! I lived in Germany for 4 years, and gained a huge appreciation for their driving system, particularly driving education and skills. Here, a driver's license is literally considered to be a human right.

I've long maintained, that I think a perfect system would be German driving rules and education, on big USA highways.

[Wild Blue]

Day 28:
Taos, New Mexico, Rio Grande Gorge, Enchanted Circle, Angelfire Vietnam Memorial, Tamaya Resort
Total Miles: 3,547

Drove around in a circle today. And even did it on purpose!

I'm finally caught up with posts, so this journal is real-time now, posting every day.





Stayed last night at the Hotel Don Fernando de Taos by Hilton, in Taos, New Mexico.











Nice place! My room was even in its own little detached southwestern-styled building, so no noise from any neighbors.








The old town part of Taos has a great feel to it, very classic and southwestern.





I had to do a double-take on this, as I could have sworn I was looking at Mesa Verde Bank and Trust.





If ya know, ya know...





First stop, the Taos Pueblo. This is an old-school Native American village on the outskirts of Taos. Unfortunately, they were only taking cash for admission, and I was running low, so I had to take a picture from the outside, and move on.





Ugh... it's time for her first bath. She's been getting dirty with all the driving and some rainstorms.





Always gotta remember the BMW trick for accessing the wipers. Ignition off, hold the wiper lever down until the the wipers stop in the vertical position. Lift as desired, just don't forget to put them back before starting the car!





Easy hosing down the 3D SpiderMAX floor mats while spraying the car. I had spilled some soda on the passenger mat, and it hosed off easily. I'll talk more about these mats tomorrow.





She does look better clean. And the Arctic Grey shows dirt a lot more, than the Mineral White on my X7.

But, ugh... wasn't a good car wash. There was no "presoak" fluid in the system, the wash spray was light on the soap and bugs were hard to remove. And apparently the "spotless rinse"... wasn't. Lots of water spots, which also show up easily on the darker Arctic Grey.

Gonna have to go buy a microfiber towl for the road, and re-wash her at another manual car wash.








Just west of Taos is the Rio Grande Gorge and river, with this bridge over it. Not nearly as impressive as the Royal Gorge yesterday, but still very pretty.





Lots of pretty southwestern adobe architecture around the Taos area.





Next, I drove the "Enchanted Circle", a nice, leisurely drive that circles Wheeler Peak and the Taos ski area.

Several activities to do around the Circle, but I didn't do hardly any, choosing to enjoy the beautiful scenery and nice drive.





This is Wheeler Peak, which I'll be circling for the next several hours, climbing and descending mountains, and through plains.








Halfway around the Circle from Taos, you climb the mountain canyons to Red River.

It's possible this is the same Red River referred to in the classic cowboy song "Red River Valley", such as sung by Dana Delaney in the movie Tombstone.

Several "Red River Valleys" around the USA lay claim to the song.





The town of Red River has lots of recreation activities available.




















Lots of pretty views, continuing around the Enchanted Circle to the east. Note that even the pass brings you up to 10,000' altitude.








Which brings me to a very special place, somewhere I've wanted to visit for a long time, but never took the time to travel to the area, which is off the beaten path.

In Angel Fire, New Mexico, is a Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Cemetary. Dr. Victor Westphall built a memorial here for his son, Lt Westphall, and all others that were killed in the Vietnam War.





Bell UH-1 "Huey" helicopter, widely used in Vietnam.














Beautiful, and very sobering. Just driving on to the property, I immediately felt a heavy spirit of the pain that the war caused, in the warriors, civilians, and countries involved and their populations. Such a difficult thing.





After the Enchanted Circle, it was a nice little drive down to my next hotel, the Hyatt Tamaya Resort, between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I really like the scenery in the southwestern USA. Pretty rock formations, red dirt, mountains and bluffs and mesas. Caught this picture view as the sun started to set.

Tomorrow's gonna be a chill day, so I'll include the Hyatt Tamaya resort in tomorrow's journal post.

[Anmolbains23]

Blue I must say, your writing skills and ability to tell stories is top notch!

[Wild Blue]

Originally Posted by Anmolbains23

Blue I must say, your writing skills and ability to tell stories is top notch!

Hey, thanks, I really appreciate that! I'm enjoying this, and hope you all are having fun too. I appreciate the participation in the thread--I don't mean this to just be a diatribe from me!

[snowbimmer]

Hey, Wild Blue you're a couple days ahead of me, still. Stopped in at the Academy today. Saw it last when I was about 13. Too bad the chapel is in a bag. Then we hit Pikes Peak. Didn't have your blue sky, but the clouds were at 14,500 or so. I didn't take a picture thru the windshield during the switchbacks (nervous wife) so I kiped your uphill picture and sent it to a friend of mine. I didn't say i didn't take it. But, I didn't say I did.

Royal Gorge tomorrow and Great Sand Dune. Then we diverge.....you going to NM and I'm headed to Gunnison.

Sounds like you're having a spectacular trip. Safe travels.

[Wild Blue]

Originally Posted by snowbimmer

Hey, Wild Blue you're a couple days ahead of me, still. Stopped in at the Academy today. Saw it last when I was about 13. Too bad the chapel is in a bag. Then we hit Pikes Peak. Didn't have your blue sky, but the clouds were at 14,500 or so. I didn't take a picture thru the windshield during the switchbacks (nervous wife) so I kiped your uphill picture and sent it to a friend of mine. I didn't say i didn't take it. But, I didn't say I did.

Royal Gorge tomorrow and Great Sand Dune. Then we diverge.....you going to NM and I'm headed to Gunnison.

Sounds like you're having a spectacular trip. Safe travels.

Very cool! Hope you're enjoying the fall Colorado foliage as well. So beautiul.

[snowbimmer]

It's unreal

[Wild Blue]

Day 29:
Stationary at Hyatt Tamaya Resort, New Mexico
Total Miles: 3,561

I had scheduled a "free day" today, as just go-go-going every day on a road trip can really get tiresome. I figured I'd also need to do some cleaning and organization.























I'm staying at a real nice Hyatt property, the Tamaya Resort and Spa. I wanted to stay here last year, but unfortunately it was closed due to COVID. Each state was handling COVID differently, some political leadership focused on different things than other states. New Mexico had been very stringent, closing down businesses with extra prohibitions, and so the Tamaya Resort wasn't available last year.

Good to try it out this year, since they've reopened. Fancy place. The room was nice, albeit not quite as ritzy as I thought it might be. Good view in the bottom pic, though--they upgraded me to a nice mountain view, and that's looking from the balcony.





Laundry part of traveling, lol!

Unfortunately, this lady jumped in front of me, as I was waiting for a handicapped parking spot. Then even went so far as to throw a fake handicapped placard in her windshield, that was expired.

A cop just happened to see this, and intervened. Sometimes, I guess karma just does grab people like that! Lol.





I'll use the free day today to talk about some various car stuff, products and BMW design.

It's a small thing, but I bought this car trashcan for this trip. Turned out awesome. Rigid but collapsable. Got that nice pass-through lid, that keeps it looking and smelling nice. Other features, and perhaps best of all, fits PERFECT right behind the center armrest. Love it.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1





Since I put the BMW all weather floor liners in my X7, I wanted to try something different in the X5. In Alaska weather, we really have to put something protective on the floors. These 3D MAXpider floor mats had some good reviews here on Bimmerpost.

I'm not a fan, though. These mats do repel water and mud well, and easily rinse off when washing the car. But they're lighter than the BMW OEM mats, which are chunky rubber. These are a formed composite material. So they slide, with a little wiggle, on the floor, such as when I push hard on the dead pedal to properly stabilize during hard braking.

I do like how it covers the dead pedal, which the BMW OEM mats don't do.

I'm going to keep my BMW OEM liners in my X7, which work great. I think these mats will do okay for the X5 as a secondary family car.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1





I had shown this trunk liner, when first picking up the new car, freshly protected from Extreme Colors. At the time, it had several folds from coming out of shipping.

Nice and flat now, after a few weeks in the car. It's still a little lightweight, like the 3D MAXpider floor mats. It also wiggles a little bit, unless there's cargo set on top of it.

But I like the edge lip, to contain moisture and spills. I like that it forms into the side pockets of the trunk. And, if desired, the trunk tie-down rings are still accessible.

So, not the best, but for being in the trunk, out of sight, it does its job and works just fine. Especially for the nice price.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1





I used this powered cooler on my last X7 PCD road trip. It's ok, but not great. The lid latch is a little sticky to open. I haven't used the heat function, but the cooling function is mediocre. At least it cools my drinks and other items somewhat. But I prefer ice-cold drinks.

So if I had it to do over again, I would have bought a slightly smaller and more powerful cooler that performed better. I thought about buying a new one for this road trip, but decided to save some money and reuse this one. It was a little bulky on the flight to Greenville for the PCD, but worked out ok.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1





I have this same center console organizer in my X7, and it works great. So I bought it again for the X5. (same console fits G05/G06/G07)

Very nice. Breaks up your big cavernous center console into storage areas. Can put stuff below the storage piece. A couple of compartment areas, for whatever you want, including a coin holder, which is great for this road trip, holding lots of quarters in case I hit tolls.

It also has a cutout for accessing the console USB-C port. So this is where I've attached my USB hard drives, holding my music files.
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/...?ie=UTF8&psc=1








On that note, I wanted to talk a bit about audio.

I got the Bowers & Wilkins audio system on my X7 last year, for my car. This time, since the X5 is a secondary family car, I wanted to go one step down, with Harman Kardon. However, with the decontenting that's going on with BMW and everybody else, nothing was available for this X5 40i beyond the base audio system.

I'll talk about decontenting a lot more in upcoming travel days. I was a little disappointed when ordering. If it had been my own X7, I wouldn't have done it, but accepted it for the X5.

At first listen, the base audio really didn't sound good. But after applying the basic audio controls "smile" by raising the bass and treble, the sound started to come alive.

The B&W audio really shone when I put high resolution audio files through it, streamed from USB hard drives. So I connected my USB music drives to the X5, and gave it a listen.

My #1 go-to demo music song is Dire Straits "Money for Nothing" from their Brothers in Arms 25th Anniversary album. Giving it a listen, I was actually pleasantly surprised with the X5 base audio system. The opening audio swirl had some definition. Sting's "I want my MTV" came through pretty clear, with the snare drum taps, and the building audio scream.

For anyone that uses a high-res audio copy of this song, I dare you not to play air guitar when Mark Knopfler breaks in on his opening riff. This came through well on the system at high volume, and even the bass guitar and bass drum thumps were strong.

The X7 B&W audio seems made for the music of the band Disturbed. Just rocks it out. This base system does a worthwhile job representing, of similarly demanding music, but isn't quite as solid. I'll continue to test out other audio files throughout the rest of the drive.

I've been doing some critical listening in the car the last 3,500 miles, testing out various audio and songs. Satellite/terrestrial radio and bluetooth are okay. But, of course, high-res audio from USB drives are much cleaner.

The base audio system actually isn't bad, with the basic bass/treble additions. It's pretty clear and strong. I think it could use additional amplification, and some speaker upgrades. But it's better than I expected.








A little about map updates. For a year and a half, my X7 didn't get any map updates, and stayed on a 2020 map file. After some discussion with my local dealer, (BMW of Anchorage, again, service has been fantastic even though I had big problems with sales) they found buried in non-user-accessible settings, that my car was set to the central region.

Service adjusted it to Canada/Alaska, and not only did my master nav file update, but I also got the local Alaska map detail file.

Right now, my X5 doesn't have a map detail file. I wonder if it might be a region setting thing again. So I looked in my BMWUSA garage. Strange--I can see and adjust my region on my X7 there. But my X5 doesn't have anything about map updates or regions. See screenshots above.

I'm going to futz with this some over the rest of the drive, see if a map update or detail file shows up. If anyone has further insight, I'm all ears.





Ugh... those are some ugly water spots from the car wash yesterday. Since I have time, had to go take care of that. Bought some microfiber towels from Walmart. Found a local manual car wash.

Dammit... this one ALSO had nothing come out of the hose when I put it to presoak. The wash spray was nice and strong this time, though, with soap, so I was actually able to get the bugs and such.

When I went to do the final "spotless rinse", though, AGAIN, nothing came out of the hose. Geez, what is with these car washes?

It started to rain, at the end of my car wash, though, so it kinda became a moot point. Gave it a good rinse, and let's hope for no water spots tomorrow!





Finished up the day with something cool, having r33_RGSport code my X5.

Last year, I had r33_RGSport Ben code my X7 when I got to southern California on that last PCD road trip. He's also remotely re-coded my X7 a couple times, as every time BMW pushes an Over The Air (OTA) update, it blanks out coding. (side note: my X7 hasn't had an OTA update for over a year--I'll be addressing that after I get back to Alaska)

So I gave it a few weeks to get familiar with my X5, and then today had Ben code it as well. It was a little funny, sitting in the hotel parking lot, stretching for a hotel Wifi connection, but tethering to my phone (or X5 hotspot) would have worked too. Laptop on the floor there in the picture, with USB network cable connected to the X5 OBD port under the dash. Having my car coded in a hotel parking lot, thousands of miles away from home, by a guy a few thousand miles away in a different direction over the internet. Modern technology, huh?

Stayed away from anything deep that would affect X5 engine operation or such. But coding can give some valuable feature additions.

And note, to make sure I didn't screw anything up, I went to Ben as an expert that knows exactly what he's doing with coding. I wasn't going to brick my car, or chance voiding warranty!





To me, this is the #1 thing to code. Headlight Matrix Anti-Dazzle. (note: BMW makes it confusing, but this is different from the No-Dazzle that might be listed on your car invoice)

My X5 has the basic LED headlights, not laser. But I'll still get function from the Anti-Dazzle Matrixing. For a guy like me, that lives in a rural area, that has extra darkness in the winter, and animals like moose around, Anti-Dazzle gives HUGE benefits. It's very functional.

I really see it as a safety feature. Thank goodness, after many years, the NHTSA has finally approved anti-dazzle matrix technology for the USA, which has been present in USA BMW vehicle hardware, but switched off. Unknown at this point how BMW will implement this technology moving forward, but for all current owners, we have to code this back on.





Just another example of useful coding. And I don't know why BMW doesn't have this enabled by defult for everyone. It's not a safety danger. You can code so that seat heating and/or ventilation automatically turns on for each seat, when the ambient temperature reaches a selectable threshold.

At first, with my X7, I wasn't sure if I wanted this feature, as, for example, I didn't want the seat heating kicking on in a back seat on every cold day, with nobody sitting there. But the extra cool thing is, this feature doesn't even kick on, if there's nobody sitting in the seat. The car can tell if each seat is occupied or not.

-------------------------------------

Other things can be coded, too. I coded so that i can close the tailgate from the keyfob, which for me is very useful, as it's getting increasingly difficult for me to reach all the way up to the close button on the trunk lid when it's open.

Another popular feature people like to code is to disable Auto Stop/Start. This 2022 X5 40i has no AS/S disable button. It also has a mild hybrid 48V system.

I'm generally not a fan of AS/S. It causes problems on my X7, like when I'm slowing to a stop in a parking spot, and AS/S prematurely kicks in, stopping me short. If I try to inch foward, the car will restart, with a bigger lurch forward than is needed. Bah.

However, with the 48V mild hybrid system, I'm finding AS/S in the X5 to be a bit better. I'm still getting a few occassions, where AS/S will kick in early as I'm slowing to a stop in a parking spot. But it's improved. And, when AS/S stops at a stoplight, the 48V electric motor helps smooth the restart. So for now, I left AS/S enabled.

Okay, gotta get to bed early. Tomorrow's gonna be my biggest drive of the whole trip.