How do you say "full-throttle" in Italian?

This day began in the wee hours, when we made the collective decision to wake up at 3am. Any later and we'd risk missing our morning flight out of Milan. After a two hour disco nap, the chorus of three iPhone alarms got us to our feet, and it stung. Bad. We were rolling within 5 minutes. Leadfoot Lundwall took the wheel, with Alex as co-pilot, and Ed went back to sleep (bastard!).

Terminal velocity is the point at which an object reaches maximum speed. If there were ever a time for such an experiment, it was now. Jeff got the Pilote there immediately and pegged it out for 5 hours straight. In the final navigation into Ternate, the Garmin GPS saved the day and delivered us to Guidici right on time. But our saga was just beginning...

Milan Malpensa was 30 minutes away, and we had an hour. Here's what would follow: for speed- Jeff drove the Pilote with the Avis reps seated in the back, we hit traffic, it got worse, we assumed we'd miss the flight, then we started moving, then we stopped, then we moved, then we arrived 15 minutes before takeoff. We were dropped off at the wrong end of the terminal so Alex ran the length to start check-in, Jeff and Ed sherpa'd all bags across the terminal, Jeff and Ed had to redistribute baggage items to make the weight limit, security lines were long, we thought we wouldn't make it... but our Grand Tour 2009 luck streak was still with us. We made it.

Arriving at JFK on Memorial Day, it hit us that summer had begun- offsetting the post-adventure blues. In a taxi to the city, we talked about The Grand Tour 2010 plan for Spain.














Arrivederci Italia.