Re: Ghostbusters Ecto-1 Magnum
Gentlemen.
September 2 - September 11, 2010
The time has finally come! Last year our intrepid crew set out on what would have been the longest, hardest, and most incredible
road trip ever attempted by an Ectomobile replica. The plan was to drive from Denver to New York, to Washington D.C., down to Atlanta for PKE Surge, and back home through St. Louis. It was grand, it was outsized, it was bold, it was impractical, it was.... not to be. On the second leg of the journey, our brand-new, fully-maintained Dodge Magnum Ecto spun a bearing in a Ohio. The vehicle needed a new engine and the trip was canceled.
Fortunately, we are not the kinds of people to be kept down for long. Two months after the Ecto had been repaired and returned to Colorado,
we embarked on a trip to Los Angeles to help make up for the lost fun of New York and PKE Surge. There we re-donated the money -that was so graciously raised to help us get back from Ohio- to another charity. Another six months passed and we made yet another
trip to California to visit the Ghostbusters Firehouse interior set. At long last we are finally poised to re-attempt our massive trip through the Eastern United States. Like MacArthur,
we would return!
The Car
The Ecto-2k was built in the summer of 2009 for a single purpose,
to destroy the world of Men. Okay, not really. It was built for the purpose of
launching the largest aerial battle in the history of Mankind. Wait, what? That joke's a year old? Nevermind.
The Crew
Our team of wacky racers consists of myself and my two closest friends, essentially the entire creative group that crafted our Ecto replica.
Richie "Caedian" Gristak
Richie started the original "real" Denver Ghostbusters before I moved into
town and absorbed them. He's a bassist, a ladies' man, and 60% of his
righteous body is composed of pure sodium chloride. And bacon.
Kris "Crix" Marshall
Best friends roommates, Kris and I are neuro-linked drones of the Overmind.
A master of RPGs and on-the-fly wit, his charm level is +8, but his appetite
hovers somewhere around or over nine-thousand. Troll hard or troll home!
Kevin "Boomerjinks" Henry
You all know me. I'm that guy I am.
AJ "Ron Daniels" Quick
Most of you don't know AJ, but we've gone on several trips with him in the past
and we consider him a very good friend. He is mildly interested in Ghostbusters,
but was very excited to hear about our trip and decided to come along.
Richie and I will be the ones driving the Ecto to Atlanta, where Kris and AJ will join up with us for the race to New York!
The Route

Click for big!
Thursday - Denver to St. Louis
Friday - St. Louis to Nashville to Atlanta
Saturday/Sunday - P.K.E. Surge and DragonCon!
Monday - Atlanta to Raleigh to Washington D.C.
Tuesday - Washington D.C. to Philadelphia to New York City
Wednesday/Thursday - New York City!
Friday - New York City to Centralia to Indianapolis
Saturday - Indianapolis to Denver
Our journey will begin on Thursday morning. Richie and I will start on the road at 6am and head East on I-70. We'll detour south to Hutchinson, Kansas where we will see the SR-71 Blackbird on display there. We will then continue back up to I-70 onward to St. Louis and Atlon, Illinois, where Protokev has been gracious enough to provide lodging for us for the night.
On Day 2 we will leave early and head to Atlanta. We'll probably stop for lunch in Nashville, Tennessee. Arriving in Atlanta on Friday evening, we'll get situated in our hotel and start enjoying PKE Surge. The Ecto will be available for trolling the nightclub district of Atlanta, for those who would like to come along!
Saturday will be a big day for the 2k. The other Ecto owners and I will get together to help detail and wash the vehicles before the parade. We're expecting between three and six Ectomobile replicas to participate in the parade, surely the largest gathering ever!
I am considering taking the Ecto to Macon early Sunday morning in order to see the SR-71 Blackbird there. We'd be back by noon, anyone that would like to join us is welcome. Sunday afternoon and evening we will take part in more con activities, and then start saying our good-byes.
Monday morning will see us adding two more people to our crew. We'll be leaving early to take Chris (Some_Guy) home to Raleigh, NC. AJ will join up and stay with us through Indianapolis, where he will fly home. Monday evening we will make a pit stop in Richmond, Virginia to see yet another Blackbird. We will be staying the night with Lacey, an old friend of mine, in Washington D.C.
We will enjoy museums and monuments on Tuesday through the early afternoon, visiting our nation's capitol with an Ecto for -we hope- the first time ever. After that we will head to Philadelphia, where we'll take some time to run up the steps of the art museum while playing "Gonna Fly Now" out the top of the Ecto. There may be cheesesteak sandwiches involved, as well. We will arrive in New York that evening.
Wednesday and Thursday are our New York days, and we'll spend them doing everything we've ever wanted to do in the Ecto. Plans are being made for a meetup between us and Long Island guys (Chris and Dimitrius) as well as the New Hampshire Ghostbusters and their Ecto-HHR. I'm thinking vehicle photoshoot at the old World's Fair, what do you guys think?
Friday morning we'll depart New York and start down the long road West. We'll stop Centralia for our long-desired exploration of an abandoned, horror game-inspiring, mining town. We'll see Sam(Roach) outside of Pittsburgh, and we'll stop in Cambridge, Ohio for a little ceremony....
Arriving in Indianapolis late that night, we'll sleep well at the now-famous "Checkpoint 70" that is maintained by Borzou Ouranos. On Saturday morning we will say good-bye to AJ, who will fly back to Minnesota from there. Kris, Richie, and I will start heading back to St. Louis and home, arriving well-past midnight on Sunday morning.
WHERE YOU COME IN
The Ecto-2k is now fully-equipped for blogging and chatting from the road. Utilizing an array of iPhones, iPads, and netbooks, we will be able to keep in touch via the GBfans Chatroom as well as update this thread and an RSS feed with pictures and video from the road. New equipment will make putting high-quality pictures from a Canon G10 (no more cameraphone photos for you lot!) directly on the web a reality.
We will once again be activating our Google Latitude-powered update map as well. Here you'll be able to keep quick tabs on the 2k
exact position using GPS. We would LOVE to be intercepted by some other members of the community on the road using nothing but the Latitude map. Who is up to the challenge?
Ecto Across America - Ghostbusters Fans
Just as important as the map is the Twitter feed! Everything will be updated here from the road and we'll be using it to keep in touch with others participating! Bookmark it now!
Ecto-2k (EctoTrip) on Twitter
This trip is all well and great by itself, but part of the reason we are doing this is to get out and interact with the community. We're already meeting up with many members in Atlanta, and we plan to see a few here and there along the way, but there are going to be at least six lunches while we're on the road and we plan on meeting as many of you as we can! Take a moment to look over the map and post in this thread if you think we'll be passing through your town, or reasonably close to it.
That's it!
Trip begins in less than a month, let the countdown begin!