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October 14, 2023 - Planning the surprise

With The GTS Chronicles now safe in Ottawa, it was time to plan what could be considered the "final chapter" of the whole delivery experience: the surprise unveiling to Luke's parents.

Back in the day, Luke's parents were car nuts, too!
As a brief recap: Luke's parents - Rob and Susan - were long-time auto enthusiasts themselves, even participating in their younger years in car rallies. Some of that enthusiasm had apparently passed on to Luke, and they encouraged his hobby. When Luke had accompanied me in 2018 for my BMW M2 Euro Delivery trip, they had followed along with interest. When I later received the M2 in North America (via courtesy delivery through the BMW Halifax dealership, thanks very much, Otto's BMW in Ottawa!), I had made a special stopover at Luke's parents in New Brunswick on the drive home, knowing they would be interested in seeing the blue beast in the flesh.

When I had initially voiced the idea of buying a Porsche and doing Euro Delivery (inviting Luke along again, of course), Luke had relayed this plan to his parents. They assumed (reasonably so), that Luke would then purchase my M2, following an already-established pattern that had begun with his purchase of my Honda S2000 back in 2017. The idea that Luke would buy his own Porsche Boxster was a completely wild idea that never entered their minds.

As the idea of Luke instead purchasing his own Porsche grew and firmed in the summer of 2020, a simultaneous idea was born: when communicating with Luke's parents, what if the information about Luke getting his own Porsche was withheld? They would be none the wiser, and then, when our two cars arrived in North America (hopefully again doing courtesy delivery / pick up at a dealership in Halifax), we could drive in tandem to Luke's parents. They would of course assume that I would drive up in my shiny new Porsche Cayman, and Luke in his equally shiny red Honda S2000 (they of course also did not know that Luke had sold it ahead of buying the Boxster). They would be completely unprepared for their own son to instead come up the driveway behind my Cayman in his own brand-new Boxster. They would no doubt be floored, excited, awestruck. It would be an awesome moment.
October 16 - Choosing the moment

As has been mentioned several times during this long story-tell, we originally had hoped to pick up our Porsches in Halifax, sometime in September, during good weather, and drive the short distance from there to Luke's parents' place in southern New Brunswick. And also has been mentioned several times (and is now being mentioned once again), Porsche Centre London thoroughly squashed that idea. Instead our cars were only available to us by the beginning of October. In this part of Canada, winter road conditions become a distinct possibility at the end of October, and long-distance travel in two summer-tire-shod Porsches was a risky proposition. Therefore, our window of opportunity to do this "New Brunswick Surprise Visit" was very narrow. But it was still possible, so we were going to try.

Where things are in relation to each other: Ottawa, New Brunswick, Halifax, London (ON), and Luke's Parents' place.
It was now October 16. Only two weekends remained before November arrived. The weekend of October 21-22 looked yucky - heavy rain all weekend. Not conducive to filming the special surprise arrival moment. Although it was risky, we decided to wait until the following weekend - the weekend of Oct 27-28. And, happily, as the time approached, the weather forecast looked pretty good. In fact, it looked pretty great for Eastern Canada at the end of October: mild and sunny.

So we were on. The grand symbolic end of The GTS Chronicles Euro Delivery adventure was in sight.
Friday, October 27, 2023 - Grand Reveal Showtime!

Luke and I planned for the surprise event to take place on the Friday evening before the weekend. We had made sure to arrange our drive such that we would arrive well enough in advance of sunset, which was relatively early at this late point in October. It was important to ensure that we had enough light with which to film effectively.
Driving Across Maine
Arriving New Brunswick
In the small hamlet of Hampton in Southern New Brunswick, not too far away from Luke's parents' house, we convened a final planning session in the parking lot of a car wash. Over the last week, we had storyboarded the flow of this surprise event, and now it was time for final checks and tweaks.

Overall, the idea was this: Luke had phoned ahead to his parents and told them that we would arrive at such-and-such a time. Luke's parents, of course, believed that it was Luke and I in my Cayman. They knew nothing about the Boxster. Luke had also told his parents that Andrew, with all of his typical desire for photos and videos and "capturing the moment", wanted to set up his camera gear in advance, leave it running, in order to capture the arrival of "The Cayman and the S2000" (in reality, The Cayman and The Boxster, of course). So, the plan was to drive the Cayman and Boxster to a point along the road near - but not visible to - Luke's parents' house, and park. Then, I would run up the long driveway (this was handy, this long rural tree-lined driveway his parents' house had, as it made it very easy to keep our cars hidden), position a couple of cameras on tripods, set them recording, then run back down to the cars. Then, in tandem, The GTS Chronicles would make their slow, solemn (and surprise) procession up the driveway and into sight of Luke's parents, who were waiting at the top. And it would *all* be captured. Every last twitch and shock of surprise. Or so we hoped.
Final Checks
About to spring the surprise
We gingerly (with low rpms and throttle, so as not to generate any suspicious double flat-six noises) to a point along the road out of sight of Luke's parents' driveway entrance. We got out and gathered all of the required camera gear. We went over the final sequence of events one more time. Luke wrung his hands in obvious glee and anticipation. He had been keeping this secret and planning for this moment for over three years now. Finally, the moment had come.

Gear in hand, I jogged up the long (uphill I might add) driveway to Luke's parents' house. Sue and Rob had been alerted to my arrival by Luke and were coming out of the house as I arrived, slightly out of breath. We of course greeted each other, but knew that Luke was down at the bottom waiting for me to set things up, so it was just a brief "hello". I carefully set up each camera on a tripod so that we'd have one view looking down the driveway, and another looking towards the house and the patiently waiting parents. I checked and double-checked all settings, ensured that there was enough battery and memory, and then pressed record on both cameras.

I then took off, running back down the long driveway and to the cars. Rather hot and a little out of breath, I gave a questioning thumbs up to Luke, who was waiting in his Boxster, and he gave me an affirmative thumbs up in response. I hopped into the Cayman and fired it up.
The Grand Reveal
Slowly, we motored up the long gravel driveway, and soon, Luke's parents came into view, standing and waiting as we approached.

I quickly hopped out. "Hello-oo!", Luke exclaimed, still seated in the top-down Boxster.

Luke's dad - Rob - knew what was going on, almost immediately. "Two -", he exclaimed, paused, and I completed the thought " - for the price of one!". "Two for the price of one, is it?", he repeated. We wished, I thought, we wished.
Porschexploration
"What's this?" came next, and then "That's an awesome, awesome vehicle". Hm... maybe they hadn't yet fully realized the presence of the Boxster. And then, Susan (Luke's mom) notices something: "Rob... that's not his S2000"... "You guys.... when did you do THAT!???".

Realization had dawned. And then a quick back-and-forth about all of the subtle subterfuge - truthful subterfuge, Luke pointed out, that had occurred over the last three years. Careful omissions, evasions, but no lies. Just a careful camouflage of the truth.

Now revealed, Luke's parents pored over our cars. Asked us tons of questions - about the cars, the trips. Sat in them. Marvelled. The final secret of The GTS Chronicles was no more. We even gave Luke's parents some GTS Chronicles business cards!

After a suitable waiting period, my brother George trotted up the driveway to join us. He had been my companion in the Cayman on the trip east from Ottawa, and had stayed down at the entrance to the driveway - out of sight - to allow the focus to be on the official reveal of the Boxster to Luke's parents. Now that the surprise was over, he showed up.

We chatted around the cars for quite some time. It was a beautiful evening - calm and mild - very amenable to chatting and for our video recording. I was quite glad we had chosen to come this weekend rather than the rainy weekend before.

Rob and Sue are ever the generous hosts and invited both myself and my brother to stay for dinner (Luke and his daughter Kate, who had travelled down with Luke, were of course going to visit here for a few days). Unfortunately my brother and I were unable to accept the offer, for we had our own plans for the rest of the weekend - visiting our own siblings in cities in other parts of the province. We visited inside for a few minutes before saying our good-byes and heading out.

We later commemorated this moment in a new Instagram Post to the GTS Chronicles Instagram channel. You can see that post on Instagram here, or you can watch a wide version of that same post inline below:
The GTS Chronicles IG Post 095 (Wide Version) - "The Big Reveal"
Saturday and Sunday - October 28 and 29, 2023 - The Rest of the Weekend
Brotherly Visit
From here on The GTS Chronicles parted ways. The Boxster stayed with Luke in Hampton, and my brother and I piloted the Cayman north for about an hour to Fredericton - the capital city of the province of New Brunswick, and home to my brother Carl. He had offered us dinner and lodging for the night, and, of course a chance to catch up.

The next morning we headed into downtown Fredericton for a Saturday morning brunch. It was an exceptionally beautiful fall day for this late in October - sunny and highs in the mid 20 degrees Celsius (75F) . I gave everyone a little taste of Porsche 718 GTS 4.0 dynamic with some test drives on a few of the local on/off ramps.
On to Bathurst
And with that, it was time for my brother and I to say goodbye and continue our journey. We were next headed to the northern end of New Brunswick, to the coastal town of Bathurst - a small city (perhaps no longer officially a city these days). I was born and grew up and lived in this community, all the way to the end of university, when I finally moved west to join the telecom company Nortel in the late 1980s. Although my parents have since passed away, my second-oldest brother Alphonse still lives in Bathurst, and we were going to pass through to visit with him and his wife, Dolores.

I encouraged my brother George to take the wheel of the Cayman for much of the drive north to Bathurst. I wanted him to experience the user-friendly but supremely capable, precise and responsive driving experience that the 718 offered. My brother is generally afraid of revving an engine much beyond 3500 rpm (he has some sort of sense that he is "hurting" the engine); I've always tried to explain to him that this wasn't the case, and especially in the case of a Porsche, a redline is not simply a poseur-type styling exercise - it represents an actual engineering limit that is rigorously and thoroughly tested. If anything, in the case of the 718 GTS 4.0, the redline is artificially low. I don't think he believed me.
courtesy GLavigne
 George and Alphonse
In turns, I had to coach him to trust. Trust the grip - it was so much higher than cornering speed he attempted. When it came to straight-line speed, however, my brother George was actually a fair bit more liberal than I, frequently cruising at speeds higher than I typically would. I'm not sure how he doesn't get stopped more often.

We arrived in Bathurst later in the afternoon. My brother Alphonse did not know I had brought my brother George along, and was only expecting myself. I dreamt up the idea of hiding George in the frunk and then suddenly popping it open to surprise my brother Alphonse, but unfortunately when we attempted to get George into the frunk a block away from Alphonse's house, he couldn't quite curl himself down enough to allow me to close the hood. I know it's possible, since I put myself in the frunk as a test back at our hotel at the Nordschleife in August. George, you need to go to yoga and improve your flexibility!

So we opted for a normal at-the-door surprise. We spent a pleasant evening at Alphonse and Dolores' house and got to bed early. The next morning, we got started early and made the long 1,000 kilometre drive back to Ottawa, completing a nice big satisfying loop and closing off the all-important symbolic ending of The GTS Chronicles delivery adventure.
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