YAKIMA, Wash.- A nearly 2,000 mile, eight-day road trip consisting of over 600 of the same car brand took its last pit stop in Yakima before finishing the journey in Seattle.
“Every two years, we do a drive with all our owners, and we get out and find some of the most epic roads in the country,” says MINI of America Vice President Mike Peyton.
The route avoids the main roads and is designed for windy roads through the mountains to get the full experience of MINI’s “go-kart style driving.”
Over the eight-day event, Peyton estimates around 3,000 MINI drivers have joined the festivities for at least a day.
Those festivities allow the road trippers to explore new cities and build a community with the other drivers.
“It goes back to the tagline, MINI Coopers come standard with friends,” says three time MINI Takes the States attendee, Sharon Caine. “There are groups in each one of our states, of our cities and we get together on weekends, we’ll do small drives to a winery or an ice cream social.”
Caine says the experience and people has made her a MINI fan for life. The adventure of MTTS is one she had to share this year with her sister, Cynthia Turner.
The sisters are originally from the East Coast, with Caine driving to New Mexico to start the journey and will drive back to Vermont once the trip ends in Seattle.
Turner says she plans to fly home after the trip because the “go-kart experience” isn’t her forte, but the people are right up her alley.
“The best thing for me is that no one’s fighting, no one’s talking politics,” says Turner. “Everybody’s talking about their family and kids. The comradery is phenomenal. You will never meet a better group of people.”
That comradery isn’t exclusive to the people taking part in the event. Turner and Caine found another MINI driver in Missoula and told them to look into MTTS after a friendly conversation.
“You just get hooked in with everybody else in your MINI community,” says Caine. “This is the culmination of years of work all together and we made this long trek.”
On the trip, drivers were able to explore each of the host cities after checking in at Camp MINI, where they would get breakfast, local vendors and maintenance for their cars.
In just one night staying in Yakima, it left a lasting impression on the drivers.
“I love it,” says Caine. “It is rolling hills and green. I know someone said they saw a lot of wheat, but I just noticed peaches and apricots is something else that you guys grow. That’s pretty cool.”
As luck would have it, this car community got to see Yakima’s car community on full display with the summer’s Cruise the Ave event.
“I think we had a few MINI cars also driving their cars,” says Peyton. “It’s great to see this many people come out.”
Peyton also expressed a great interest in one of Yakima’s key exports: hops.
MINI Takes the States happens every two years, so get your own MINI and sign up to be part of 2026’s event. The journey goes through different states each time and many of the MINI owners who stopped in Yakima say they’re already locked in for the next road trip.
