I don’t care where we end up as long as it heads north, simply because heading north works for the guys that travel south (me, 99FRC, the new guy from Granville, SRS BZNS, etc), to meet up in the first place. Whatever we decide, it’s gotta happen soon-last weekend, someone drove all the way from Granville to the Saratoga Applebees for nothing, because they didn’t check the tread at the last minute.
As far as grilling locations go, I’m pretty sure there are picnic tables at the rest areas between exits 23-24 and 27-28 (heading north), and also at the rest area near exit 27 and 24 heading south. Thing with that idea, is that if you (Alpine) back out, it’s gonna leave everyone trying to decide to do something else.