| The day of the Poker Run, which had been a nice way to see the area last year, so I figured it was a good thing to do with my dad. Tramp stamp on a Z:
 My dad manned the camera while I drove, following Bernie and his dad: 
Medusa hair: 
It was a beautiful day, finally, no rain, no fog, but, while the route was pretty, it didn't hit much of the wildly scenic roads, so we knew we wanted to go back out again. But first it was time to meet up for the group photo. We pulled onto the ballfield and into position, and just then, as I was getting the Z parked, this horrible shrieking clattering noise started up from the engine bay. NOT what I want to hear so far from home, in the mountains, though thankfully I was on the ballfield and not partway through the Dragon. :-/ Turned the car off and opened the hood to find a huge splash of PS fluid all over the bay. Bernie figures the bearing went that drives the pulley. Tim cut the belt and that was that for power steering. And this was on the pump that we had just replaced in the fall. Could have been worse, though! I was thankful it was something that would still allow me to get home. We spent some time milling around on the field, checking out cars. 
Chester trying to convince me of something, I don't remember what now, but I clearly didn't agree with it: 
That's my dad with the hat: 
Nice blue theme in Tim's car: 
Bernie, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for clearing the bugs out of the way for me the other night! 
The power steering fiasco put a damper on our plans to head back out, but not for long... My dad had his own vehicle there, of course, so we headed out in the Caravan - woohoo! 8) It was going to be another hour or so till the group photo, so I left my Z on the field and we took off. I drove and had to tuck my left foot away so as not to keep trying to step on the "clutch" that wasn't there. My dad manned the camera again, though I had to pull over at one point to take a few shots to make this panorama: 
We got to the part on 129 just before it becomes dragon-y and felt dismay as we saw all the cars parked in the road, drivers out chatting with each other, bikers off their bikes. You know what that means. Never good. We got out and chatted with whomever was around, one of whom happened to be a Killboy employee on his way to deliver radios, and he made good company, as did the older biker reminiscing about the "old days" before the road was really discovered and he had it pretty much to himself. He was annoyed to find out that we have this event always on the weekend before Memorial Day; apparently that's his favorite weekend due to used-to-be low traffic and still cool weather. I suspect that's why we like it as well... Every once in a while a car would pass going the other way, but invariably they had given up and turned around, not come through. At one point a handful of Miatas came by - they'd been sitting there for two hours and finally decided to try to go to their destination another way. I felt bad for them when we finally started moving about five minutes later... Turned out this traffic was from the two Zs that had hit head-on. Glad no one was hurt there... Glancing at the GPS unit on the Dragon was fun. My dad got this shot, unfortunately blurry due to low light:
 The Tree of Shame - what's up with all the kids' toy parts on it now??
 We arrived too late for the raffles and too late for the dinner as well, so we hit the lodge and had dinner at the restaurant. A little pricey, but quite good. My dad took off after that and headed home - said later he got out of the Dragon JUST as it was getting dark. Kicked back and relaxed with a small group of tt.net-ers for the rest of the evening. Good times and GLORIOUS stories, Tim and Randy! ;-) Thanks again to Dean and Amy for the beer! I think that next year we should arrange some way for tt.net-ers to get together at some point. I was surprised to read later how many of you guys went that I didn't get to meet. We'll have to figure this one out - maybe reserve a couple tables at the dinner or something??
You don't have to live in a bubble just because someone else caught the flu. Make your decision on your ability to trust yourself. - NytWolf 15:49:05 12/17/06
I was previously a aviation mechanic and avionic technician and this car is harder to work on than Aircraft. - Hocuz77 03:04:56 02/28/06 |
