Trip to Monterey
The drive down to Monterey was so uneventful that it's hardly worth making a web page about it. I left on Monday, planning on a two day drive to my friend's house in Milpitas. Then onto Monterey on Wednesday in time to help with the Pebble Beach Tour on Thursday.
| Since the A/C hoses didn't arrive and the weather in the inland valleys of Oregon and California was forecast for the high 90s, I elected to drive down US 101 on the coast. So it was down I-5 to Portland and then over to the coast at Lincoln City. It was getting hot by the time I reached the coast range, so the cool ocean breezes felt good. |
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| One other FCA member was taking a few days driving down and was planning on spending that night at Brookings, near the Oregon/California border. I had left a voice mail on Stan's cell phone, but didn't get a call back. After lunch in Newport, I was cruising south on 101. As I passed the side road to the Cape Perpetua lookout, there was Stan ready to turn south on 101. We both honked and I pulled off a little ways later. I found out where he was staying and arranged to meet for dinner that night. If I had been 30 seconds earlier or later, we would have missed each other. |
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| After a 10 hour drive, I arrived in Brookings and checked in. Stan and Renee had made a couple of stops, so they got in an hour or so later. We had a pleasant dinner at a nice seafood grill. |
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| The next day I was off early trying to beat the heat where 101 goes inland north of San Francisco. I arrived at my friend's house in Milpitas after another 8 hour drive. 1500 kilometers (925 miles) in two days. Added two quarts of oil and several tanks of gas. See what I mean about uneventful. |
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| The next day I went on down to Monterey. I did find out
one thing interesting. The water temperature gauge is a fairly
accurate indication of the outside air temperature. If the air
temperature is around 70°F or lower, the radiator temperature runs
at the 70°C of the thermostat. Air temperature in the 80s has
the water temperature around 80°C, in the 90s, 90°C. Luckily I
didn't need to find out what happened when the outside temperature
is over 100°F. I did have to slow down at one point at the oil
temperature got up to 105°C and was still climbing. Dropping
back to 70 mph dropped the temperature below 100 after five miles or
so. The most exciting part of this drive was following a 275 GTB for a while. |
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