Saturday, I headed off to palo Alto to lead a goup of LBCs through the Santa
Cruz Mountains. The turnout was a bit smaller than I had hoped, 5 MGBs,
3 Jensen Healeys and a Bug Eye Push Car ( really quite attractive and probably
the fastest car of the lot). We toured through Portola Valley then climbed
to Summit up Kings mountain Road. This road is a narrow 2 lanes that snakes
up a canyon through the forrest. When I got to the Part way up I had to dodge
a white mini van that was going down hillwith its grill centered on the center
line. Unfortunalty one of our group encountered it in a narrower part of the
road and a BRG '67 MGB went into the bush to keep from meeting the van. Luckally
it survived with a tweeked rear bumper and some scratches that didn't go
completely through the paint. After a bit we were on our way again. I was
trying to remind everyone why they had sports cars and not white mini vans.
We made a lunch stop at the beach then continued down the coast until the
Bug Eye push car decided it was time to shed lug nuts. Miq borrowed a lug
wrench and tightened the remaining lug nuts on the front wheels then
announced that he was getting poor petrol milage and the push car needed more
soon. With that in mind we sat off to Santa Cruz and the local BP station to
refuel the Bug Eye. With that done we pushed the bug Eye & pushed it to get it
started. By that time the battery was too low to to push start the car.
We jumped the Bug Eye only to have it die when it went to pull out into
traffic. By that time the Jensen Healey contnegent wanted to get home to
start cleaning their cars for Sunday, so we called this the end of the
tour (about 10 mi short of the planned end). I took Miq to the Auto parts
store for a new battery while Scott Fisher stayed with the Bug Eye.
When the new battery was installed & lead Miq and Scott over to my house
to prove that the mythological TR3 was real. This is also where Daren's trailer
is parked, and where Scott provided Daren with permission to use his trailer.
All in all it was a fun day with lots of beautiful scenery. The Bug Eye provided
us with some excersize and we all had a good time. Miq, I'm really not
flaming your bug eye, I thought it was very cute and very easy to push.
Sunday
I met Daren, Roland & others for breakfast. Since Roland was still paying
for his past sins, as his own dreaded previous owner, the snake stayed home.
When we got to the Palo Alto meet we discovered the first event for everyone
bringing a LBC was the cooling system test. There was a long waiting line
on a very hot morning. Luckally, my MGBGT was equipted with a new radiator cap
and a GT6 overflow bottle. It survived halfway between N and H.
Since the Palo Alto all British Car Meet was also the national MGB Association
national meet, there were a very large number of MGBs there (300 maybe).
For the first time I kept mistaking other BRG MGBGTs for mine.
I was walking along a row of T series MGs talking to someone when I noticed
that one of them had a SS knockoff on the spare. I had to stop and look again.
There in the middle of a long row of T series MGs was a SS100. It looked
enough like the T series MGs that the person telling people where to park
probably directed it into the T series line instead of the Jag area.
There was a row of Loti including one XI and about half a dozen VIIs. There
were two long rows of big Healeys that ended in a batch of Astin Martins.
Accross the way were even more cars including about 4 rows of Triumphs, 20 or so
Land Rovers, some Cortinas including one with a sign offering to race for food.
As a guess, I would estimate between 700 and 1000 cars on the green. A great
feast for the eyes, but it sure was awfully hot.
Take care,
TeriAnn
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