A New Season has Begun
Car season is here again. Summer drives. Interesting shows. New backroads. Fun people. This year’s start more or less began with our end of May return drive from Palm Desert to Seattle. As we are wont to do, we threw in a couple of curveballs. After all, what fun is driving the Interstate?
First on the list was a stop at the Peterson Automotive Museum on Wilshire Boulevard in LALA land. What a great venue. Ample parking, remarkable architecture, great cars and motorcycles. Well worth the visit. I would love to go back and see more, as we didn’t have time to include “The Vault” (another 300 cars in the basement). There were many highlights, noted by the photos below:
A couple Detroit concept cars. Left – For the 1953 Motorama, the 1953 Dodge Storm Z-250 styled by Bertone; Right – My wife’s favorite, the 1955 LaSalle II Roadster. She has pretty good taste.
The spectacular $2.5 million, 233MPH 2014 Pagani Zonda Revolucion.
From the Petersen we head up the 101 to Ventura, where the real fun begins with a right turn up CA33, noteworthy as Hagerty’s Driver’s Club Magazine 2024 Road of the Year. I’ll dispense with the suspense – it’s a worthy recipient. Plenty of twists and turns, spectacular SoCal mountain scenery, viticultural areas, light traffic and a smattering of small town color make this a great road for the adventurous driver.
Vineyards outside Ojai before climbing even more earnestly into the Santa Ynez Mountains.
Left – Overlooking CA33 as it tumbles into Bear Canyon; Right – The on-going large scale slide mitigation for the highway’s upper reaches.
After a touch over 100 miles we reach McKittrick, where we bypass the Brea Pits and light out on CA58 to find US101 again just below Atascadero. I love the names of California towns – Capistrano, Atascadero, Ventura, Paso Robles; they roll right off the tongue with such great satisfaction. Makes me smile just thinking about saying them.
Speaking of Paso Robles, we will be heading through there again on our way from San Louis Obispo to Windsor and Santa Rosa for a few days of wine tasting. But first, CA58 provides another hour-plus of fun, scenic driving on yet another fine California road.
SLO, as San Louis Obispo is locally known, was uneventful save for a fun evening at The Carrisa, a downtown whisky bar featuring locally distilled Rod & Hammer whiskies. Good booze and great atmosphere with friendly, if slightly lackadaisical bartenders, and a limited but solid menu. It was a fun evening.
From SLO we headed to wine tasting in Healdsburg, just north of Santa Rosa. Extended visits to the winery tasting rooms of boutique grower Unti and unintentional winemakers Papapietro Perry were very satisfying. Unti is a family name and a family operation. It’s very personal and one of our favorites in this region. Papapietro Perry is a rather long-winded name of the two friends who began by casually making wine in their basement for family and friends. Somehow that grew to the point they realized they could quit their day jobs and make wine a real business. You never know….
From there we headed more straight home, stopping only at our favorite Mt. Shasta City watering hole and eatery, The Pipeline Craft Taps & Kitchen. For me, it was the mouthwatering Reuben Sandwich and the Hardtail Hazy IPA. For Janice, it was the tender Lamb Burger and the Macadamia Nut Porter. Everything, as always, was excellent. From there, it was on to Grants Pass, OR for the night and a straight run up I-5 (I know, it was a cop out, but after six plus weeks on the road, we were ready to get home). We did stop, as we usually do, at Mrs. Beasley’s (Exit 59 for Vader) for our fix of a small town burger joint. That too, is always good.
We’re glad to be home and glad it’s car season. Our first week back, we got to hit two events on one Saturday! More about those later. I’m ready for more!
