Tomorrow, I Promise!

We've arrived at my sister's place near LA. I'll be here for a couple of weeks. I promise I'll update this with all of the photos from the last few days tomorrow. OK? Goodnight.

One in a Million Day

I have no words for how wonderful today was, but I guess I better come up with some or I will disappoint my legion fans.

We started this morning in San Jose and, after a wonderful breakfast (thank you again, Jeanne and Joy) we headed for Morro Bay on California Highway 1. The weather was perfect, cool with a slight overcast. Headed down the coast and found perhaps the most expensive gas in the nation. I had heard tales. Fortunately, I didn't need much soI bought a couple of gallons to tide me over until we got back to Realityville. Traffic was light for the most part, this being post-labor day and all. There were several tailgating bozos, but there were many turnouts so I let the bozos by so we could enjoy the drive.

We arrived at Morro Bay hust as the sun was setting next to Morro Rock, had a great dinner at the Harbor Hut and once agaain, I find myself tired and ready for the hay. Tomorrow, back to Hearst Castle and then shoot south to Encino for 2 weeks before heading east.

I have other pictures, but they'll have to wait (and so will you) I am too pooped to pop.

Goodnight, all.

San Jose

Today was check out, give Bergy a bath, travel to San Jose, repack the car to accommodate another human, pick up said human, my sister Kathy, and visit with Cousin Jeanne and her partner Joy. So good to see them again and to see Jeanne's workshop where she creates amazing scroll work.

We  also visited the Humane Society of Silicon Valley where they both volunteer. What a wonderful facility!

A wonderful dinner prepared by Joy, and lots of stories about our family. Note to family: If you weren't here, you really missed it.

Tomorrow we will drive down the coast to Morro Bay, spend the night, and then, the following day, back track a little to Hearst Castle. I wonder if Rosebud is there....

Last Day of Camp Zoom Zoom

And so it ends. With a bang, not a whimper Here's a photo of Bergy and me coming down the famous Corkscrew. Photo credit: GotBlueMilk.com. What an incredible operation that is! They took high-quality photos of every car that was on the track (more than 1,500) and had them catalogued and available for purchase by the following day. Today I took it a little easier. I tried to sit down more. Although some of that sitting included watching presentations by Tom Matano and Bob Hall, the two "fathers" of the original Miata, and by Derek Jenkins, current head of design for Mazda, who is responsible for the design of the yet to be released ND Miata. The other seat I sat in was in Brian Goodwin's NC Miata. I was a passenger in the Goodwin Racing Miata for two hot laps of MRLS. We only got up to about 90 or so on the straights, but it was pretty exciting in the corners. What a rush, and what control and quick reactions!

I have to say that Mazda outdid themselves with this event. It was free, the whole thing, and wonderfully organized. I don't think any babies were born, but it did remind me of Woodstock with Wheels. Everyone was having such a good time.

Said goodbye to two new friends from Sequim, Washington whose niece and nephew are both NPS WebRangers! I called Corky Mayo, former NPS Chief of Interpretation so they could chat with the "father" of WebRangers.

Tomorrow I pick up my sister Kathy in San Jose and we head off to visit our cousin Jeanne (Elsie in Wyoming's sister) before doing a Lou turn and heading south along the coast to Encino for a couple of weeks.

Truly an adventure to remember.!

Miatas at MRLS, Day 2

Here is what an artfully-arranged assembly of 1,200 Miatas looks like from a helicopter. Bergy is at the right side of the intersection of the X, just above the point. The scale of this event is breathtaking. There are so many f these things. They are estimating that more than 1,800 Miatas are gathering this weekend.

We did have an opportunity to drive on the track today in what were called parade laps. About 300 of us got onto the track and did two laps at somewhere between 20 and 40 mph. There is one famous turn at Laguna Seca called The Corkscrew. You drive up a slight slope and at the crest, the bottom drops out. Beyond the crest of the hill is a nearly five-story drop in a few hundred feet and, at the same time, the track turns sharply to the left. Thrilling at 30, I can only imagine what t must feel like at a speed twice that.

Another full day and another opportunity for the 2001 BRGs to gather for a group picture. A wonderful group of people, and once again, I am baked, so to bed.

Miatas at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

It was pretty seca alright. Dry Lake. But Laguna Seca sounds so much more appealing. But more than 1,800 Miataphiles filed into a huge, dusty parking area, choreographed by volunteers who shaped us into a field that spelled out MX-5 25 in the negative dirt-space. (MX-5 is an alias for the Miata, this year is the 25th anniversary of its introduction.) We all stood around and talked while a helicopter flew over and took stills and video of us and our artfully-arranged vehicles. Good times. Good times. Our Green Group made a good showing, some 18 strong, 3 rows of 6. We'll appear just at the intersection of the X, I believe on the right side.

We also got to see the newest version of the Miata, the ND (there have been Ns A through C, Bergy is an NB)  and now the ND that will be released as a 2015. It is stunning! Much better in "person" than the early photos released the other day. Less hippy and less aggressive, a bit friendlier-looking than the photos, I think. It had dual exhausts, two tips together on the passenger side. Very low and nimble-looking. It drove by once and then was gone, in a truck, to New York. There is supposed to be a non-running mockup on display tomorrow for more deliberate perusal. Maybe tomorrow my camera battery won't die like it did today, just as the ND went by. I've certainly lost my photo-chops, and that's a fact.

In the photo above, you can see a small section of the field with its 1,800+ Miatas. Really quite something. That's Bergy in the foreground. The guy in the Hawaiian shirt is Mark Booth, one of the moderators on Miata.net, the source of most Miata wisdom. If you look carefully through the windshield of his car (the red one) you can see dark inserts on his tan seats. His was the on-line inspiration for Bergy's dark green-on-tan seats. It just happened that Bergy was placed nose-to-nose with his car. We'll be meeting Mark and some of his Southern California group in Oklahoma when we head east on Route 66 as they return on 66 from Chicago. As I said, Good Times.

I have to admit though, I am pretty baked.

Fresh batteries and more fun tomorrow.

It Begins

I had dinner tonight with some members of the Green Group and another person from near Eugene, Oregon. Wonderful people. If all 2,000 of them are as much fun as this small preview, it's going to be a blast.

I did visit the Monterey Bay Aquarium this morning and it was everything that people promised. Just wonderful. The first thing I saw was this interpreter with a tube with tiny, live jellyfish swimming. Fascinating and, as you can see, captivating to the young (and older) visitors. I had been told that the visitor experience was top notch, but I was unprepared for just how high that notch was. It gave me much to think about, not only from the stories being told, but also from a (former) practitioner's perspective. There is much to learn here, and a tremendous amount of inspiration as well.

So inspired and deep in thought was I that, on leaving the parking garage, I sideswiped a concrete pillar with Bergy's rear bumper. Alas and oh well. The rear bumper needed redoing anyway. That's why you don't make a car perfect before taking a 7,000 mile drive. (Just one of Tom's Hints For A Stress-Free Life....)

Tomorrow is the Big Day, where 1,800+ Miatas will gather in an attempt to break the world record for Gathered Miatas. I am the group coordinator for about 20 green Miatas. The idea being to create a green patch in the assembled throng that will, when photographed from a helicopter, look like Central Park in Manhattan. At least that's the idea.

There will also be a chance to see the new, 2015 Miata in the "flesh" for the first time. It will be good to see it without the distortion created by wide or long lenses. I like what I've seen so far, however.

So I should better get to bed. There's cats needs herding in the morning.