Author: Dale Mastny

PALM DESERT RUN
  On a beautiful October morning forty members and guests of COCSD left Poway on back country roads thru Ramona to Santa Isabel stopping at Warner Springs Golf Resort for a restroom break and then onto Palm Desert for lunch at the Omni Rancho Las Palmas Hotel and Resort. Being a Saturday morning, there was very little traffic leaving clear sailing for our caravan. When we did incur some slower traffic heading down to the desert floor, those slower vehicles pulled over into turnouts letting our faster Corvettes pass. Who said California drivers are not polite people!

Twenty two cars continue on two hundred- forty miles of scenic adventure.
Upon arrival, the hotel had reserved ample parking for all our vehicles. We were seated privately in a room with a nice view. A special menu was prepared with choices of sandwiches, burgers, or a lunch salad. A beverage was included. Dessert was not as our next stop allowed for something special in that category.

It’s a cheeseburger We had lunch at Rancho las Palmas Hotel and Resort in a
private dining room.

After lunch, a couple of cars left to stay the weekend in the desert or visit friends in the area. From the restaurant, we went for gas to allow those who needed to fill up. From there we headed home via a very different route. We made a dessert stop at the Oasis Date Gardens for those interested in a date shake and time for all to mingle prior to the interesting journey back to San Diego via Borrego Springs, Julian and finally Ramona. We did plan a stop at the library in Julian for a restroom break, but found it closed due to the recent fires, we think! Plan “B” was to stop at Dudley’s, but that was also closed due to “no power.” We Corvette’s easily adjust to change. Not a problem! On to Ramona.
So, it was onto the final leg of our journey,” Red, White and Brews” for some adult beverages and a final time to be together and reminisce about the day’s journey or whatever is ones pleasure it is to talk about.
The comments made during the journey were all very positive about the route, the food, the places, the frequency of the stops, and the planning needed to set up this event.

MAIDEN VOYAGE 2020

Butterfield Stagecoach route of 1864
On January 18th forty COCSD members and their guests assembled at the Park N Ride in Lakeside off the I-8 to begin a journey of one hundred sixty miles of back country roads in San Diego County. AT 8:30 the adventure began on the I-8 to Alpine where we exited to old highway 80 and on to Ocotillo. Going the old highway that parallels the Freeway took us on two lane lightly travelled roads through hilly country that are made for fun driving in any sports car, especially our beautiful Corvettes. On the way, we were interrupted by the urgent unscheduled need for a restroom break at the Golden Acorn Casino. No problem, we adjust for about any need a member or guest has during one of our outings!
Arriving in Ocotillo almost on schedule, we made a planned stop for refreshments and restroom break. That stop lasted longer than planned, only one restroom for forty people. No problem, it turned out a perfect day to be stopped in the middle of the desert in January. The temperature was a non – blistering 65 degrees! Had this happened in July, our event planner would have received plenty of input. While at our rest stop, we witnessed many vehicles on their way by us demonstrating their ability to press the fast pedal! We enjoyed the show.
We again crossed many miles of relatively flat desert roads with no traffic in any direction allowing our caravan to motor very efficiently to our next stop, the Butterfield Stagecoach stop used back in the 1800’s. It was quite thought provoking to think people travelled here via stagecoach in the middle of the desert in 100 plus degrees. We were very happy to come in our air-conditioned cars even though the air was not needed!
The final leg of the journey took us up the Banner grade to Julian where the open road driving came to a screeching end. Our journey to Ramona was not as invigorating as the earlier drive, but very scenic and a very enjoyable change. Our final stop in Ramona was at the Marinade on Main restaurant where they had a special menu ready for us. They had reserved the entire restaurant. The fact that we were 45 minutes late complicated that situation a little, but we all did get seating and enjoyed a very good meal putting a very good ending to a very good COCSD Run!

WEEKEND RUNS MARCH THUR JUNE 2020 (not club sponsored)

Upon getting word from our Governor for all Californians to stay home, the club immediately cancelled all planned near-term activities.  That included the *Barely North of the Border” run scheduled for March 21.  The organizers of the run and a couple of others decided to drive the route as planned.  We followed the guidelines of social distancing, masks when not, and no more than ten people when gathering.  The BBQ restaurant we planned to eat at provided food to go and found a nearby park to ate.  It turns out to be a fantastic day with great weather, beautiful scenery, and not a vehicle in sight.  It was tempting to turn the horses loose, but the Sherriff and CHP had little else to do, but!!! 

We enjoyed the experience so much we repeated it several times over the next 12 weeks completing about nine runs of various length and covering a lot of Southern California’s back roads. We encountered several challenges in planning our routes.  Where to find restrooms, places to eat and what was open or not.  One run started going north to San Juan Capistrano, east to Lake Elsinore, Hemet, and Palm Desert, then south to Salton Sea and El Centro, then home.  That was exhausting, but what the hell, what else was there to do.  We saw every type of topography there is from the ocean, the foothills, lakes, snow covered mountains (we stayed just below snow levels), desert, farm country and then back over the mountains to the sea.

We did a slow run along the coast from just south of Oceanside, thru Carlsbad, Encinitas, Solana Beach to Torrey Pines.  Then to La Jolla where we were able to park six vehicles in a row on Coast Blvd overlooking the cliffs to watch waves breading over the rocks below, unreal!  We continued along the ocean thru Bird Rock to Pacific and Mission Beach.  We took a short break at the roller coaster and headed to Harbor Drive and downtown San Diego.  Again, zero traffic.  Out of nowhere, we were joined by another group of Corvettes in front of the convention center who followed us over the bridge to Coronado where we pulled into the parking lot at the Ferry Landing only to be joined by several Coronado Police vehicles.  BUSTED!!!  No, The Corvettes were a club from Carson and the police were there to check out our cars.  Like I said earlier, not much for the police to do (before all hell broke out a few weeks later)!  The run ended in Imperial Beach.  Unbelievable day!

We witnessed some unreal experiences of driving thru the heart of many municipalities and finding not a sole anywhere, zero traffic and nothing open. It felt like something out of the movies, ghost towns everywhere.  Driving some of the best roads that are perfectly suited for a Corvette (and Southern California has some of the best you can find} with no traffic was the best experience ever. 

We did encounter some “you have to move on or not here experiences”.  A Sherriff in Borrego had us leave when we stopped to look at a metal sculpture located off the road in the desert.  She was very polite and came up to us saying she was the “party pooper” and we needed to leave.  We did!  We were told we could not eat our sandwiches on the sidewalk in front of the Deli in Hemet.  The Deli was told that their customers could not consume their food there.  We moved to the street, not a problem.  In Ramona, a park ranger told us we could not use the picnic tables, we got out our lawn chairs.  We did have a lot of fun on these journeys, but we did not want to draw any unwanted attention while doing so.

As restrictions were relaxed over time, we expanded our list of drivers and participants.  The run to Palomar Mountain had about fifteen to twenty cars.  The video below filmed by the daughter of Tony and Julie Pergola, captures essence of this and many of the runs we experienced over the last few months.  We plan to incorporate many of the new routs we took in future club sponsored runs.

Core participants who attended most of these runs were Fred Taylor, Roberta Degener, Chris Spenser, Sam Lewis, Leah Johnson, Michael & Jayme Fuchs, and me,

Ken Carson

Activities Chair