And No Particular Place To Go...

[Godfrey DiGiorgi <ramarren@domain.elided>]

Saturday dawned beautiful, clear and sunny, warm and comfortable out. I 
was up at dawn, I know. ;)

'I am not going to stay in the house and deal with chores on a day like 
today' I sez to myself. Hmm, what to do? Well, I've been trying to take 
some pictures over by the coast, waiting for the fog and the light to hit 
just that sweet point in the morning. Try again, I suppose ... :) This 
time I decided to carry the Big Gun: my Nikon F3 with motor drive and the 
70-300mm lens. Ye gads, I'd forgotten how heavy this assemblage can be. 

So at 6:15, I went down to the garage, put down the top on the Spider, 
and fired it up. The lovely rasp of an Alfa Romeo four never fails to 
make me smile. A few minutes warm up and we're off. It's still a little 
chilly for diving into 'Cruzan fog without a sweatshirt so I had the 
obligatory sweatshirt on. No traffic yet, one of the pleasures of being 
on the road this early. Highway 17 over the mountains is usually to be 
avoided due to the bumper to bumper traffic, but this morning with this 
little nonsense to deal with, it's one nice windy fast romp with the 
Spider's motor reaching for revs and just making all kinds of smiles 
break out on my face. Some wiseacre in a BMW "sport sedan" thinks he can 
keep me behind him for a few moments ... but the appropriate bit of 
insanity (think Nuvolari at the Nurburgring; well, think it anyway) and 
that challenge has been dispatched. I guess that just paying $35K for a 
fancy sport sedan doesn't buy you either the driving skill or the 
appropriate insanity factor. 

And downtown Santa Cruz is just as I'd hoped at 7:15am: mostly deserted, 
nice fog, Zachary's is open for breakfast. No lines, just pick a table 
and chat with the waitress for a few minutes. Satori. Mmm, good pancakes. 

After eating and drinking tea, I head over to Lighthouse Point and park. 
A couple of nice people see the car and come over to ooh and aah over it. 
I have to laugh as the paint is just atrocious. Pull out the Big Gun and 
take a nice leisurely walk along West Cliff Drive, photographing the 
slowly lifting fog, the surfers, the lighthouse and the trees. A 
beautiful morning indeed. By 10am, the fog had lifted fully and I was 
done shooting. Wonder how they'll come out. 

The Spider started instantly again and made all the right burbly/raspy 
noises as I rolled it slowly down along West Cliff and out to Pacific 
Coast Highway. Take the long way home. I have nothing else in particular 
to do today... might as well waste it completely enjoying myself. I'm 
cruising up PCH at a pretty good clip and a little past Davenport I spy a 
Ferrari 308GTB on the side of the road, driver just settling back into 
it. I usually don't wave at Fazzaz around here, most of the owners seem 
to be rather snotty about the fact that they own an expensive car, so I 
just kinda glanced over as I passed and noticed the driver pointing out 
dingy grey old FrankenSpider to the passenger. Few moments later there 
are a pair of Ferrari headlights in my rearview mirror, flashing and 
waving. What's this, a Ferrari owner in a 308 who's actually a car 
enthusiast and will deign to wave at an Alfa Spider? amazing. He passed 
me and I enjoyed the lovely rip of that nice V8 for a bit, then waved me 
past so I downshifted into third and gave him the full song at top revs, 
even followed me off PCH onto one of my nice backroad loops and seemed to 
be enjoying it. I was pleasantly amazed and remain so ... he beeped and 
waved as I headed off PCH onto Hwy 84 to climb back inland again. 

Up the winding joy of Hwy 84 to the ridgetop, well up to the last couple 
miles when a yutz on a BMW motorcycle insisted on taking up the entire 
road at 30mph. Oh well, I'm in no hurry. Down the eastern side, north 
onto I-280. I took the Hwy 92 turnoff and headed out towards Livermore to 
drop in on friends at the Ducati motorcycle dealership there. 

It's gotten warm by now, and I realized that I was running low on fuel, 
so I pulled over at the Livermore exit and tanked up. 278 miles on 11.1 
gallons of fuel ... not bad for a brisk thrash. Stopped in to see Dale 
and Gloria, discovered Gloria was slacking off at some party or another, 
talked for a while, headed back home. 

There are two big things left to do to this car now. The paint has to be 
attended to, definitely ... it's unsightly ... but that's number two. The 
transmission needs its overhaul as the worn 2nd and 3rd gear synchros, 
and the way it pops out of reverse, put a damper on really using the 
engine the way it should be. I guess I better get off my butt and get it 
together, send it off to the shop to have that done. I want a lightened 
gearset if I can get it, to improve the shifting and reduce the wear on 
these synchros. 

(Well, three things: the interior needs doing too, but that's more money 
to do it the way I want than I'm likely to have to spend on it this year. 
And what I have is serviceable if not pretty. A new dash, good radio, new 
rugs, renewed door and seat coverings in leather will really put the cap 
on it, but I'll have to wait until next year.)

Those details aside, what a great way to spend a day enjoying this 
ridiculous old Alfa Romeo I've overspent on (again...)! I guess it was 
worth the bother and expense after all. :)

Godfrey

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End of alfa-digest V7 #825
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