Concours d'Elegance in Monterey

As we stepped out of the airport in San Francisco, we could breathe easy.  A welcome feeling from our summer in Alabama and Atlanta.  Highs of 60 degrees were on tap for the entire week.  Dave and I stopped in Santa Cruz for lunch and were on our way to Monterey, CA for a week long car event.  Porsche's highlight this year was the 918 Spyder prototype.  It's a race car with an electric engine - a hybrid!  It's a beautiful piece of work.

Monterey is a wonderful city to walk and explore, so that's basically what I did most of the week.  Dave....oh yes, he had to work.  Of course, we found a designer pet store in Carmel, so we had to take a look-see.  We have a new pup coming.  I tricked Dave into holding the designer clothes; can you tell he's really into clothing for dogs?!

We had plenty of cocktail receptions, a Rolex sponsored dinner and fun times with our good friend and racer, Hurley Haywood.  Patrick Long, another Porsche racer, was around for the week as well, so the four of us attended the Rolex dinner.

Over the course of the week, we had the chance to drive a 911 Cabriolet Turbo - red.  Yes, it was fun!  Dave and I took it down to Big Sur for breakfast early one morning.  Dave just wanted to hit the road hard and test out the turbo.  Surprised?  I have to admit it was exhilarating going over the mountain that fast....at one point, we hit 140.  We also came pretty close to a truck carrying Port-O-Potties.  Needless to say, one minor slip of the wheel and we could have been in deep doo-doo.  The most exciting part was driving one of the museum cars (from the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart).  It was a 1962 Carrera 2 that Ferry Porsche drove.  Story has it that he had the passenger door locked from the outside because one of his passengers fell out while he was taking a hard curve.  With no seat belts in the car, I could see that happening!  It's a strange feeling flying down a mountain road with no seat belts.

I managed to sweet talk Dave into a very quick winery visit - very, very quick, but at least we made it!

The weather was gorgeous (most afternoons), the cars were stunning and we were able to enjoy Monterey.  For the actual car show on Sunday, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jay Leno viewed the cars.  Ralph Lauren had cars on show and Patrick Dempsey was racing at Laguna Seca track all weekend.
Our 6:00 am flight on Monday came all too soon, but at least we had a great time along the way.