Saturday morning Beauty gets a wash. It's an opportunity for me to go over every square inch of the car, noticing every tiny mark, most already there from the first owner, not many at all, and maybe a couple I've picked up in the 5 days I've owned it. None of them noticeable to the average viewer. Lots of heads turn, everyone smiles, some stop to talk, one asks "Is that a Mustang? I saw the horse logo...".
A friend I haven't seen in a year or so (Dave C.) calls in the morning. He says he'll be passing by my little village on his way home and maybe he can buy me lunch? Why not, right. So I drop the top and we head east to find a restaurant with some shade nearby for parking. He admits that his big agenda item was to prod me into buying the Ferrari that I was going to buy 3 years ago, but didn't (see last post from 2014), and he was amazed that I did it just this week. Mid-lunch I take a chance and call a friend (BB) who lives nearby, another Ferrari owner (488, F12, plus Lamborghini Aventador spider, Porsche, Rolls, etc) who has followed my twisted tale of owning this car since the beginning when he drove me north in his 458 Spider so I could test drive the California when it first became available. He drives over in his 488 to join us for lunch. In one of those interesting coincidences, Dave has previously talked with BB on business matters but never met.
Lunch winds down and BB invites me to dinner with some of his friends that evening at some very fancy place I have not experienced before, and to meet his newest squeeze-to-be, and her friend, etc. This is a no brainer because BB is a great host and is always surrounded by an interesting entourage. We meet at his mansion for a few hours of champagne and talk before dinner. Lots of Ferrari talk and photos of the cars. He has a white F12, and the red 488, along with my blue Beauty, would make a great red/white/blue tribute to his French heritage, and also very American, but we don't get around to making that photo happen. Too many details to make it happen, and we have pretty girls to entertain.
BB's new friend Alexandra is magnificent, very lively and open, and her good friend Mary is quite the same, and wearing over-the-knee boots, a feature that fascinates the living bejeezus out of me. (For some reason I'm particularly attracted to women's exotic footwear. On them, of course.)
Mary's a great conversationalist, and it seems we have lots in common, so the dinner goes much more smoothly than I had thought at the outset because there was another guy there who I thought was the matchup for Mary, and I was the last minute 5th wheel. But as it turned out Mary and drove there and back in my car, and we spent most of the night talking. I felt bad for the other guy, but it happened all so naturally, without any contrivance on my part at all. During the two night drives, to and from dinner, I finally found the high beam switch!
Sunday was son day. I drove to his place with the top down, and glided quietly into his driveway to surprise him. It was the first time Mike saw the car, although he has known of this impending event since the beginning. We had a quick lunch of takeout Rubio's, then ventured outside to check out the car in detail. Without any suggestion on my part, he moved from his wheelchair to the driver's seat, and gave it the full inspection of all the buttons, dials, knobs, whatever, including startup, and revving and oooh-ing and aaah-ing. It was great to see him in the car! Maybe there's a way to fit it out with hand controls for him to drive it when I'm doing the long dirt nap...
As I was demonstrating the top up operation, it got hung up with the rear quarter windows partially open, but going through the down/up procedure again all things worked right. It seems that it's a touchy procedure. Maybe I took my finger off the button for a millisecond and that caused the glitch. Not confidence inspiring.
Back home before sunset, top up.
Odometer 1942 (the year I was born).
Adventure called. The hermit is driven from his cave in search of a fast drive and the unknown. I have an annual pass to all California and National parks, so I choose one about an hour away. The roads there are mostly freeway and nice twisty mountain roads.
Drove from Ragged Point north to where Highway 1 is shut down because of the "Mother of All Landslides" then turned around and drove all the way south to Cambria. Had a quick lunch at San Simeon, the best fish tacos EVER. Sitting outside with a great view: the car just across the street.
A short ride of about 10 miles to the south, top down on a beautiful day, in a beautiful car, for an ugly reason: surgery to get a couple of suspicious "lesions" removed and inspected for cancer, one on my back and another on my right thumb.
Saturday morning Beauty gets a wash. It's an opportunity for me to go over every square inch of the car, noticing every tiny mark, most already there from the first owner, not many at all, and maybe a couple I've picked up in the 5 days I've owned it. None of them noticeable to the average viewer. Lots of heads turn, everyone smiles, some stop to talk, one asks "Is that a Mustang? I saw the horse logo...".
