Story by: Don Chaisson and Jack Cox, Photos by: Jack Cox,
The Breakfast Meet Up!
The idea was simple: meet up for breakfast some place where we could hang out with friends and then go for a drive to some place for lunch. Our day began at the Stockton Golf & Country Club (SGCC) located on the inland water way in Stockton as huge cargo vessels to pleasure craft cruised by.
Club President Dave Boyd made arrangements with friends at the club, GM Rich Schultz and manager Katy (see the photo of Dave with Katy ) to allow us to park our cars for a morning time of breakfast with wonderful burritos and coffee. The burritos really were super!
The behind the curtains mechanics for the event involve setting up an EventBrite registration for a head count of who was going to come. Easy, right? Two or so weeks before the event, EventBrite opened registration. Crickets. About 10 days before the event a whole half dozen people had signed up. Dave sent out an “eNews” email and Don included a “plug” in an El Portal EXTRA to see if we could get a few more people.
We ended up with over 3 dozen people attending, with about 31 cars gracing the country club’s parking lot, one of our better attended events. Here are just the cars parked in the row against the river!
The wonderful thing was that several new members showed up for their first Yosemite Region event. We had some very interested, non Yosemite members also, particularly one of the SGCC manager’s son, Hudson, who seemed to really enjoy himself. But a warm welcome to the members who made this event their first as a Yosemite Member: Patti Rittenhouse and Paul Line, David Woods, Paul Langley, Joe Long and Jeremy Benjamin. 
Another member, Larry Kundert, came as his “second” event, having attended the Porsche and Pints earlier. A lot of people “oh’ed and ah’ed” over his car, a new 719 Spider (OK, it was me, Chaisson, doing most of the Ah’s!) This was the first car in color “chalk” that I’ve had a chance to see in person. It is very attractive, but I just couldn’t get my eyes off the brakes… the enormous 6 piston fronts and 4 piston rears that are as big as my “front” brakes. Very impressive.
The oldest Yosemite member car in the lot was Dave Boyd’s 914 (more on this later). But our photographer Jack Cox , always alert for “the shot” took a great photo of a stray, very neat, non-Yosemite Member 356 with our member cars in the background. I hope someone put a Yosemite Region “Nice Car” card on its window! Always on the look out for new members !
“The Drive” : special in a surprising way!
About 10:00, we started to get organized for “the drive”. As the “organizer” of the drive, it was a bit overwhelming. Based on the early response, I was expecting maybe 12 or 15 cars for the drive to Hula’s in Escalon. But when we asked, “who wants to go on a drive?” just about every one raised their hands! I printed out just one copy of the Release form, good for a dozen, so had to improvise with folks signing off on the back and on another sheet of line paper. The later probably not to PCA’s liking, but. With that many people, we had to break the group up into two conga-lines, one lead by Chaisson and the other by Boyd.
We went through the usual and required “safety briefing” (no speeding, don’t pass the leader, lights on, etc. etc.) Everyone paid very close attention, right?
The route was a simple one, leaving the country club lot onto Interstate 5, then “cross town” freeway link to “99” heading south. Got off on Hwy 4 East, toward Angels Camp.
We as soon as we got off busy Highway 4 we were greeted with a surprise: the splendor of the valley and foothills with thousands of Almond trees blooming brightly in our cloudless sky of deep blue. As we drove through the back roads our eyes were filled with such beauty.
Dennis Wyatt of the Turlock Journal described the beauty our club members enjoyed: “As the sun rises over the snow draped Sierra in the east the light of a new day backlights the most glorious sight ever created by Mother Nature — billions upon billions of delicate white and pink almond blooms bursting everywhere you look. Spring doesn’t simply arrive in the countryside around the Valley. It bursts open seemingly all at once but not in an in-your-face way. Rather it caresses the senses.”
Then on to the very “entertaining” Sonora Road that lead to Orange Blossom Road, traveling along the Stanislaus River ending in the town of Escalon, for our lunch at Hula’s. BTW, Hula’s does not sell any Hawaiian shirts! Thanks to my “navigator”, Phil Harris who knows this area like the back of his hand, we had no wrong turns!
Now, some may argue, but the pace was reasonable in our group. I’m not sure about the pace in “group B” lead by our region president, Dave. Dave limped in with his 914, parked it and called for some assistance from his friend at RF Racing for a tow home. Actually, Dave was able to start his steed up and “drive” it onto the trailer!
Made us think of that old horse racing saw : “Raced hard and put away wet!”
The Lunch….
If you’ve not tried a burger and fries at Hula’s, you are missing a simple pleasure. The menu offers all sorts of modifications to the simple “Hula’s Burger”, but just like a “base” Carrera, even this base model is wonderful. The “seating” area is very “small town”, showing photos and memorabilia from local school teams and personalities. After your meal, the staff brings out a complimentary mini soft serve ice cream. Very nice.
All in all a great, well attended day that gave us natures beauty experienced through the cars we so value, Porsches.
To put a point to this, Jack Cox stopped on the way home to enjoy the blossoms a little bit longer!
