May 15, 2006

[julian or bust] ^{12:18 PM}

After being postponed for weeks, saturday finally saw the Julian Audi drive. Until meeting Boy I never really saw the pleasure of going on long drives to nowhere, but given the routes they take, and the company I'm in they're pretty awesome. Unorganized, but awesome.

We got up at 6 to be in Temecula by 8:30, but of course we didn't leave until well after 9. We drove in Group A, which is the "We know how to handle hills and curves" group, but sadly any attempts at action driving were thwarted by an old man in a new corvette and a younger man in an old 1950's pick-up truck. After a somewhat infuriating drive in the foothills, we arrived at Harrah's Casino for a one hour regrouping and some gambling on the Rincon Indian Reservation. I won $5 at video blackjack.

On the roof, one of the cars was making unnatural noises, and this is a car club mind you, every man within 15 feet wanted to "take a look." In what I can accurately describe as a metaphor for the US goverment, a bunch of guys huddled around, talked a lot of non-sense, made a lot of proclimations, and never fully reached a consensus. Some thought it was the air conditioning, some thought it was the power steering, and others thought there wasn't any oil in the car (he must've been republican). In any event, a pully was off, a belt wasn't working, and the car would have to be towed; its amazing it made it to Harrah's at all.

Boy and I have a rule at casinos, we each only take out $20, we spend that $20, and we're prepared to be out that $20. It works out rather nicely, and my first $2 alone kept me playing for a good 15 minutes. After getting the black jack out of our system we went back to the roof and saw that Group A had left without us, so we took off on our own.

We made our way up the Palomar Mountain, in what could only be called a driver's and motorcyclists dream, with tight steep curves and a gorgeous view. We then came upon another Audi pulled off to the side of the road. I thought they were just enjoying the view, but then they flagged us down asking if we had a fire extinguisher or any water. I bought water in the morning and we used it to put out the small engine fire of unknown origin.

Smoke and embers continued coming from the engine, so a jack and ghetto-jack were used to the guys could go exploring when a voluntary highway patrol car came up, manned by two nice elderly men who I call Heckle and Jeckle. The proceeded to drive up to the local fire station, who promptly removed their fire engine from the museum just as Group B (a convoy of about 30 audis) pulled up behind us. So many cars and flashing lights, it sure felt like sweeps to me.

It seems that one of the car's turbos had leaked oil, which then ignited, thus causing a not good situation. Also not good: flooding a car engine with water from a firehose:

After help arrived, Boy and I left to continue on our run, eventually ending up at the meeting spot: The Red Barn pizzaria, which is as it sounds. It was there that we learned that yet a third Audi had suffered a less than desireable fate. The own had the car for only a few days, this was his first Audi drive, and he'd accidentally gone off-roading, completely screwing his suspension and front passenger tire. Indeed the cars took a licking, but Lil Trooper, our A6 was a star and never even went out of breath.

After the pizza, we were on our own to do as we saw fit, and Boy and I continued to the town of Julian. Were it not for the gigantic trees and mountain behind Julian, you'd swear you were on a backlot. The two-block main street consisted of a book store, general store, bank, antiquing, auto garage, bar, 2 stupid knicknack shops and about 11 pie shoppes. Indeed, it seems the town of Julian survives on pie income (and the liquor income from the numerous bikers passing through), and we wound up walking away with 5 baked goods (only 2 of which were for ourselves).

A pleasant day for us, but a not-so-happy saturday for others.

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