Before I get to the San Clemente event, I need to tell the story of my wild plan for a full weekend of car stuff, which was executed with precision by yours truly. Who said it can't be done (my wife Nancy?).
Friday night, Nancy and I took our recently acquired 1934 Dodge Humpback Delivery Wagon home from our shop in Torrance, CA., so that we could head out at 5:45am for a great yearly Woodie show, The 47th Annual Wavecrest Woodie Gathering, in Encinitas. The show is put on by the San Diego and So. Cal. Woodie clubs, at the park just off the beach at the end of Encinitas Blvd., just two blocks west of Pacific Coast Hwy.
We drove at a very spirited pace and arrived at the show, just as the early risers started staging at the entrance and where we were greeted by a not-to-hospitable Gent who explained to me that my Humpback is not a Woodie and therefore he didn't think we (my Humpback) belonged in the show!! Them was fighting words to my ear and of course I perked up from my almost two hour drive and explained to the old Chap that if he had read the by-laws of the National Woodie Club (that I belong to, plus the San Diego and So. Cal. Woodie Clubs), it says that you don't have to own a Woodie to be a member of the club! I explained to him that I do own a 1935 Plymouth Woodie that currently is not drivable. Here I am all the way from Hermosa Beach and I'm not going back until I have been in the show. The Chap was now confused and not sure what this crazy Italian would do, so I made it easy for him and told him to get a big boss to stop me because I was going to park out of the thick-of-things, by the odd houses and the big trash bins, and see what kind of interest my lovely rig would bring. That is exactly what I did to his dismay and he later came to apologize to me as he saw that my wagon was getting all the attention from the spectators and members who were exiting their Woodies.
Of course, my wife Nancy was having a tough moment with all that was happening but she soon got over the unpleasantness and we had a great time at the show.
But the story gets better because my sister-in-law (Nancy’s sister) Maidy showed up with our nephew Cameron and his fiancee, Amber, to check out the show and this is where my plan started to come together. After the young ones left, I locked up the Humpback and asked Maidy if she could drive us the 35 miles south to Coronado Island, to visit our other nephew, Ryun, who is in training to be a US Navy Seal, have lunch with him at the Naval Amphibian Base and then return back to the Woodie Show to retrieve the Humpback.
The plan went smoothly and after some rest and freshening up we treated the gang to a nice dinner at the famous Brigantine Sea food restaurant. in Del Mar, just above the Del Mar Fairgrounds and Race Track and it all ended splendidly! We spent the night at Maidy's home in Solano Beach, it doesn't get any better than this.
On Sunday morning we got up at 0600 and started back north to meet with our great buds and fellow Healey aficionados Clay Kaytis and his wife Monica Lago-Kaytis. We met up at a Chevron station to fuel up for the return trip home and then got in the staging line to enter the awesome 30th Annual Downtown San Clemente Car Show, a great event; and go figure a club Spirit points activity! Another bonus.
We sat in line a good forty minutes and then to our surprise the attendants guided us to the beginning of the show were the high roller VIP's pay a lot more entry money for the privilege to stage earlier and get a better parking location!, it turns out that a bunch of the VIP's were a no-show, so we were the lucky recipients of the good luck and we parked in a really nice area by many great restaurants and nice restrooms (for us old Geezers!). The weather was fantastic and the food was awesome, Oh, the cars were just fantastic as usual and the mixture of every type of Classic, Resto Mods, Hot Rods and scatterings of all types of Foreign and American Roadsters and Convertibles were also on hand! Club member attendance was a bit skimpy but they brought great quality cars, such as our buds Monica and Clay, Chris Savage with his highly modified Healey, myself and wife Nancy with our lovely Dodge Humpback and member Tom Rubinate and his lovely wife Paige with their favorite Pontiac (Goat).
We spotted a few old friends and kicked many tires around and again our cars gathered an incredible amount of interest from a crowd of approx. 25,000 spectators, plus many of our friends and relatives that live in the greater San Clemente area. There were dogs, and kids, you name it and they showed up today!! What a great day and at 3PM the County Sheriffs guided us out of the show through a lovely crowd of spectators who stood on the sidewalks to get a last peek of the cars in motion.
Clay, Monica and Nancy and I headed north to home along the old PCH route and it took a bit longer, but worth every moment of the trip with good daylight to make the trip even nicer.
Can't wait for next year’s event, it will be the 25th time I will have attended. It should be a barn burner! We recommend that more of our members attend this great show.
See you on the asphalt!! Note : Clay and Monica provided the photos for this story. Ciao . . .