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ANGELES NATIONAL PARK AND UP THE PCH
From Fredonia, we hopped on the I-15 South through Las Vegas. For the life of me I can’t find the picture I took as we passed the 127 to Death Valley, but the temperature gauge registered the outside temp at 121DegF. We experienced absolutely no heat soak during this period (pun intended for those Vette nuts) and my passenger declined the opportunity to roll the windows down for just a bit to grab a feel of the hottest weather we had ever been in.
As we started seeing LA signs, Karen mentioned that we should get off of the 15 and take Hwy 2 through Angeles National Forest as “it was a great scenic route”. Was it?!?! Hwy 2 through Angeles National Forest has some of the most intense enthusiast mountain driving one could imagine.
You might notice the camera on top of ALLFLASH. Now, take a look at the equipment on top of the Ferrari just out of the picture; this is what we definitely could have used!
The mountain roads are a bit different than the twisties you might see at the Tail or even Snake Run. The one consistent we are seeing in most enthusiast roads, however, is that once the ride has started there is no way out until the other end of the road.
And then we ran into a bit of a snag… After LA, and while traveling up the Coast towards San Jose, a tractor trailer wanted to get a closer look and bumped our new Corvette Z06 on the PCH, this causing what later turned out to be 7K in damage. Considering the fact that we were in another country, we weren’t injured and the damage was only cosmetic, we put this behind us and continued on. Ouch!
DISCOVERING BIG SUR…AT NIGHT
There were some logistics mistakes made in our lack of planning as well, the discovery of Big Sur and the coastal ledge being the first. The area of Big Sur includes an 85 mile stretch of highway south of Monterey best discovered during the day. In our journey, we hit it a bit later than expected and all hotels were full. That’s when we learned just how long an 85 mile stretch really is driving a coastal ledge at night without any exits to a main thoroughfare.
I thought this might be a great opportunity for a night video demonstration for the Corvettes performance data recorder. In any case, we spent a few days in the San Jose area and then continued up the coast, via San Francisco of course where we seem to have come across some fans from Italy. They didn’t notice our banged up rear end at all.
While here, we were able to get a pretty good shot of Alcatraz before climbing the cliff for some more shots.
Once we were up on the bluff, Karen thought it might be a good time just to sit back and relax for some sun.
I didn’t feel we could leave without at least a partial shot with the Z06 overlooking the Golden Gate bridge.
Excellent write up, Les. That is one amazing journey. Color me jealous.
Thank you so much for documenting your adventure! I’ve always wanted to do a cross country road trip/adventure. Seeing the glimpses of what it is like truly motivates me to create my own journey some day soon. I love the not having a schedule part! Simply plan loosely, and hop in the car and see where it takes you. I can’t wait. I currently have a c6 Lingenfelter that I might take the journey on.
Again thanks so much. Rarely do I ever find an article that keeps my attention from beginning to end. This one truly motivates me. I’m glad you and your wife had a great time and a safe journey.
Take care!
Thank you very much Parker and I hope we meet up someday. This was quite the compliment and feel free to share or pass this on within any circles you feel it may be valuable!
im so jealous!
Les, thanks for your story. Enjoyed it immensely.
My wife and I are leaving form Ontario for the west coast in 2 weeks. Plan to be away for 6 weeks. Mode of travel is our new 2019 Grand Sport. I’m feverishly working on details and gathering information to make sure we don’t miss anything along our planned route.
We did a week practice run in the Vette to Gatlinburg Tennessee that included the Tail, Head and Back of the Dragon and also the BRP and Skyline Dr. All went well so we are now stoked about the next trip.
Question: What did you use for luggage? We managed out of typical carry-on bags for the week. But I know we’ll need more of a variety of clothes with us out west as we are going to hit the real mountains. Weather can be anything. We want to be able to take the top off the car at any time during the trip so the bags need to fit below it.
Thanks, Paul