Apple Hill Tour 2016

Day Four

The tour is over and today is the day we travel home. Mark and I enjoyed the drive out of the foothills in the cool shadows of the trees into the big valley. The grasses and golden hills were really beautiful.

Here's some of the road and small hills before we got to the steep hill that gave two of our cars some trouble.

And the last photo of the odometer before the car is washed, covered and put back in the barn. The "Black Beauty" drove like a champ. Now she's home sweet home.

Until the next adventure!

Apple Hill Tour 2016

Day Three

First thing after breakfast was the Gymkhana Car Games. Here is where Model A owners are tested with their driving skills and ability to work together while driving their car. Mark and I were the first ones to go through the course. This is considered to be a disadvantage because you can't watch to see and get ideas to perfect the skill. 
The first test was to drive the car between two rows of cones and the passenger has to toss three rings over a cone off to the side, but the car can't come to a stop. – We got one ring on the cone.
The second test was to spot the driver so he could get the two right wheels on a 2x4. – We didn't do it.
The third test was a timed test. When told to start, the driver gets out, runs to the passenger side and unscrew four spark plugs from the top of a head, then run to the driver's side and screw in the spark plugs in another head. He rushes back to the car and once he closes the door, the passenger can jump out and do the same series of step. The team with the fastest score wins. – Our time was 46.40 seconds.
And the last test, we drove forward keeping the car moving and stopping as close as you could to a bar extended in front of the car. – We came within one inch of the bar.
We hung out and watched the other cars go through the course and then we went on to the NCRG meeting.
From there, we went to the barbeque dinner and awards presentations. We had a nice dinner, visited with friends and learned we won First Place for the Gymkhana games. It's all luck! And it's all fun!
After dinner, SCVC members and Sonoma A members sat around the pool and played "What's It?" Patti found this gadget at the trading post and we passed it around try to guess what it is or does. Do you know what it is?

And from here, we head back to our rooms to get ready for the return trip home.
Thank you Hangtown A's for the fun weekend.
 

Apple Hill Tour 2016

Day Two

We got up this morning to learn one of our car's developed a smoking problem. This is going to be a hard habit to break.

While getting ready to have fun today, another friend gave us his mug shot. 

 

Then after breakfast, a group of us set out to tour Apple Hill country. But we had to stop off at the famous hardware store in Placerville. Oh and we were in town, we had to check out the antique stores. Then we went on a tour of the Gold Bug Mine. 

But we are in apple country so we had to stop for lunch and apples:
apple cider, apple empañadas and apple pie.
But we didn't stop eating there. Fourteen of us in seven cars visited the famous local eatery, Poor Red's before heading back to the host hotel for the Hubley car races. SCVC took 2nd and 3rd place in the regular class and 1st in the modified class. We finished off the evening visiting with friends from SCVC
and other chapters.

Tomorrow we look forward to the Gymkhana car games, and BBQ dinner to wind up the weekend.

Apple Hill Tour 2016

Day One


We left San Jose to drive to Placerville with nineteen SCVC members to attend the 2016 Apple Hill Tour. The odometer reads 24,593 as we leave the house.

We meet up with our traveling partners in Milpitas and are back on the road by 9 am.

By 12:30pm we are in Ione, CA having lunch at the golf course.

We drove on some of the smoothest roads. These roads make the roads in the Bay Area feel like roads from a third world country.

The scenery was stunning. We saw two large raptors with their eyes open for an easy meal and a gorgeous fox trampling through the tall grass trying to catch his breakfast. Our car handled great and had no problems with the warm weather. Unlike the trip up over Lolo Pass, the car loved the hills today.

Ever wonder what it's like riding in an eighty five year old car?
Catch this video to see the other A's following us.

All in all, we had a great day. We had dinner at Casa Ramos with some of our friends, strolled back to the host hotel where we had ice cream sundaes, played Bingo and socialized with our other friends from other Model A chapters. Mark's even won a Bingo game and the prize was three lotto Scratchers - two were winning tickets.