Doing the Sideways thing.....

Some of you may have seen the movie "Sideways"....it was filmed in the Santa Ynez Valley. The wife and I abandoned the kids with the Nanny and took a nice drive up the coast this weekend.

I've owned my 355 spider for just over a month now, this was my first open-road venture away from home. I've got to say...I don't think I can ever grow tired of this car: it's simply magnificient. The attention is sorta cool, but more pleasing is taking the top down and cruising through the green/lush country-side...the exhaust purring, opening it up on straight-aways....it's just such a blast!!!! We even found a nice meadow atop a hill and did the picnic thing while overlooking the valley and the Ferrari in the background. As Darth would say...all I needed was some PicnicHead to make it complete.

I'm obligated to post some pics....
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Now here's the odd thing. While I was packing-up the blanket I had the front open. A car comes along honking & waving....we wave back and they slow down and park. The rear window rolls down and the guy is smiling HUGE and asks if we have any problems....

I explain that I'm just putting away the blanket and everything is okay. He then asks me if I know what "they" call the car. Sensing he is Italian I do my best impression of an Italian accent and roll off a "Ferrrrrarri". He laughs and replies back something else. Something Italian, starting with a "D". I can't even recall what the word sounded like....

Then the front window rolls down and the driver tells me that his friend is a Ferrari mechanic and they were prepared to offer help. I explain that the car is solid and thank them for stopping. They drive off.

I don't know what his D-word to me was, but the context seemed to imply "piece of junk"....something about the way he was laughing. Ughh...too much wine in his head. Who knows.

I fired up the engine, and proceeded to catch upto them (wasn't hard). They had a minivan behind them...so they never saw me coming. I passed his ass doing about 110 mph. As I passed him and got in front..I thrusted my fist upward hard (symbol of power).

Big lesson: DON'T TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE ROAD WHEN GOING FAST. The straight-away ended real soon and I came into a sharp curve. I'm man enough to admit that I panicked a tad...but the brakes did their thing and I carved the corner just fine. My line was a bit screwy...but lesson learned cheaply. They never caught up. They were in some screwy Subaru.

Anyways...I'm going to return to Santa Ynez in about a month, lemme know if anyone is interested in joining.

- Steve