The first major event of the roadster season for the California Roadsters (CR) is our annual joint run with the Bay Area Roadsters (BAR) to the Central Coast.  We have been making this annual pilgrimage ever since our club was formed in 1990. It started with attending the San Luis Obispo Roadster show, but now has expanded into our own run. It is usually held over a long weekend in mid-May, but this year it was moved to the end of the month (Memorial Day weekend), which gave us an extra day to recover before going back to work. 

The success of our BAR/CR runs depends upon good weather and the advanced planning from the host club.  It was BAR’s turn to host the run this year, and we again took over all the rooms within the Peachtree Inn in SLO as our base of operations.  This is our favorite old style, motor court style motel in SLO, owned and operator by long time friends Sandy and Hitch Hitchcock, who welcome us every year with open arms. John Berry, BAR’s Run Chairman it an outstanding job of planning this year’s event.

            Our club likes to come up a day early, leaving in two groups, Thursday morning from Costa Mesa and Brea.  We have members that live both in north and south Orange County, and traveling in two groups makes the first leg through LA traffic a lot easier. We meet for lunch at The Beach Club, just south of Summerland.  After lunch we take off for SLO and rolled into town about 3 PM, which was one of the coldest runs I remember in a long time, with a lot of gusty wind tossing the roadsters around.  It’s always nice to get there a little early and kick back with a cool one, before walking and/or taking the trolley downtown for the Thursday night street faire.  There are a lot of good bars, restaurants and outside kiosk facilities in downtown SLO, with our favorites being the BBQ joints. More than one member has been seen walking downtown with a BBQ’d turkey leg.

            BAR had pre-planned runs for both Friday and Saturday, and about 9AM on Friday morning all the roadsters are gassed up and ready to go.  We head north of town on 101 and jumped off for a nice run along country roads to our lunch destination, Robert Hall Winery, located on Highway 46 in Paso Robles. This is a newer winery built in the mid 2000s by Robert Hall, a retired real estate investor, who fell in love with fine wines after a trip to Europe.  He’s a spry 85 years old and has built a beautiful facility on over 400 acres (100 acres being planted with new vines). He designed and built a huge subterranean wine cellar for the processing and aging of his wines.  After a tour of the facility, we retired to a large patio deck with a nice view of the valley, and of course wine tasting, with a generous open pour.  I prefer red wines and Robert Hall Winery offers a very nice Pinot Noir and Syrah. Also included was a nice box lunch, which we leisurely got to enjoy.  After lunch we’re free to roam the countryside and visit some more wineries, or visit the nearby Estrella Air Museum, which we’ve visited one or twice before and is always interesting.

            Friday afternoon we eventually found our way back to The Peachtree Inn to partake in our famous deck party, hosted by BAR, and enjoyed by all.  BAR had also arranged for a a very nice catered Italian dinner, which was excellent and a good alternative to driving after a few toots. The partying went on into the early evening, and then it was off to bed for some needed rest.

            Saturday morning means another run, and this time it was for lunch at a historic double, railroad car dinner, known as Rock n Roll Dinner.  We left a little later since it was a shorter, southerly route to Oceano, just south of Pismo Beach. Again we prefer country roads over the traditional faster freeway, and got to take in the beautiful scenery through Edna Valley and the smaller communities south of SLO.  We had the whole diner reserved and needed all the seats, including a small outside patio area.  The food was typical diner fare, with a lot of burgers and fries served, and were quite good. 

After lunch, we again were free to tour the country side and of course seek out a few wineries, and a small group of us discovered Telosa, Edna Valley. The manager loved our roadsters, and opened a chained off area, letting us drive down to the lower level for a private tasting within the aging warehouse. After a few glasses of some very good, albeit pricy wines, we headed back to The Peachtree Inn.  The deck party was well underway, and after a few drinks help loosen everyone up and develop an good appetite. BAR arranged for a catered BBQ that night, which was well received. One thing about roadster guys and gals, we do like our food and drink.

Sunday morning came too soon, but luckily due to being the day before return traffic, the trip home would be light, plus we had a day to recovery due to Memorial Day (Monday) being a holiday.  We want to thank our host BAR for a great weekend, and especially John Berry and his committee.  We look forward to seeing you guys/gals on the road for the next roadster event.  We said our goodbyes to our roadster buddies and hit the road.