The Santa Ynez Valley

Solvang

Home from Las Vegas, we grabbed some lunch and then hopped into my 30-year-old Porsche 911 SC and aimed it south on 101.  It’s a pretty dull freeway drive through the agriculture of the Salinas Valley until you get down to Paso Robles, where the scenery starts to get more interesting.  We were headed for the Santa Ynez valley, in Santa Barbara County, made famous by the 2004 movie Sideways.  In the film, Miles and Jack stay at the Day’s Inn in Buellton, but we decided to stay in the heart of Solvang, the Danish capital of America.  It was a strange variety of culture shock walking around this little town in the evening with its steeply peaked copper roofs, timber-frame construction, and windmills, after having had breakfast in Las Vegas.  The population is a mere 5200, so the downtown is only a few square blocks, but there were groups of Japanese tourists on the streets, chattering in their choppy tongue.  There was a Japanese-language remake of the film in 2009, so that may be why, although the remake shifts the location to Napa. 

Firestone Winery

The next day we headed up Alamo Pintado Road through Los Olivos to the Firestone winery.  In the movie Miles and Jack, bored with the tour, sneak into the barrel room with the two women they’ve met, Maya and Stephanie.  We skipped the tour but were both taken with the Sauvignon Blanc, though all the whites we tasted seemed good, so we got a mixed case of 6 bottles of Sauvignon Blanc, 4 of Riesling, and 2 of Gewurztraminer.  Then I drove over to the nearby Fess Parker vineyard.  This is the tasting room where, in the film, Miles, who has just learned that his novel has been definitively rejected, insists on having his glass filled and finally, when the bartender refuses, guzzles the entire dump bucket.  The pictures of Parker in his Davy Crocket outfit took me back to my childhood (they had little wine-cork sized coonskin caps for sale), but we weren’t crazy about the wines. 

Ballard Canyon Road

I had taken the Porsche thinking it would be fun on the back roads, and it was.  On the way back to Solvang I took Ballard Canyon Road and after a section of tight twisty turns at the top, it opened into a wiggly straight where an Audi sedan was dawdling.  I beeped and punched it past him, the flat six howling, and then settled into a thrilling swift flight through the rest of the turns back to town.  The car handled beautifully and the fun of that one road made it worth putting up with the lack of luggage space, which put a cap on how much wine we could buy. 

 

Mosby

After an excellent lunch in town followed by an old-fashioned ice cream soda at a vintage fountain, we set out for a couple of southern wineries. Some friends had been to this region a few months before and had brought us a fine bottle of Pinot Noir from Sanford, so we were looking forward to visiting there. Unfortunately they had an event underway and consequently it was so crowded we could barely find room at the bar. And maybe my tongue had gotten frazzled by the chocolate soda, or the vintage we tasted was different, but the Pinot Noir just didn’t seem as delicious as the one they had brought us. To be honest, I don’t know how professional wine tasters do it. The same wine can taste quite different to me on different occasions. So without buying anything there, we cruised back down the road to a winery called Mosby that favored Italian varietals. Frieda, after all, is partial to all things Italian. And so of course she did find a few bottles of red to buy there, as well as a raspberry dessert wine. If you go, be sure to check out the psychedelic restroom, which has a continual light show going on inside.

 

I think this area is a nice getaway if you live in L.A., but I prefer the Napa, or the Sonoma valley.  Both the wineries and the wine are better there, and for us it’s half the distance.  So, while I’m glad we checked this area out, I don’t think we’ll be going back anytime soon.    

Pretty Vegas

I first visited Las Vegas in March of 1999.  My mother was house sitting for a wealthy friend of hers on the north side in a neighborhood of mansions with 5-car garages, broad, freshly paved streets, and immaculate shopping centers.  I drove around with her looking at condos in retirement villages and we saw some nice ones with pools, gardens, and views, where seniors putted around happily in golf carts.  They were bargains by California standards, and Vegas seemed like a sun-drenched, antiseptic town, built just for retirees. 

One day I went down to The Strip to see what it was like.  Mandalay Bay had just opened and was all glittery and fresh.  I explored it, even played a few slots, but found them more boring than solitaire, and losing money didn’t make them any more interesting.  The other people playing all looked like they’d wandered in from a trailer park or a truck stop and had a vacant look in their eyes.  I walked down to Bellagio, watched the fountain a little bit, and went in there as well as Caesar’s.  The Strip struck me as an exercise in bad taste with an unlimited budget, a place of non-stop sensory overload, a flashy racket, tacky, tawdry, trashy, sleazy, and skanky (especially in the daylight).  It was the polar opposite of my mother’s neighborhood, but I didn’t much like either of them.

Despite shopping, my mother never got a pied-a-terre in Vegas but Frieda was curious about the place so in June of 2004 we stopped there on the way back to California from visiting my mother in the Midwest.  We stayed at the Luxor because she liked the faux-Egyptian décor.   Neither of us found gambling entertaining, so we just wandered around looking.  Kind of on an impulse we got married, just because we’d been thinking about doing it and they made it so easy there.  Afterward we went to a Star Trek convention, had our pictures taken with a Klingon and a Borg, and took a ride in a shuttlecraft, which was kind of fun, but I still wasn’t sold on the place. 

On our most recent visit, after I drove the Ferrari, we hit a vintage car show at the Imperial Palace (fittingly full of Chinese people) and later had dinner at Casa di Amore, an old-Vegas style restaurant off The Strip on Tropicana.  It was kitschy but it’s the kind of place that doesn’t exist anywhere else, and while listening to George Bugatti play electric piano and sing old standards of the 40s and 50s, I began to get a grip on the unique character of Vegas.  Yeah sure, it’s gaudy and loud and vulgar, but that’s just who it is. 

We stayed at the Luxor again this time and they had a show there called “Bodies,” skinned, plasticized corpses posed in athletic positions, and we were curious about it but didn’t have time to fit it into our 24-hour stay.  As we were on our way back to our room after dinner we passed the in-house nightclub, The Cat House, and I wanted to check it out, but was just too tired.  I don’t even know what goes on in there, whether it’s pole dancing, stripping, burlesque, or what, but I’m pretty sure it’s a different kind of place than we could visit at home, so next time we’re in Vegas we’ll have to give it a try.  Because having new experiences is what Vegas is about.  So I guess what I’m saying is, even though it’s a paragon of bad taste and gambling is stupid, nevertheless Vegas may be starting to win me over because, in spite of these things, there’s always something new to see or do there, and every time I go I manage to have some new kind of fun.  Not to mention that cheap flight and hotel packages are plentiful.  And if all else fails, I can always drive another Ferrari. 

Ferrari to Go

I have long been fascinated by the mystique of Ferrari and dreamed of one day driving one.  Many months ago I saw a local ad for a 308 GTS, a nearly 30 year-old car that was theoretically attainable, but not in any actual, practical sense.  It’s not just the purchase price, there’s the insurance, the maintenance, and where the hell would I put it?  But I could go look at it and, in the course of that, take a test drive.  At least then I could get behind the wheel and feel what it was like to pilot one of these glamorous machines.  But perhaps there were others with the same dream; the dealer would be on his guard against such schemers’ shenanigans.  And, thinking about this, I realized I wasn’t comfortable with the charade.  So I sighed to Frieda: “Guess I’ll never get to drive a Ferrari.” 

           

Many months later, with my birthday approaching, Frieda announced that we were taking a trip to Las Vegas to celebrate.  She had already booked the flight, hotel, and tickets to a show.  Seeing as how neither of us finds gambling entertaining, I was a bit surprised at this.  It must be one hell of a show to justify a flight to the capitol of kitsch.  At first she was coy about the nature of the show, but after much badgering, she offered that it was The Blue Man Group.  Now this seemed highly unlikely to me, as I knew I had no interest in seeing The Blue Man Group and I was pretty certain she didn’t either.  When she added that she had arranged for the Group to take me on stage, paint my face blue, and sing “Happy Birthday” to me, it became totally preposterous.  But then why go to Vegas?  I remembered that, when we were in Paris in 2008, we’d walked by the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre, and later, after we’d come home, I’d remarked that we should have gone to a show there.  So perhaps she had found something similar in Vegas, I thought, and that’s where she was taking me. 

           

At the airport, as we were waiting to board, sensing my disgruntlement at having had to get up at 5:30 AM to fly someplace I wasn’t thrilled about going, she finally spilled the beans.  She’d made a reservation for me at noon that very day with an outfit called Exotics Racing at Las Vegas Motor Speedway to drive a Ferrari F430 on the track.  Well, needless to say, this put an entirely different complexion on things. 



F430



So we picked up a rental car at the airport and headed up I-15 north to the Speedway, which turned out to be a complex so large that the drag races they were holding in one part could not even be heard from the area where I was going, a large garage in the infield filled with exotic machinery, mostly Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but also an Aston Martin, an Audi R8, a Porsche 997 and GT3, and a Nissan GTR.  In Ferraris, besides the F430 I was scheduled to drive, there was a 430 Scuderia, which is the stripped down, souped up, racing version of the 430, and a 458 Italia, the replacement for the 430, which ceased production in 2009.  In Lamborghinis they had the Gallardo LP560, the Superleggera LP570, and the Murcielago LP640.  They were fantastic looking cars, but for me they don’t have the charisma of the Ferraris, which have a long, distinguished, thoroughbred racing history.  After looking over all the cars, I sat in the 430 I would drive, and the Scuderia, just to try them on for size.  The standard 430 was, not surprisingly, the more comfortable.  My reveries were interrupted by a call to a drivers’ meeting where they went over safety issues and the rules with the 35 or 40 people who were there to realize their fantasies.  Then they piled us 3 at a time into Porsche Cayennes for a couple discovery laps, just to get to know the track a little.  It was a 1.1 mile road course inside the 1.5 mile oval with an 1100 foot front straightaway leading into a 90 degree left hand corner followed by 10 more turns, including a switchback and a long sweeper, all making for a complicated line. 



F430



Almost immediately after I emerged from the Cayenne the professional driver who would ride with me as my instructor walked up, handed me a helmet, and ushered me over to the red 430.  He got me comfortably situated amidst all the leather behind the wheel and then slid into the passenger seat.  I pushed the engine start button and the 4.3 liter V8 came to life, throbbing right behind my back.  I tapped the right paddle shifter to put the car in 1^st and eased out of the garage.  In the paddock I went to 2^nd gear and we cruised onto the pit lane alongside the track.  There were other cars on the track so my instructor waited for an opening and then told me to gun it.  I veered left onto the track and stomped the throttle to the floor.  490 horsepower mashed me back in the seat and we took off like a rocket, accompanied by that unmistakable scream unique to Ferraris.  When the tach hit 6500 rpm my instructor told me to shift, so I popped it into 3^rd.  I had never felt this kind of acceleration before.  In a flash (at about 100 mph) I went by the double cones set out to mark the start of braking for the left hand turn that was rushing toward me.  I got off the gas, tapped the left downshift paddle and hit the brakes hard.  I was going so fast I didn’t know if I could make the corner, but the brakes hauled me down with astonishing quickness.  The car went around the corner like it was on rails, without the slightest slide or twitch.  I was awed.  It was a car with unbelievable capabilities of acceleration, braking, and handling. 



F430



My instructor talked me through the course, pointing out the proper line through all the corners, which enabled me to go much faster than I could have had I had to discover the ideal line on my own.  A couple of times other drivers overtook me, and then my instructor would tell me to slow down, pull the wheel over to the side, flip on the emergency flashers, and let the other car go by.  A couple of times I overtook other cars and when I saw the flashers come on I would punch it past them, thrilling to that distinctive Ferrari scream ricocheting off the side of their car as I sped by.  The 430 had active stability control so it was pretty hard to get yourself into real trouble.  A couple of times, just to test it, I went off line and gave the wheel a little twitch, just to see if I could break it loose, and it would, but only for a split second and then it would glue itself to the track again. 

            The package Frieda had gotten me included 5 laps, and I’d added a couple more at $50 a pop.  Needless to say, they went by quickly.  A lap, I think, took less than a minute.  All the same, I was ready to come in after 7.  It was a blast, but it required intense concentration, and mine was starting to flag.  Also, I was feeling pretty jittery by then from all the adrenalin.  Afterward, watching from the sidelines, I marveled at how slowly the cars appeared to be making their way around the track, compared to how fast it had seemed when I was behind the wheel.  Driving a Ferrari on a track like this is obviously so much better than taking a tame, inhibited test drive on city streets.  On city streets you couldn’t even begin to explore the car’s capabilities.  Here you could really drive the car as it was meant to be driven, as hard and fast as you had the skill and nerve to drive it.  And the best part was it didn’t belong to you, so you didn’t have to worry about dinging a fender or throwing a rod.  If something like that happened, it wasn’t your problem, and that made the whole experience an unadulterated joy.  I can still feel the shiver of blasting down the front straight, the Ferrari singing in my ears.  So next time I get to Vegas I’m going for the 2-car package: 5 laps in the Scuderia and 5 more in the 458 Italia.