Photo credit to Mathias Conrad for the pics with red captioning.

The 12th of August was an amazingly beautiful day for the Monterey Peninsula.  We met at the Starbucks parking lot, and as usual, I was late in getting there (though nothing had officially started).  There were about five other busses and about eight bugs.  They all looked nice and all had nice bright colored paint schemes.  The scene was later described to me as looking at a box of Crayolas.

We began our venture through Monterey, Carmel and Carmel Valley, by stopping behind the parking garage to take group pictures.  Being new to the VW scene, I guess this is done early on to make sure that everyone is there who showed up, since cars are likely to break down along the way.

After the group shot, we cruised through Monterey's hot spots, then along the coast until we got to Hwy 1.  Then we managed to stay together on the freeway long enough to make it into Carmel together.  Cruising through there in old VWs is such a kick, since the typical car is over $30K.  All along the way, we were cheered and waved on.  No matter what, people just like old VWs.

We stopped at Carmel State Beach for a rally and restroom break - yeah it took that long.  Got some great shots there, then moved on to Carmel Valley and ultimately, Larales Grade.  

That was the coolest thing, driving up the Grade - 11% - with a bunch of old busses leading the pack.  The whole time, I kept thinking about the license plate frame that came with my bus when I bought it - "Too Slow, Too Bad".  I hope that doesn't get me shot some day.  The grade wasn't that bad, actually, and I wished to go faster, but in the interest of safety and group integrity, wiser decisions were made.

Our destination landed us at a nice spot in the Valley where we chowed and shared stories.  I just had to take another shot of the bus line up, and on the way out, believe it or not, some anonymous bus owner parked on line with us (in the spot vacated by a fellow cruiser who had to leave early).  It's just not enough to drive a bus.