6/3/16 Monterey Day Two – Moss Landing – Red 9s

Friday is the first official day of the event and the parking lot is now much fuller than it was on Wednesday when we were almost the only ones here and even Thursday, which was an arrival day for many. The Santa Clarita Valley contingent is significant and between them and Cameron Park, we have no chance at largest group of attendees. There are also clubs from Sonoma, Colorado River, Sonora and license plates from Washington State and other more far-flung destinations.

Breakfast was served and the group filtered in over an hour or so. When registration opened up before 9am, everyone made a rush for the doors and lined up to receive all the carefully laid out plans in the information package. Included are maps for Friday’s run up the coast, Saturday’s poker run along 17 Mile Drive in Pebble Beach, the Treasure Hunt, the Red 9s (ask us later!) tournament, raffle tickets, dinner assignments for Saturday’s awards banquet, and detailed instructions for everything that was happening. Each couple also received a “goody bag” with information about local tourist destinations and a bottle of wine and some glasses for later enjoyment.

Most of the COTV group was assigned to the 10:30am run to Elkhorn Slough, a nature preserve up the coast a way by inland route, and then a stop in Moss Landing, “a small drinking town with a fishing problem”, where we could go to the sea life center or just have another of many meals. Chuck August, who chairs the car show and hand makes all of the trophies, led the run to the nature preserve where we had a talk by one of the rangers. Then we headed to a second stop on the estuary and finally back over to Hwy 1 and down to Moss Landing. Unfortunately, the group got broken up through some of the turns and not everyone was at Moss Landing at the same time or in the same place. The Glenores and Webers, with the first segment of the group, stopped at the Haute Enchilada, which was highly recommended and had some very tasty Mexican food. Most of the rest of the group ended up at Phil’s Fish Market on the waterfront.

The afternoon included the second run to Elkhorn and the Red 9s instruction sessions. Red 9s is a card game that none of the group had played before (unless they had come to Monterey in 2014.) The Kidds, Hackworths, Glenores, Sommars and Rob Weber participated in the training and the Kidds, Glenores and Sommars decided to drop out of the dinner plans so they could compete in the elimination rounds at 8pm. Everyone met for the open bar and appetizers which were available after 5:30pm and those who were headed to Tarpy’s Roadhouse for dinner left about 6:45 for the short drive. The 14 of us had a private room and a dedicated waiter and enjoyed Tarpy’s California cuisine. When we got back to the hotel, the Kidds and Glenores were still playing cards and the Sommars were nowhere to be seen. Apparently they decided to take an evening off from the group and get some quiet relaxation. The Glenores and Kidds got eliminated in the tournament, so didn’t make the finals set for Saturday afternoon.

Pics from Alma & Hans