What a boring day. I traveled up the coast from Morro Bay to San Francisco along the Pacific Coast Highway. The driving was extremely uninteresting and there was no scenery to speak of...I am disheartened by the lack of stimulation.
On the Tiptronic Transmission on the Jetta (Carolyn: This car rocks!)
I was a huge skeptic of the Tiptronic transmission that is part of my Jetta. It seemed like a cheap version of standard transmissions that's only included to up the sale price of the car. Today, I have been at least 90% converted.
The PCH has hills and turns galore all on the edge of a fairly long cliff drop to the ocean. I felt like James Bond out there... Of course, I didn't have an ejector seat on my car, I wasn't wearing a tuxedo, I wasn't racing a super-hot model in a sports car and I wasn't on a mission for MI6... Other than that I felt like James Bond.
The POINT is the ability to force the car into the gear gave almost the same experience as driving a standard vehicle. The only shortcoming is that once you force the car to shift, it takes a half a second to kick in. I was able to correct for it by letting off the gas before the shift and then re-applying, but there was still a little difference. Well, the other problem was that I kept forgetting which gear I was in, because there is only up and down shift (there are no gear positions).Hmm... Maybe that wasn't interesting for all of you, but all I've done today is drive my car, sing songs from the radio and think about tiptronic transmissions.
Which brings me to a confession: Earlier today, I had just gotten onto the PCH. I had the ocean on my left and beautiful rolling hills on my right. There was a quick layer of fog coming in, so it gave this hazy mystical quality to the day. It felt a bit like Ireland (of course I have never been there though). ANYWAY, my confession is this... I couldn't find anything but Enya on the radio BUT I really enjoyed it. You'll have to take my word for it, but the curvy roads, the fog, the geography and Enya work very well together.
Anyone want to back me up?
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3 comments:
Did you stop in Big Sur? Have a drink at Nepenthe? http://www.nepenthebigsur.com/
Just trying to live vicariously through you as I sit here in rainy jolly old working on a PhD dissertation. And you are revving the engine of my most righteous car on my favorite drive in the world. . .
Speaking of bests, best coffee in the world (yes, better than tropical) is called Blue Bottle and they sell it at a fantastic breakfast in the farmer's market called Boulette's Larder (not to be missed and check out the dog!) or at a Kiosk in Hayes Valley http://www.bluebottlecoffee.net/
I pulled into Big Sur and asked them what I could do from my car (I didn't have much time). They told me it would cost me 8 bucks to drive through. I took off... It was a VERY hard decision. Big Sur is first on my list of Cali places to visit next. That drive blew my mind.
In terms of better coffee... SACRILEGE... don't speak such words! Well, I will probably do the same if Blue Bottle turns out to be better.
There will always be something special about drinking coffee with a bunch of Cuban dissidents and recovering alcoholics though...
i'll be driving the pch in september in a convertible. now i'll know to bring an enya cd.
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