These photo's were taken by Tom Oerther and Steve Leiding on their trip from Cincinnati to the 2009 West Coast Holiday in Sedona, Arizona. A full story as told by Tom and Steve is featured below.
2009 West Coast Holiday
Steve Leiding & Tom Oerther
Part I - The Trip Out by Steve Leiding
Tom and I prepared for our trip to Sedona in different ways. Tom packed tools, extra parts, and 3 quarts of oil, where I packed Martin Potato Chips, Shoestring Potato Chips and three vintage bottles of wine. Just to show who packed best, Tom came back with
2 ½ quarts of oil, never used the tools, and didn’t sell any of the parts, where I had nothing left to bring back.
We left at a very reasonable time of 8:15 AM on Sunday morning, October 11th, from Tom’s house and headed south for Louisville. At this time I have to say that I have always admired Tom for taking all of those long trips, but after about an hour of driving I was convinced that we were in some type of luxury sports car. It should be classified as a Grand Touring Luxury Sports Car. If you have not had the opportunity of riding in his “C” Cab, let me tell you some things. Us folks that drive either Roadsters or Speedsters are first aware that this is a different car; it has a clock, a radio, a lined top, lights that come on when you open the door, an ashtray, a cigarette lighter, little vent side windows, adjustable seats, and even a day/night mirror. I could have surely gone all the way to California. The only thing missing was cruise control.
Tom started driving and we made it to between Louisville and St. Louis where we stopped for breakfast at a Denny’s. This was our first mistake as the service was slow, the food cold, and worst of all the potatoes were not crispy as ordered. We vowed to never stop at a Denny’s again and began looking for good health food places like Waffle House. After a longer than expected stop, it was on the road again for points West.
We passed through St. Louis and the Gateway Arch early afternoon and took I-44 hoping to make Joplin, MO by night. After over 700 miles, we stopped for the night in Joplin and had a healthy dinner of soup and salad and maybe also a drink or two. Back to the hotel for some of the wine I had brought and we then laid down to enjoy some football on TV. Tom had a serious problem with some “Grapenuts” but I’ll let him explain that. During the night someone broke into an SUV in the parking lot and stole five sets of golf clubs and some luggage. We were fortunate enough to not have the Cab broken into, especially since the passenger door wasn’t locked. Guess who was the passenger? But, we did find out that the key would not lock the door, so I was off the hook.
Our next day was up-and-at-them about 9:00 AM and again we headed West on I-44 through Oklahoma. This was our worst day of driving as the weather, although not raining, was almost like a heavy mist or dew all day long. It was thick enough that we had to use the wipers most of the day. Not much excitement at all and after we switched to I-40 we stopped at the Route 66 Museum in Clinton, OK. I had stopped earlier in the year but Tom had never seen it and was impressed with the story of “The Old Road”. We stayed at the museum for about an hour, mailed postcards and Tom actually let me drive on through Texas and into New Mexico. He said I could go as fast as I wanted but not more than just into the red line. It was fun!!!! Even with just a “normal” engine, that car ran great and, although the speedometer didn’t work (something that came up as important later), I’m sure that I had a number of miles over 100. We stopped at the “Tall Texan” in Amarillo where they advertise that if you can eat a 72 oz. steak, baked potato and salad in one hour you can have it for free. I thought that Tom was going to try until he saw a sample of the meal and decided that he might need a full day to eat it.
On past the “Caddy Ranch” west of Amarillo and into New Mexico with me still at the wheel, I would also drive this same stretch on the way back. But, as Dick might say, that’s another story. We stayed at a nice little hotel in Tucumcari, NM for the night and enjoyed a meal in the town’s finest diner, came back to our room for more wine (we still hadn’t used any of Tom’s oil) and some Monday Night Football, finding out that our Bengals had won again. During the middle of the night, a car alarm went off and I toured the parking lot in my shorts but didn’t catch anyone.
On Tuesday morning we got up early, washed the car, loaded up and headed for Santa Fe taking 285 off of I-40, which was a very scenic route and arrived in Santa Fe about
11:00 AM just in time for 5 minutes of rain, the only rain on our trip. We spent 25 minutes trying to find downtown Santa Fe and then searched for a place to park and show off the car. Toured the town, the local markets, the Church and then had lunch in one of my very favorite places, “The Old House”. Tom again ate healthy having short ribs and all the trimmings, whereas I had the club sandwich.
We left Santa Fe about 4:00 PM on State Route 14. If you ever get a chance, this is one of the most scenic roads in New Mexico. Tom had called an old 356 friend the night before and he called back and invited us to stay at their place in Albuquerque for the night. We spent some time admiring his 904 and also a couple other 356’s, had dinner as his guests at his local place and spent a great evening as their guests.
The next morning after a light breakfast we again headed West to our final destination of Sedona and, at this time, I’ll let Tom tell about all of the adventures at the Holiday, as I’m sure he will want to embellish on a special award that he received.
Part II – The Holiday and The Trip Home by Tom Oerther
The theme of this year’s West Coast Holiday was “B” in Sedona, the “B” referring to the 50th Anniversary of the introduction by the Porsche Factory of the 356B – hence the “B” in Sedona theme. Guess I should have driven the B Coupe.
We arrived in Sedona early Wednesday afternoon, October 14th, too early for check-in at our motel, so we drove over to the host hotel where all the Holiday registration and other activities were taking place. We met with a number of 356 friends that we hadn’t seen for awhile, picked up our goodie bags and other related items, then made a pass through the goodie store. We then made a stroll through the 356-only parking lot and saw many nice 356s and met more 356 friends. After an hour or so, we headed back to our motel about a mile away and met up with other 356ers that were staying at the same motel. Our motel was the secondary motel, that is if you did not register early enough once the main hotel was booked you were able to book at our motel, which was really nice with a large courtyard, swimming pool and a great view of the red rock hills in the distance. There were also nice restaurants within walking distance.
On Thursday, 10/15, after a good night’s sleep and checking over the holiday schedule of events and tours, we decided to skip the tech sessions since we have Dick Weiss for all our tech info. Besides, we didn’t want to stay inside a meeting room with such nice, sunny weather outside. We put the top down and decided to do our own tour on our own leisure time. We went to the Montezuma Castle and the Montezuma Well, which are in two different areas in the state. Both are national parks and also very interesting. I did the walking tour down to the well – easy going down, not too bad coming back up. Both of these parks are very interesting because they were dwellings for the Pueblo Indians years ago. While at the castle we decided to purchase a lifetime senior park pass for $10.00. The pass gets you and anyone else in your vehicle into almost any national park for free. A great investment since we will use it later. We drove 130 miles today just running around and seeing the sights in 82° top-down weather.
On Friday, 10/16, we again passed up the tech sessions and a winery tour and decided to go up to the Grand Canyon for lunch. Top down again, it was a bit chilly the first 45 miles even with the heat on, but once we got past Flagstaff, things warmed up and we had a smooth and pleasant drive via US180 & 64 to the canyon. We had a great lunch at the lodge while overlooking the canyon, met a couple of Ohio State fans and two other 356ers. We did the usual tourist walking tours to some of the outlook points, took some pictures (check out Steve’s pictures on the DSG website). We were approaching the car to head back to the motel when we noticed there were people standing by the car, each taking pictures of themselves beside it. We introduced ourselves and they apologized for being near the car – no problem! We found out they were from France and were visiting the U.S.and really liked the car. We had a great return trip back to the motel via a somewhat different route 64 and US89 loop back to Flagstaff. We put on 248 top-down miles under sunny and warm skies today. By the way, that $10.00 senior pass got us into the Grand Canyon free; the normal charge is $25.00 to enter the park.
Saturday, 10/17, was the big day for the concours and the dinner banquet. Concours set-up started at 0800 at the golf course behind the host motel. A very lovely setting indeed. We arrived about 9:15 and the greens were about half full. Fred would have been proud as the “C” cars had a very favorable location on the top of a slight rise near one of the greens. We were mixed in with the C coupes and cabriolets, which made for a nice viewing variety. The weather was warm - 87° and sunny – with about 150 cars scattered about the golf course. The concours lasted till 4:00 but some cars started leaving about
3 PM as all voting ballots were to be in at 2 PM. We left about 3:30 and headed back to the motel to freshen up for the dinner banquet and awards that evening.
The banquet buffet was held mostly outdoors under the stars while the buffet was inside. There were two serving areas with two lines each so there was hardly any waiting in line for the food. The buffet was well supplied with chicken, beef and seafood along with assorted veggies and salad – a nice meal. Door prizes were given out and the usual comments were made. Our C cab won first in C open and something new was a ladies’ choice award. The women had ballots to pick their favorite car in each class and our cab took first place in ladies’ choice. Thanks to Steve Leiding for cleaning under the fender wells and wheels for concours prep. After the awards, dinner and some BS with friends, we headed back to the motel to start packing for the trip home tomorrow.
Sunday morning, 10/18, dawned at 05:30 and a run back to the host motel where the swap meet was already in full swing. Found a bunch of 356 stuff, but nothing I couldn’t live without – tools, tool kits, carbs, etc. Prices still seemed a bit high. We did buy a complete set of LED instrument and indicator lamps for the dash. They really made a big difference, especially the warning lamps in daytime. We spent about an hour at the meet, said our farewells and checked out at the motel and headed home.
The trip back home was great; the weather was sunny and warm the whole way back to Cincinnati. We averaged about 72 MPH most of the time, ran to red-line at times just to keep the cobwebs out. Had one small incident just east of Amarillo, Texas with Steve driving. Seems a Texas Ranger clocked us at 90 MPH, thus he pulled us over and ran the usual computer checks – driver’s license, registration and insurance. Seemed like forever for him to check all that out and I thought we were going to court or something. Nope! He just gave us a polite warning to slow down and have a safe drive home. Whew! No problem the rest of the way home, as we stayed at about 75-80 MPH depending on the state and traffic. All in all it was a great trip, saw many friends, made new ones and saw lots of neat 356s. The car ran great, never missed a beat (engine by Dick Weiss). We drove 4,356 miles, used 150 gallons of gas, averaged 29 MPG and used ½ quart of oil. We drove the car like it was intended to be driven. “Porsche 356 there is no substitute”.
P.S. With reference to Steve’s “Grapenuts” comment above: Grapenuts occurs when you fall asleep while holding a glass of Merlot over your lap sitting in bed watching TV.