Warm Welcome at Dodge truck barbecue

The long distance and schedule conflict with Pacific Coast Dream Machines in Half Moon Bay meant that we had only three confirmed cars to visit the “First Annual” Dodge Pilothouse Era Truck Club of America tail-gate barbecue in Clements, California. Eric Beeby was going to drive “The Yellow Rose” (1940 DeLuxe convertible) directly from Vacaville while John Davies and Kathleen Cordova (1952 Cranbrook four door) and Tod and Leslie Fitch (1933 DeLuxe two door) were to caravan from the South Bay.

In the interest of sleeping in a little on a Sunday morning we left Mountain View at 9AM and kept on freeways to Livermore where we cut north on two lane roads to Highway 4. We then took Highway 4 east along the levies through the delta to Stockton. After crossing through Stockton on the freeway we headed northeast on Highway 88 through lush farm land toward Clements.

Just at the turn off Highway 88 we saw Eric in his convertible going the other way. I figured he just missed the turn and would catch up. Unfortunately, we should have waited as he was unable to find us, or the barbecue, and eventually headed back home. He did note that he got a fine collection of insects on his windshield, probably half of all that existed in the delta. (I am pretty sure that my car picked up the other half.)

Heading east on the farm/ranch road we ended up a the barbecue located in beautiful rolling ranch land with green pastures and scattered large oak trees for as far as the eye could see.

For obvious reasons Dodge trucks out numbered cars at the event though there was P-15 there and a pretty nice Plymouth pickup truck. After the barbecue Leslie and I decide to do some more exploring on our way home and ended up working our way to Livermore via a very scenic route via Corral Hollow Road.

While this was a warm trip and pretty long (over 200 miles round trip) it was a good way to start the touring season.

Photos of the event can be viewed at http://www.ply33.com/Misc/club2008/20080427/ 

Edited on 2008-04-29 by Tod Fitch

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