COVID19 is having all kinds of different impacts. Calypso’s participation in the North County Corvette Club’s activities is no different. The town of Ramona’s car enthusiasts changed their “American Graffiti Cruise Night” to something that would “fit”. Literally taking the “Show” to the people. You can read about it in the local rag, https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/ramona-sentinel/lifestyle/story/2020-04-29/cruise-nights-return-covid-style. Our activity manager Sam Rindskopf, set it up for us and about 10 of the cars from the club went. (If you go to the article to read it, you can see Sam and Donna in their beautiful 57 Nomad, from the previous weeks cruise.)
My wife Wendy, who barely tolerates the attention that Calypso gets, even coalesced; she came to her very first “car show” / “ride”. Obviously, she hosts the “Christmas Lights Run” for the club. But this actually meant leaving the house. Afterwards when I asked if she enjoyed it, she said it was “OK”. But at the time - she got into it; playing the role of navigator (right seat) and waving to the different spread out groups of people over almost the entire route. I think she enjoyed it more than just “OK”. But we’ll see as activities go in the future.
Now then, while the ride was almost an hour and a half long, from “meet up” to the point where we exited, there were some aspects that were unexpected. This was indeed different. True enough I have been on “rides” or “runs” before, even a few “road rallies”; but this one had for the most part socially distant viewers – almost parade like. So to try to capture that, I had my 360 camera mounted high above the car, and using your 360 viewer controls made available by YouTube, you can look around, rubber-necking like Wendy and I did, if you watch the video with this link. Don’t leave the display static – pause/repeat and get the “feel” of a very unique experience.
OR you can scroll to the bottom of the “Show” page here on Calypso’s web-site and view it in context. AND if you happen to be from Poway, use the contact information on the “About” page and let me know if you think we should do something like this in Poway?
Finally there were two down-sides. My camera Tri-Pod broke (a turn too fast), and the QR code for this site that I made up for the side of the car wouldn't stick - Nothing sticks to a Zaino treated car (see the previous Blog Post).