San Jacinto Picnic (July – 2005)
by Will Kooiman
The Z-Club of Houston planned a picnic at the San Jacinto Monument on July 10. They invited the Lotus club, the Pantera club, and the RX-7 club. I didn't really know what to expect. A picnic sounds a little boring, but I guess that depends on the company. I wanted to see what the San Jacinto monument was like, so even if we blew off the picnic, we'd at least get to see some history.
We arrived at the starting point 2 minutes late. There were 2 other cars there - both RX-7's. There were big rain clouds in the distance, so we figured it might have been rained out. Since we had already driven most of the way, we decided to cruise out to the monument. When we got there, we found a slew of Lotus Elises, a Lotus 7, 2 Esprits, several Triumphs including a TR-2, the RX-7's, 3 Z cars, plus a handful of other notables.
As we were driving up, we saw Steve Hawkins’ car. That makes 2 Panteras. It's fun to see the attention they get, especially when people know what they are.
We bumped into a Pantera owner. He might make it to the tech session on the 23rd. He's from Pasadena, and his name is Charlie. His car is apart. He's just starting to put it back together.
The invite said this was a picnic, and that's just what it was. Next time, it needs a cruise of some sort. It was fun talking with the Lotus guys. One chick let us check out her Elise for size. We've been thinking about trading Susan's Boxster-S for an Elise. It's tempting. We'll see.
