After our triumph at Mystery Spot in the Rental Car Rally, we were all feeling a bit heady. If we could find that off those dark, two-lane roads up into the mountains, we could do anything. I was in full Neal Cassady mode.

So we had a choice between the Lake Nacimiento Dam or the Elephant Seals Viewpoint. Keep in mind we were given longitude and latitude coordinates, but they didn’t make much sense to us and it was difficult to program them into the GPS Janet brought along. Sometimes that device did the trick with a creepy feminine version of Hal 2000, but we also coordinated with iPhones. And we needed them. I’m an old Thomas Guide-kind-0f-guy, but I knew I would wear out the patience of my teammates quickly if I were to squint long into those map pages.

So, it was the dam versus the viewpoint. The viewpoint featured migrating seals and the dam sounded like, well, a dam. A real snooze. Easy choice, right? Not so fast. The seals, we reasoned, would be pretty hard to photograph in the middle of the night, so we went for the dam. Mona managed to finally convince me to let her take the wheel, thank God, as I was being a typically stoic guy about it. In retrospect, I realize how goofy that was. I’d been on the road pretty much since we picked up the car at dawn that morning. She did an expert job navigating hairpin turns up the mountain.

Mona: This photo says it all. Paul was NOT happy about being the sole driver up until that point, but even unhappier, or should I say, scared, at my driving (he denies it, but even I was freaked out); Janet looks refreshed from her little nap; Greer is still asleep (I’m sure of it – although she did manage to grab her purse); and I was, well, determined to get the photo taken and back in the car (in the passenger’s seat). You see, one of our rival teams, “Sex, Drugs & Rock ‘n Roll,” were hot on our tail and just as we were about to take our photo, they pulled out prophylactics, blow-up dolls and who-knows-what-else… we made like a baby and headed out.

Paul: This one took a long time, but thanks to my stamina, which was fading quickly, and Mona’s terrific navigation, I think we found this in pretty good order. It was, by far, the toughest assignment. We were simply instructed to find a “volcanic plug” in Morro Bay. We circled around Morro Bay State Park a bit but Mona really made this happen with her googling. Initially, we ended up in downtown Morro Bay, but then Mona and I agreed we needed to start googling for a volcano plug. Yeah, I know that sounds obvious, but we’d been on the road nearly 24 hours at this point.

Mona: Again, lies. All lies. A) I was navigating because Janet and Greer were, well, OUT. To make  matters worse, the back seat was padded with down comforters, plush throws and pillows… it looked like the most comfortable place e-ver. B) If my navigating skills (if you can call them that) were any good, we wouldn’t have driven around Morro Bay twice (not once folks, but twice), trying to find it. C) It was only after we were definitely lost in the pitch blackness that surrounded the alleged “plug” that I decided to Google the location…

Paul: OK, I think she’s too humble, but then I’m crazy about her anyway so I’ve got blinders on. I can definitely say, though, her greatest triumph came after we finally found the plug. She called race organizer Steve Bryant and negotiated our way out of having to track down the “World’s Largest Fig Tree” (or, as he put it in our instructions “Nature’s laxative” but is officially known as the Moreton Bay Fig Tree) in Santa Barbara. And without penalty. (Later we found out he offered extra points to the other teams if they visited a strip bar so as to even things out. Nice, huh? I didn’t say this rally was altogether wholesome). She was calling Steve to see if the picture above would be proof enough as it was so dark we couldn’t capture the volcano plug on film, but just as we were about to leave the sun started to wake and Mona grabbed the image on her iPhone.

Next up: Mona’s mad dash across the 101 to score points of “derring-do.”

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