Track Day

October 6 - 7, 2025

When George bought his shiny new BMW Z4 in October of last year, it came with a free track day at the BMW Performance Center—in Thermal, California. Well, it just so happens we would be in California a year later. Today was that day of destiny.

We left our cozy little BLM campsite in Joshua Tree (home of copius amounts of dirt and tackweed) and drove to Thermal, California, for George’s official “race car driver” training at the BMW Performance Center.

The drive to Thermal was interesting. The landscape was sprinkled with rows of giant windmills—normal enough—but then someone also installed miniature windmills among them. Like a windmill daycare. Or maybe a windmill starter pack for young turbines working their way up.

Yakima, Washington, a town near our home, has a sign that proudly claims: "Yakima: The Palm Springs of Washington.” I always thought that was weird because Yakima is a small desert town covered in sage and rabbit brush, and I imagined Palm Springs as an oasis of tropical lushness. Hah! Joke’s on me. Palm Springs is basically a glamorous furnace. It was 94 degrees. In October. There were palm trees though. But I still don't understand why someone in Yakima thinks it's the Palm Springs of Washington, other than the desert aspect. The desert plants aren't even the same! 

The BMW experience itself? Honestly… meh. They taught George how to take corners and brake and other nonsense he already knew. I think the highlight for George was when they drove the car up a 15% side incline to show how it wouldn’t tip over. This has now become George’s favorite party trick. Every time we’re near a slant, he purposely drives the side wheels up onto it and checks the grade. I think he's getting ready for another Three Forks hot spring adventure. Another funny thing he likes to do is take pictures of the odemeter when it reaches a "cool number." I'm not a math person and had no idea there were so many cool numbers. 

        

Afterward the track day, we met up with one of George’s old work colleagues—someone he hasn’t seen since 1999. Thanks to Facebook, it didn't feel like 27 years had gone by and we had a great time visiting with Rob Lowe. 

We rolled back into our Joshua Tree camp late that night and sitting on top of our trailer was a full-on Harry Potter owl. I wonder if young George was trying to forward our mail? 

The next morning, we hitched up the trailer, said goodbye to our dusty spot in the middle of the Joshua desert, and pointed ourselves toward Ventura, California, where the boat waited that would take us to Channel Islands National Park.

Going from Joshua Tree to Ventura is like night and day. One minute you're surrounded by tranquility and dirt … and the next minute it's concrete, traffic, and smog. Hours of brake lights and red roads on our google maps later, we finally reached our oceanside campground. “Oceanside,” by the way, means crammed between the ocean, a busy highway, and a well-used set of train tracks. Yet, it was surprisingly beautiful and peaceful. Too bad we didn't actually spend any time relaxing there. 

There are only two campgrounds in the area and both are squeezed so tightly that campers are basically playing RV Tetris. One of them is literally 60 parallel parking spots along the main road. Oversized RVs somehow slide into those spots like majestic whales on rollerblades. We, meanwhile, struggle backing into a normal spot with our tiny trailer—so parallel parking? Hard pass.

That evening we went into town for dinner with ZSCCA friends Sherrill and Steven Smith—car people, just like us George. They were kind enough to let us park our trailer in their driveway for the next three nights while we hopped over to the Channel Islands. Bless them for rescuing us when we couldn't find anywhere else to park.

Every story has a soundtrack. Here's one in honor of Joshua Tree: