On Sunday, Dan and I went to the SoCal Smartie's Cars & Planes at the Brackett Airport meet-up. It was one of those perfect Southern California spring days, so we took my Smart (Freddy) and drove with his top down to the Smart Center in West Covina.

We have a bit of good news. Saturday night we met with Kamaal Petersen and put a down-payment as a reservation on a new Smart. If you're looking to purchase or lease a Smart, I highly recommend going to see Kamaal in West Covina. Not only is he super nice, but he is also a multiple Smart owner and has a wealth of knowledge regarding the brand. Plus, the West Covina dealership has a great selection.

There are some legal issues holding up the dealerships in California from selling the new Electric Smarts, but if all goes well, our new car should be home with us this week. We are excited to have an electric Smart in our family and I will write up another blog post after it is officially ours.

We have named him Grasshopper..or Hopper for short.

We spent about an hour having donuts, coffee and catching up with friends at the Smart Center. They had a bunch of the electric drives out on display, as well as gas fueled Smarts. As always, it was fun to check out the other cars in our group. We are so used to have the least interesting cars in the group, that it will be nice to finally have a car that is a little special. Although, the range of the electric might prevent us from taking Hopper to many meets. We may have to organize a meet near Glendale!

One of our group members attached a camera to a remote controlled helicopter to get some aerial shots.

We drove in convoy to Brackett Airport along the roads in the beautiful hills of West Covina and San Dimas. We've taken part in many Smart Convoys and I don't think that Dan will ever get bored of seeing so many Smarts on the road. Giddy is the best way to describe his reaction to it.

At the airport, we were met by one of our group members, Hal, who is a member of the airport association. Hal co-hosted this meet, along with Bob who did a great job (as always) at mobilizing the group and getting us from the Smart Center to the planes. He brought the much appreciated coffee and snacks.

We checked in and were given displayer badges. Along with the airplanes on display, there were also classic cars and scooters.

Here is a shot of our cars on display.

And a lovely picture of Lilly taking it easy in the shade.

Our club got a new sign.

Dan took a few panorama shots with his IPhone.

There were many beautiful vintage planes on display. This is a great monthly show for anyone interested in aircrafts. Hopefully we will be able to take Dan's parents to it the next time they visit us from England. I couldn't help but be reminded of the gorgeous Timothy Oulton furniture that we have been lusting after for the last several weeks.

There were two planes in particular that had traveled long distances.

There were also some paramotors on display, two from our group members Hal and Jeremy. Jeremy even brought his to the event in his Smart, thus proving a point that all of us Smart owners already know, there is plenty of storage space!

There were a handful of classic cars on display. The paint jobs on the cars was amazing, they were all so vivid and saturated in color. I really liked the shiny orange truck.

There was even a scooter on display.

We ate chili dogs for lunch in the pretty park area adjacent to the airfield.

Three dollars- Hot dog, chips, drink and brownie..can't beat that!

I liked how they had an airplane themed play area for kids.

A big thank you to Bob and Hal for co-hosting a great event.

On Saturday, Dan and I went to the big 100th meetup celebration of the SoCal Smarties, the local Smart Car meetup group that we joined last year.

We have been on several meetups with the group. Not only are they a fun, kind group of people, but we have done some really great activities. None have been a clunker! The organizers ( a huge thanks to Bob and Patti) did a great job at planning and executing the 100th, including keeping it veiled in mystery until just a few weeks ago.

The suspense nearly killed us.

For the hundredth, the organizers got SmartUSA to pay for a dinner boat cruise around the Channel Island Harbor in Ventura. They also secured tons of raffle prizes donationed from several dealers and organizations, including Smart in Oxnard, Smart in West Covina and Smart Madness. I can't imagine all of the work that went into planning this event, but as far as I am concerned, it will be hard to top!

Dan and I started out our day by meeting with the Burbank caravan in the Fry's parking lot, organized by Jon and Debbie, owners of the Smiley Smart. There are many great people in our group and Jon and Debbie top the list. They brought yummy donuts and Debbie gave me some smiley stickers while telling me the History of the smiley face. Did you know that the inventor of the smiley face, Harvey Ball, never patented his creation and barely earned anything from it...then a guy from France patented Ball's design and made millions?

The highlight for me was watching Debbie's enthusiasm as she attempted to explain the ins and outs of Gilligan's Island to Dan, who has never seen the show. This was important information, as we were about to embark on a three hour tour.

The Caravan moved to the Albertson's lot down the road and picked up a few more members. Then in an impressive feat engineered through radio contact, we joined forces with a larger caravan already on the freeway. Dan and I used our GoPro to capture the whole thing, but the video is a huge file and needs tweaking. I may add it at a later date.

I had no idea that there were so many nice homes and restaurants by the Channel Island Harbor. It was really pretty and a place that we would like to return and explore.

We were directed to park all of the cars on the grass right by the boats, perfect for photo ops. We love our photo ops in the club.

The Smarts had a great view while we were on the boat.

Dan and I in front of the Scarlett Belle.

Our Smart (Black one in the middle) in front of our boat, The Scarlett Belle

After catching up with friends, including meeting several new members (welcome!), it was time to board the Scarlett Belle.

My boarding pass for the Scarlett Belle.

The Scarlett Belle is a super cute paddle boat with two levels. The first level filled up quickly ( We have Smart people in our group, this is the level with the food and bar!), so we moved to the top deck. I would say that this was the quieter part of the ship, except for we were the loud, fun table. That's right, I claimed the "Fun Table" title, so there!

I seriously thought that we were going to crash into the bridge. We got close enough to touch it.

We had some drinks, ate croissant sandwiches and mingled. As much as I have enjoyed our more active meetups, this was a really nice chance to get to know other members, just relaxing and talking. It was a beautiful day out and being on the water was a treat.

In addition to a pen and a tee-shirt, Dan and I won one of the major raffle prizes..a car cover! Very exciting. We will have to buy one for the other car, so it doesn't get jealous.

As the sun started to set, we managed to get some beautiful pictures.

We tried to take a nice shot, but I kept giving the crazy eyes

We even got to go see the captain, who built the Scarlett Belle himself.

As we headed back to the dock, the fog got really thick. Here are a last few shots of the Scarlett Belle in all of her nighttime glory.

We returned home safe from our three hour tour. I was kind of hoping to see the Harlem Globetrotters.

The 100th Meetup was a ton of fun. A huge thanks to Bob (Happy Birthday and Anniversary), Patti, Smart USA, Smart of Oxnard, Smart of West Covina (great to meet Tammie and J.D.), Smart Madness, Jon & Debbie( great caravan organization) and the Captain and Crew of the Scarlett Belle. We had a wonderful time catching up with everyone and can't wait to see you at the next meetup!

SoCal Smarties Meetup - Brackett Airport

SoCal Smarties 100th Meetup