winter 08-09

I had a job distributing the Oregonian newspaper for almost seven years. A year or two into it, the boss found me a Plymouth mini-van in a tow-yard (CHEAP) and I used that for a couple of years – 37,000 miles – to drop off the papers here and there.

I put a lot of money in repairs into the van – it was just about used up, and was always behind in the repairs. It turned out to be the best used car I’ve ever had, I guess. I was happy to have it, having wrecked my car on a bridge in 1998. I didn’t ever drive it very far from Portland, and it’s bus lines (I did drive it into the gorge several times, feeling like I was taking a dare)

It broke down for the last time in December of 07 – blew it’s head gasket, and I couldn’t afford the money to get it fixed, and it really wasn’t worth fixing anyway – it was used up. (1990 Plymouth Voyager SE) I got rides from a co-worker to my school bus job for the last few days before Winter Break 07-08. When work began again in 2008, he gave me rides for the first week or so of the year and then took me to a local Dodge dealer to look at cars. I hadn’t actually planned on buying a new car – I never thought anyone would sell me one – but the dealer made me a hell of an offer for my up until then unseen mini-van as a trade-in on a new Dodge Caliber.  ($3,500. O.M.G.)

I ended up buying a new 2008 Dodge Caliber SE+.

Since I drove a school bus, I had summers off work, and so a friend of mine flew up here and we drove back to southern California together on US 395, on the backside of the Cascade range in Oregon and the Sierra Nevada range in California – a very nice trip. We drove down to Big Bear Lake in California, where she lives, and I drove back myself up I-5 in California’s central valley.

I liked how that 2008 Caliber drove so much that I drove down again that winter, the idea being that I would see some of my family, whom I had not seen in decades. It snowed three times in Portland that winter and kept me in Portland for Christmas. I did drive down for New Years though, and saw an aunt and a cousin whom I hadn’t seen since 1985, and I saw my brother for the first time since 1988. I pushed it on the way back and drove those thousand miles in 25 hours and fifteen minutes.

I traded the 08 Caliber in on a new 2009 Caliber SXT Sport, in March of 09, loaded with options and more good stuff than the SE+ had had, a bigger engine and a CVT automatic transmission. The car I had always wanted. ( I REALLY liked the "surf blue pearl" that the 08 Caliber had been, a classic MoPar paint color from the 70’s, B5 blue,  but the 09 SXT Sport is "brilliant black pearl" – my first black car out of 14 I’ve owned)

I always wanted a sunroof, so, I got one, on the new black Caliber. I’ve never smoked in either Caliber, and although the sunroof is "perfect" for smoking in the car, I never have. ( I feel soo virtuous)

Pretty much the first thing I did with the black Caliber was to take it on a road trip to John Day Fossil Beds and the Painted Hills,  in east-central Oregon, a five hundred mile trip. The Calibers are very good cruisers, and with the 458 watt stereo/CD/AM-FM sound system in the car, the black one is a very good road trip car. I have been wanting to make a long cruise in my car, and since I lost my job at the beginning of the month, I guess I have some time now to do that.

On Saturday, I am driving out to Maryhill, Washington to visit the full-size recreation of Stonehenge with a couple of friends from prior road trips. The weather should be dry on Saturday, but once you get through the Gorge and past the Cascades, it’s pretty dry, usually, and it should be a good drive through Great Beauty. It’s been at least a year and a half since I drove out there, and one friend has never been there, so it will be a good drive. I think we’ll drive up across the Columbia River and take Washington 14 out to Stonehenge, on the north side of the Columbia. That way takes longer but is more of a "Driver’s Road" than the Interstate on the Oregon side of the river. We’ll come back on I-84, I think – it’s fastest, but I predict I will have many pictures to post on Sunday.

I see by the calendar that Saturday is the last day of the year, so I will begin my 2012 chapter of this diary with a series of pictures of Stonehenge in Washington and end my 2011 with a road trip with friends..

The last series of pics from my Nikon Coolpix 2200 too. Next week, I will receive a new 14 mg Nikon camera, a Christmas present whose resolution will enable me to sell pictures better than the low res "2 mg equivalent" camera I have right now.

Good things just over the horizon. Stay tuned.

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