Big Bear 1

The drive was the goal, not so much the destination.

Kind of, anyway. I had always wanted to drive real far on the freeway with my 09 Caliber and see what kind of tank to tank mileage it got. I saved all the gas receipts; I keep a log page of all the gas I buy each year to keep track of the car’s performance.

Well, of course going to see my friend Jhni, who I have known since I was 15, my parents not even a year dead yet – we like, bonded early on in our lives and strongly too – WAS the important thing. We have been parts of each others lives for 34 years.

That’s kind of important.

She’s lived in Big Bear more than thirty years now, a small resort community in the mountains, on an old – the first one in SoCal, I believe – lake formed for a reservoir in a valley named for the Grizzly bears who once lived in the area. It is THE ski area for the Los Angeles area, so it has an ebb and flow of people there to visit.

This was also the site of the largest gold strike in Southern California, back in the 1860’s

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(Jhni answered her door, when I got there, wearing a sweatshirt that said "never trust anyone under 5000 feet". I pointed out that my GPS at home, in the parking lot, put me at 74 feet. She hugged me anyway)

On the drive down, I did not stop to take pictures anywhere. I just drove. It’s been three years since I went down that way; a route I have driven, really, since 1987. This time I had the best car I’ve ever owned, a Dodge Caliber SXT Sport, with a CVT transmission, 158 horsepower. It’s like, the Perfect cruiser. It’s the perfect size, I think; not too big and harder to justify for one guy, and not so small it looks unsafe – or is, even worse.

The Caliber is a heavy, solidly constructed little car. It rides very nicely, and stays stuck to the road at sane speeds; it never felt like it was trying hard, and on I-5 south and CA 58 east, you see some of the highest highway passes on the west coast. Since 1987, I’ve driven more than a dozen different cars and trucks down those roads, and I have to say that the 09 Caliber I have now is the best of all. It’s really a "Turn the key and Go" kind of car – put it in Drive, set the Cruise Control, and it’s an effortless drive, anywhere you want to go.

Big Bear sits above 6000 feet; the frost the next morning was interesting:

Clearly, there wasn’t much moisture up there.

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Looking at the gas receipts and looking at mileage, so far, the best tank to tank average is 36.4 mpg. The lowest was the last fill: I gassed up south of Medford, and for the last tank, drove at 65 – 67 mph, more or less the speed limit. It’s 70 down in California, and people go faster, but I was totally gas-mizering it, and speed over 61 uses more gas. 37 – 38 mpg at 58, and 34 at 65. Over a long distance, those few miles a gallon difference add up.

That adding up thing affects your budget; gasoline costs more in California than in Oregon, and when I had made my budget out, I figured so many miles at so many gallons would cost so much. I added ten cents to the Oregon price, and was still off by more than a dime a gallon, but I guess I made up for it in another way; I used the EPA gas mileage figure to calculate how much gas I’d need for the miles, and my caliber gets significantly Better mileage in Real Life than on EPA tests. It’s rated at 27 mpg, Highway, and I have never gotten less than 31, tank to tank on the road.

The car has a kind of trip computer; it tells you things like how warm or cold it is outside, and how far and how long you’ve come, and Instant Gas Mileage. It’s fun to see how hi

gh I can get that number. I use synthetic oil in the engine – I get a mile or two a gallon better mileage with that, and the K&N air filter I put in the car when I bought it new gives me not only better mileage – it flows air better into the engine – it give me a few horsepower more, which means the engine runs just that little bit slower, making just that much more power. It means you get that little bit more mileage per gallon, and at $3.87 a gallon, the highest price I paid this trip, better gas mileage is a good thing.

We took a drive around the lake the next day, something I haven’t down for like, decades, and I got some good pics. Stay tuned.

 

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