last week & 1 new note

 

 

 Seems like it has rained all week… last week, we got a surprise snowstorm.  I drove out to my friend A’s house to see what was what.

This pic was taken early in the visit – my car was still black.

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A’s Dodge Dart GT was it’s original color:

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on Dodge Darts and Chrysler Motors in general; there’s a lot of info out there.  For example, it turns out that the Dart A bought is a rather rare model – there were comparitaively few Dart GT’s built with the slant six engine; most of them were V-8s.

That Dart (I used to own one too, a ’72 Dart Swinger) is, today, a big car.  Back in the day, it was the smallest Dodge offered – it was in the same class my Caliber is today.  A paid a little over what the new price was in 1970 for it, for a California car that someone bought and owned for a long time in Bend, in the dry part of Oregon.  For a 39/40 year old car (!!!) it’s in good shape.  Someone dropped a new engine in it, rebuilding the one that was in it – it has about as much mileage on the engine now as my Caliber has on it’s.  Interestingly, I have found that the curb wieght of these Dart GT’s is about the same as my Caliber’s – 3100 lbs.  I like the feel of a heavy car, but my Caliber looks so much more compact than the Dart.  I guess it’s a solid car.

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I added rear wheel splashguards in September or so – they help the back of my car stay cleaner.  They came in black with a "DODGE" molded into them, so I took a red paint pen and filled in the letters.

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By the time I left that evening, my black car was mostly white; I took this pic after being there half an hour or so:

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The Caliber’s Owner’s Manual says that tire chains "are not recommended because of clearance".  Well, that makes it sort of impractical, doesn’t it?  Tire chains may have clearance issues, but cable chains fit fine:

I didn’t need these most of the ride home, but I came upon a bus sideways in the road and turned around to go another way and got stuck – no traction on that snowy hill.  It was a real mud test for my cable chains – and me.  Could I install the chains in more or less the middle of the road, at night, on a hill, in snow and ice?

Yeah, I can, and I did.

With the chains on, I feel like I can go anywhere (a dangerously reassuring feeling).

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I really like A’s backyard.  Johnson Creek is the property line here.  The area A lives in is defined by the creek and the hills to the south, and even though it’s right in the city, it feels like a bit of country.  It’s a dead end road, so not much traffic other than the few residents and lost people (some people’s GPS shows the road as a through road, although that hill gets in the way of that) comes that way.

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Last week, the creek was flowing placidly.  This week it’s more than twice as full with all the melt-off.  Johnson Creek originates on Mt. Hood and runs about 70 miles to the Willamette River in Milwaukie.

(there are pictures there waiting to be captured)

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Maybe my own?

I have been thinking.  It doesn’t look like it in this picture, but my beard and mustache are getting pretty grey, and I have been thinking of shaving it all off.  Show of hands, please?  Keep this face or lose it?

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This is what I have looked like clean shaven:

Not so bad either way, I guess, but that grey.  I mean, getting old is kind of exciting (not the least of which is I am SURPRISED to still be here).

Anyway, whaddya think?  Shave or leave it?

 

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