twelve twelve twelve

There’s just something about the same number three times over that fascinates me. Look, I got to write it again!

Silly cat.

Pictures today.

I once claimed that this was the "real" NorthwesternCat:

Blacky Cat, who shared my space for 11 and a half years.

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2000

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Most all of my life, I’ve owned half dead.. I mean "used" cars, but in 2008, the 21 year old minivan I was driving blew it’s head gasket, and, after spending $3000 on it in the 3 years I had it, I declared it a loss and traded it in on a new car:

A brand-new Dodge Caliber SE+, in a limited-edition color, Surf Blue Pearl. I loved that color; it stood out anywhere I drove it.

It was a manual transmission car, with a 1.8 L four cylinder engine in it, A/C, and not much more. Roll up yer own windows, lock yer own doors, adjust yer own mirrors – no power anything, except power steering and power brakes.

(you know those used to be options, right? Cars these days are far ahead of the cars they built when I was a kid)

It was a very basic car… and it’d be more than half paid off by now, if I had kept it.

(ah, I really did love that color)

15 months after I got the blue Caliber, I traded it on a "better" one, a fully loaded Black Beauty:

This car has just about every option on it, and yes, that is a sunroof you see, poking up off the roof.

I’ve always wanted a car with a sunroof.

What made this car desirable to me, even though it was around $3000 more than the blue Caliber, was and is that it has an automatic transmission in it, and not just any old 3,4, or 5 speed tranny, no, it is a Continuously Variable Transmission. It works together with the engine electronics to always be in "the right gear". In fact, the transmission has no gears at all, so there is no jerkiness to the ride and it’s always Smooooth to drive and to ride in, and this 2 L four cylinder engine produces more horsepower than a 1983 Ford Mustang 5.0 L V-8.

MUCH better gas mileage though..

The nine-speaker, 458-watt sound system was icing on the cake; the blue car had a nice, basic 4-speaker system in it that sounded great, but nine speakers (8 plus a sub-woofer) and much higher power means that the black car sounds even better. It’s my rolling boom-box car, which as of yesterday, has 52,200 miles on it, and all but 7 of those miles are "mine". My black beauty is well taken care of and still looks "new", nearly three years after I got it.

I live in the Portland metro area of Oregon state, a region of Great Beauty, and my Black Cali has taken me to see a lot of that:

On the remains of the "Old Highway", US 30, in the Columbia Gorge, in the center of the Old Highway, the old roadway seen angling behind me and my car.

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The east end of the Old Highway, above The Dalles, Oregon:

The Old Highway was the first paved highway in the Northwest, and it wasn’t about getting there so much a Being There, a road with gentle curves and stretching along the waterfalls of the western Gorge.

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"Gorge?  What Gorge", you say.

Why, the Columbia Gorge, named for the river that flows through it, the largest river in the west, flowing from Canada to the Pacific ocean, in the only sea-level route through the Cascade range of mountains, which stretches from California to Canada along the west coast of the USA.

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Before the highway was built, you had to take a river boat east or west, from the great grains-planted areas of eastern Oregon to the port in Portland:

Passing Cape Horn, on the Washington side of the river and shot from the southern, Oregon side, near Bridal Veil Falls.

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"Bridal Veil Falls?  Where’s that?, you say:

Bridal Veil Falls is one of the more than two dozen waterfalls in the west end of the Gorge on the Old Highway:

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But Bridal Veil Falls, nice as it is, does not compare to Multnomah Falls, the US’s second highest year-round waterfall:

<img src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v155/NorthwesternCat/OD

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Well over 500 feet high, Multnomah Falls attracts visitors from all over the world.  I have heard here more than a dozen languages.

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The Columbia Gorge is a place of concentrated Great Beauty, and I am fortunate to live nearby.

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My Black Beauty takes me there:

I LOVE to show off "my" Oregon, so c’mon, lets go for a ride!

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There are excellent pictures here, waiting to be taken:

 

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