Cars

38,000 Homeless People in Portland

When we visited the Pacific Northwest this year we flew into Portland instead of our usual Seattle because we wanted to check out our possible (now imminent) new city of residence in Oregon. What we did see of Portland did nothing to dissuade its quirky reputation.

We spent a couple of days in the City of Roses exploring. We were staying near the airport and one evening we took the light rail train into downtown. What amazed us were the number of homeless people that were encamped along the right of way of the tracks. Also, any highway overpass the train went under, you could see a dozen tents, or shirts stretched across the bushes. We thought there were a lot, but didn’t think it was as many as, a Portland State University report says there are, 38,000 of them. That is roughly equivalent to the entire population of our soon to ex-city of residence, Aiken!

This morning when I dropped off the CTBNL with my Fairy Godbrother1 David who is going to park it in his garage until we get an address in K-Falls to have it shipped to. When I was there he said, “You haven’t had a chance to to drive the addition to my stable, the 944 Turbo.” “Got time to go for a drive?” I said said, “Sure.” I probably would have said the same thing even if I didn’t have the time…we promptly spent the next hour or so bombing around the back roads of Aiken County. Going to miss these random drives. Somewhere towards the end of our trip I put the thirty-eighth thousandth mile on this thirty-ish year-old German engineered marvel.

Track, Daily, Crush

The 5-Speed Edition. All these cars have 5-speed transmissions, although only one of them came from the factory that way. As of Monday, September 30, 2019 at 9:00 PM eastern time:

Track Daily Crush
1963.5 Ford Falcon V8 1994 Mazda MX-5 Miata 1978 Honda Civic
1 2 3

1. My very first car was a white 1963 Ford Falcon. It had an inline 6 cylinder engine mated to a 3-speed manual transmission with the shifter on the column. My mom bought it for me for $100 in 1971 when I got my license. I promptly ruined the transmission trying to master the the whole clutch/gas pedal dance under tyrannical instruction of my mom’s current boyfriend. It was back to riding a bike after that.
2. Our second Miata was a 1995 Laguna Blue B Package, We traded it in on a second generation 2003 Garnet Red LS Miata and 15 years later we kind of still regret the decision.
3. The third new car Donna and I ever bought was a 1980 Honda Civic in Rhodes Red Metallic with a 5-speed manual. We bought it for me to use to go back and forth the sixteen miles to work at the Meridian (MS) Naval Air Station. That allowed her to drive our already existing 1979 Honda Accord to and from college.

Everyday Driver Bingo

So for practically every Tuesday and Friday morning walks since sometime in May I have been rocking the Everyday Driver Podcast on my walks. So that is around two dozen hours of listening to these two guys talk cars. They also have a show that runs on Motortrend TV first, before ending up on Amazon Prime, so I have been watching those when they air and the old ones on Amazon, so there have been about 28 episodes of that I’ve seen. They also have a YouTube Channel with a literal crap ton of videos, of which I’ve watched a bunch of.

Needless to say, I am familiar with their work. The other day while walking and listening to a podcast I had a crazy idea. But I then quickly realized my database skills are not as good as I thought, so all I managed to create was my one demo. I emailed it to them at their gmail address and told them to feel free to run with this idea and sell ’em on their Amazon Store.

Wrangler Wrap Up

Instead of just hosing the Rubicon off, I actually gave it a proper washing. I also cleaned off the the Weather Tech rubber mats along with vacuuming it out. Even though I am 6′ tall and have fairly long arms, I had to go inside the house to bring out the 2-Step Steel Folding Step Stool Ladder to get the roof clean. 🙂

If I have one complaint with my experience with Crazy Dave’s Rental Cars, it is, it would have been nice when renting to someone whose car had shut off inexplicably leaving him stranded on the side of the road twice in the last couple weeks that the vehicle he would now be driving had a stop/start system. The first time it happened was a heart fluttering moment. So, in spite of that little hiccup, I will be giving Crazy Dave’s a 5 star rating, because where else can you rent a new Jeep Wrangler Rubicon for 2 days with unlimited mileage for the cost of a half a tank of gas.

Stray observations in no particular order:

  1. It is a chore to drive on straight roads. There is a ton of play (compared to the Miata) in the steering wheel at top center making it a full time job. It does feel good in curves though with the wheel turned some, all the slack is gone.
  2. It is a half a foot wider and a foot longer than a Miata, but I quickly figured where my corners were and felt comfortable driving in traffic.
  3. It had the government mandated backup camera, but even with the hard top on the all around visibility was excellent.
  4. The way high seating position was really nice in certain spots, especially when leaving parking lots and entering streets. Other vehicles and street-side landscaping were much easier to see over.
  5. I don’t know specifically what our gas mileage was for the 100-125 miles we put on the Jeep, but the running average for it showed 19 MPG. This is only 2/3rds of the Miata’s 28 and only slightly over half of the Mini’s 36. The cost is somewhat offset by the fact that the Jeep uses regular grade gas compared the the Miata’s & Mini’s premium.
  6. The low beam headlights included in the LED Lighting Group Package nearly make the high beams redundant. In my few miles behind the wheel at night it didn’t seem like the highs gave you much more down the road visibility, the only thing it seemed to do was light up the trees.
  7. It was nice to have the satellite radio, so I could catch up with what was playing on The Coffee House channel compared to 8 years ago when we had it free for a year with the Purple Whale. While that channel is as close as I can get to Radio Paradise, it is definitely not worth the $15 a month they want for the service.

That’s enough for now, I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things, but our experience with our extended test drive hasn’t made us want to go right out and buy a Jeep, but neither has it totally dissuaded us from buying one either.

Not Crossing the Rubicon


When mulling Option #3 from Wednesday’s post I thought, hey wait a minute, I know someone who has one, I’ll ask him. So on my morning walk on Friday I walked over to his house. I got a quick Jeep primer and then a surprise; he offered to let me have his for a couple days. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I said, “Mmmm, OK.”

First off, this jeep is practically brand new, with a mere 9300 miles on the odo, and still has that telltale scent. It is also optioned very nicely too. With the hardtop on, the A/C on, SiriusXM playing and ensconced in some comfy leather seats you are in a very modern vehicle. Definitely not your father’s Jeep. Make no mistake, this is a very large ride. When in traffic you look down on cars and see eye to eye with today’s 4-wheel drive 1/2 ton pickups. In spite of the size it can feel very car-like in its handling though, with its fairly short wheelbase and 4,000 lb weight it feels quite planted on everything except very sharp corners.

Donna and I have put it through the paces. We tooled around some county back roads listening to Channel 14, The Coffee House from outer space for hour or so. We did our weekly grocery shopping in it, in the afternoon. We took the front 2 panels of the hardtop off, rolled down the windows, opened the back window and went for an evening drive. Not Miata-like, but it did feel fairly open and was an enjoyable ride. Probably a lot more convertible-ish if we could have taken the whole top off…

Today we went over to Goodwill to get rid of some stuff that has been collecting dust in the attic for the last dozen years or more. Almost all of it would have fit in the Mini, but two trips would have been necessary. The Goodwill folks didn’t want all of it, so we just drove the Jeep to one of the local County Drop-Off sites. Tonight we are going to take another opened up evening drive.

Tomorrow morning I’ll hose off the dead bugs, vacuum the dust out of the back and fill up the tank before returning the Jeep back to Crazy Dave’s Car Rental. We did learn that the Jeep really isn’t for us, at least not this Jeep, it is too big and too refined. If we do ever get to Oregon, we might get one from a couple generations back (a later year TJ maybe) when they were a bit smaller, then we can use it to bomb around on Forrest Service roads and get out in nature.

Alternative Daily, Alternative Daily, or Alternative Daily?

Ok, so what if we chuck the whole ‘has to be a Miata’ thing? Really, the biggest thing we would miss would be the convertible aspect. What other convertibles are out there that are around the same price as a Miata?

Option 1) How about a Mini Cooper? We’ve already own one, they’re small, fun to drive, good on gas, so a sort of known quantity. The least expensive model is called Classic and like the Miata’s Sport model only comes in roughly the same 4 colors; Pepper White, Chili Red, Moonwalk Grey and Midnight Black, with grey being the only color that doesn’t cost extra. Adding just heated seats and a wind blocker gets us to a list price of $28,500.

Option 2) Pony car maybe? This is a large car compared to the Miata, it is more than a half a foot wider, nearly 3 FEET longer and weights one and a half times one at 3,600 lbs. A Ford Mustang comes in 10 colors though with only 2, Ruby Red & Orange Fury, with a $500 up charge. I’ll take my Eco-Boost in Velocity Blue. Still, even with adding zero options, the car is listed at $32,385.

Option 3) If we do end up living in Oregon, how about something more attuned to the open spaces of the wild west? Maybe a little 4-wheel drive action to handle the 12″ of snow they average in January? A Jeep Wrangler is the answer. It comes in 11 no cost colors, I’ll take it in Bikini Pearl thank you very much. Adding only the black tubular running boards to the Sport model brings the list price to $29,935.


–I’m actually starting to dig this option–