Miata Life

Face Back On

My eBay headlight arrived last night. It wasn’t nearly as nice as the 10,000-mile one. It was a used headlight with a decent amount of aging, so I opted to do both headlights with the restoration kit. Felt bad when I sanded that almost perfect 10k-mile light, but I wanted them to look sort of the same.

Step 1: Go watch the instruction video again.
Step 2: Follow the instructions.

It probably took about two hours total, and one hour was at the end, spent waiting for the finish coat to dry. Now that it is done, the two headlights don’t look exactly alike. The eBay one has a little bit of yellow oxidation that can’t be removed by the kit. It is impossible to tell in this photo because one headlight is in the shade and the other in the sun. Probably one in ten will notice the difference in the real world.

So, Option #3 It Is

Inside Dale

I figured 8 hours on mostly empty backroads beats 3 hours on I-84, so Option #3 was chosen for the trip home. I went to the Dale post office first. I spent a few minutes chatting with the proprietor. He told me that he serves between 20 and 25 folks. The building he is in was erected in 1929 to replace the original one across the street that was there since 1892.

From there, I continued south to US-26, where I could capture 3 more bonus post offices, and it would take me pretty much straight home. I thought it might take 8 hours to get back, but it turned out to be an hour less, and that included a couple of snack breaks and a lunch with a fill-up in Madras. With discretion being the better part of valor, I opted to fill the tank even though the Miata said I could go 120 miles and Google Maps was telling me it was a mere 108 miles to home. 🙂

Dahlia Day Out

Did a run with the Mt Hood Miata Club today. Our destination was the Annual Swan Island Dahlia Festival in Canby, Oregon. We met in the parking lot of a Fred Meyer in Wilsonville that was 3-1/2 miles from our destination as the crow flies or 10 miles as Google would have you go. But our run leader had mapped out a 35 mile loop through some very windy backcountry roads. And amazingly enough, our 17 car caravan didn’t really lose anyone.

We were allotted an hour to take in the beauty before we headed back into town for lunch. I walked all around both fields of flowers of many colors and shapes for about 30 minutes and then found some shade and a soft drink until it was time to go.

No fancy extra driving to get to Backstop Bar and Grill, just 2 quick miles and then a couple circles of the block to find a parking spot. The conversation was and the food was pretty good. I had noticed a sign for the Canby Ferry somewhere on the the drive and decided that I’d see if I could take that on the way home. It is a neat little 6-car affair that crosses the Willamette River. There were only 4 cars and me waiting to take it. Once loaded and moving they came around to collect the $5 fee. Turns out they don’t take plastic and all I had was three whole dollars in my wallet. So I ended up riding for free. But I felt bad and I think on my way down to Klamath Falls this weekend I’ll take the ferry and offer up a ten dollar bill to make up for it.

Canby Ferry

Half Dozen More

Today was Sunday, so that means Post Offices. My first stop was to get the Hillsboro DCU, because for some reason 3 weeks ago when I got the regular Hillsboro PO photo, I didn’t take this one. I think I remember circling the block looking for it and giving up.

From there my thoughts were to get the two Newberg POs and maybe Dundee, just a little south of Newberg, to make it an even four. But when I got to Dundee I realized I could two more, Dayton and McMinnville, for a little over 20 extra miles. On my way into McMinnville, I saw a 747 on the right side of the road with the words EVERGREEN in green on the side and just past it was a building that had a 747 on its roof. My curiosity was satisfied a second later when I saw sign that read, “Aviation Museum Next Right.” I pulled in.

The place seemed deserted, so I pulled over by a static MIG-29 and looked up their web page. The museum was about to open up in a few minutes and now there was a steady trickle of cars coming in the driveway. I decided, that I’d come back another day and spend a few hours here. When I arrived home, I looked a little more closely at their website and found out that the museum is the home of Howard Hughes’ folly, the Spruce Goose. If you look in the glass walled hanger behind the Miata in the photo above, it was right there!

As I was mulling about the Spruce Goose while heading home, I’d swear I’ve had a conversation with someone recently about that plane being in my neck of the woods. It thought it might have been Santa Fe Sally, but during our evening chat today, she swore it wasn’t her. So, who?

And as further proof of my diminishing recall, on my way back towards I-5, I passed right by a Post Office I didn’t see on my to-do list. So I circled the block and got out and took a photo. It wasn’t until I got back home that I realized I did have a photo of it already, it was taken on that same photo trip 3 weeks ago.

Mojo

Way back in the early 90’s Donna and I added mountain biking to our cycling CV and we both bought a Bridgestone MB-4. As you can tell if you’ve hung around here long enough, you know I like the modify things I own to express my me-ness. The first things I did to the bike is I threw a bright pink seat and matching handlebar tape on it. I also glued a little blue and pink gecko to my top tube in what was referred to as a Mojo in the mountain biking community.

A decade or so later I added a Mojo to Miata #3, that we named The Emperor because compared to the high mileage Miata #2 we traded in on it, this car was Regal. It was the LS or top of the Miata lineup and came with leather seats and a cloth top. The maroon-ish color with tan interior added to its high class feel as well. I bought a little Hasbro Emperor Palpatine figure and double stick taped it to the car’s dash.

Fast forward 2-1/2 decades later and now I own Miata #6 that has earned the nickname Bucky for two reasons which you can read about it here. The other day in Klamath Falls I wanted to wash the road gunk off Miata #5, so I went over to the local Dollar Tree looking for some small towels to use at the hand car wash. I found a couple of “Microfiber” ones for a dollar (and a quarter) each. Whenever I’m in one of these stores I always check out the miniature action figures to see if they have anything cool.

Surprisingly, they still had a bunch of The Incredible figures on the hooks because I bought a set of all 5 characters way back 5 years ago when we lived in K-Falls. I found a DC Comics figure of Black Adam that I opted to buy for Bucky’s Mojo. When I got back home, I shrunk down the logo for that gas station place and glued it to Black Adam’s chest. Tomorrow I’ll stick Buc-ee Man on the dash.

Pull Caffé Run

My second Run with the Mt Hood Miata Club took me into the wilds of southern Washington with a dozen or so Miatas and one Fiat 124 Spider (AKA: Fiata.) What they call a Run is what we called a Rally back in the Masters Miata Club realm.

We met in a Home Depot parking lot in Vancouver, WA and if you’ve ever been in a Home Depot parking lot on a Saturday morning you would know just how out of place our little roadsters were. Our destination today was a small specialty coffee roaster in the wilds of Clark County. Pull Caffé’s address is listed as in the town of Yacolt, but I didn’t see anything resembling a town. On a side note, Yacolt is derived from the Klickitat word “Yahkohtl,” meaning “haunted place” or “place of (evil) spirits”, so good thing it was daytime.

Pull Caffé’s opening time on Saturday is noon, but we had arranged to arrive at 11 so we could get the nickel tour before the hoi polloi. Very interesting place, they started out as a woodfired coffee roaster but branch into making woodfired pizza and in a brick oven and then added baking sourdough bread in there too. The coffee roaster they use is literally the oldest one on the planet. When the owner found the German made roaster for sale in Bulgaria he was told it was used in the 30’s. When he got it installed he discovered it might have been used then, but it was built in the 1800s!

Another reason to be there early was because the first Saturday of the month is the only time they sell the bread and it draws a crowd from around the area. I snagged a loaf and I’ve got two thirds of it in the freezer because it is going to take a while for me to devour something the size of my head.

After leaving the coffee and pizza and bread makers behind we headed back south for lunch at the Prairie Tavern with a stop at the scenic Lucia Falls for a leg stretch.

Morning Walk

This morning’s sunrise appeared like normal, but after breakfast and I stepped outside to go for a walk, the unusual higher temps turned that into a lot of low level fog. By the time I finished my 2 mile trek around Salish Ponds the fog was gone. And the sun sort of came out, there was scattered blue to be seen. After making a coffee I hopped into a Miata and went for a short drive east of here where the roads have more curves.

After lunch I went back out and gave both the boys a bath, even though the rains returns tomorrow and will probably reverse the cleanliness in short order.