Mt Hood Miata Club

Accidental Drive Homework #5

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I picked up the Miata from the dealer on the 28th and have driven it every day since. Today there was a Miata club event that I was going to attend. It started over on the west side of town, so I picked the “Avoid Highways” option so as to not get in inbound Portland traffic on I-84. I still arrived early at the meet-up spot because, well, I started early. By this time I’d probably put a couple hundred miles on the car, but it wasn’t until I started driving with the group that I noticed that the steering wheel was not lined up correctly. It appeared to be about 5 or 6 degrees off to the left.

So after the Miata event, instead of going straight home, I stopped into the Mazda dealer. They looked at it, confirmed it was off an pulled into a bay. After waiting a couple hours, they decided that they needed more time and ordered up a Lyft for me to go home in.

Somewhere in those couple hours I got bored. The Mazda dealer shares a lot with the Toyota dealer, so a quick estimate of total cars there is 200 maybe. For the heck of it, I trolled both dealers’ used car pages and came up with one manual transmission in my price range, but it was nothing I’d be interested in. So I went outside and wandered around the lot. On the second to last row there was a Hyundai Elantra N, hmmm. I was interested in the Hyundai Veloster N, but couldn’t find a manual anywhere near here, maybe I should take the Elantra for a spin.

Car #8: 2025 Hyundai Elantra N. $31k with only six thousand miles on it. I went into the Toyoto place and asked if I could drive the car. They hooked me up with a salesperson, and we went out to look at it. She wanted to pull it out of its slot, but when she opened the door and saw that it was a manual, she let me do it. I didn’t want to get on the freeway, so we just did a few miles on a rectangular surface street loop. Even though the power-to-weight ratio is better in the Hyundai, it didn’t feel substantially faster. The first thing I noticed was the digital gauge cluster; it was exactly like the one in Santa Fe Sally’s 2023 Hyundai Tucson, which was a letdown. It is also hampered by the same thing a couple cars I thought were possibilities have: an extra foot and a half of unnecessary length.

I’ve lined up a test drive on that Porsche 718 Cayman, and then I think the only thing left would be to get in a Golf R of the same vintage as the GTI…

Run To The Coast

This is my 5th trip with the Mt. Hood Miata Club, the third one involving twisty roads and by far the most driving (234 miles). We headed to the coast to look at a lighthouse, eat lunch, and bask in the springtime sunshine. There were a dozen cars and 15 people in attendance. Of those, I recognized one fellow mainly because he was the only other one with an NB and he came to the Speed Tour at the track.

Concours de Maryhill

Looking West—the Columbia River From the Maryhill Museum


 
Today was an outing with the Miata Club to drive around 100 miles east to the town of Maryhill, WA, for a car show. Not to be in it, but to enjoy it as a spectator. Most car shows separate the entrants into eras or types or manufacturers, but this one was set up so that as the cars came in, that was how they were lined up. And if you could think of any kind of car, it was probably here.

I bailed kind of early and made a stop at a Roadside America attraction, the Maryhill Stonehenge, just down the street from where the car show was before getting on I-84 to head home.

Maryhill Stonehenge

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

A Day At The Races

I spent the day at Portland International Raceway with a small subset of the Mt. Hood Miata Club. We met for breakfast at a Holiday Inn close to the racetrack before heading over to over for the SpeedTour that incorporates several different classes of car racing.

It also included a Hagerty: Cars & Caffeine, which is a car show for all kinds of automobiles in about 7 or 8 different classes. This is how we got in the event, at a cost of $50. That might seem like a lot, and it sort of is, but it included admission to the track for all 3 days (Fri, Sat & Sun) of the event for 2 people and your entry into the car show. The Miata is in the “sports car” class for show judging, and there were too many much cooler cars than our relatively “new” cars for us to win anything. My only chance at winning a prize was if there was a category for most stickers on the inside of a trunk lid.

I enjoyed myself and will probably go again next year.

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.

I’m Member Number 476

There probably aren’t 476 current members, this is probably all time and the club has been around since October 14, 1990. I think the leader of the run I did when I joined the club said there are still over 200 folks on the roll.

That badge says 2024 Blue for my car, but there is an addition Miata in the family that there have only been brief glances of so far, that changes tomorrow. I drive down to FTW Tuning in a rental car and return home to Fairview in a black 2001 Miata LS.

Now I’m going to be going back to having one car too many for the parking I have. From last September until just last month I had two cars and one parking spot. The Miata got the primo spot in the driveway under the awning while the Mini was outside up in a spot near the Community Center. After the Vertical Platform lift was removed both cars fit in the driveway under the awning, but now I will have two Miatas and the Mini will be back up by the Community Center. The rule here is that if you own a car, you must have a spot to park it. They kind of let me break that rule for a while because of my predicament, i.e. wife dying, but this time they might not be so lenient.