Friends of my wife, Gwynne, & I; John & Nancy Payne, invited us to go on a road trip to the Washington/Oregon coast with them and some of their friends. John's a sports car collector, particularly expensive ones, like Ferraris & Porsches. I told him I'd love to go but I didn't know if my 1958 Corvette was up to such a long trip? John said he'd loan me one of his cars, but I said I'd test mine out first. Gwynne & I hadn't driven down the Columbia River gorge in a while, and that's something everyone asks when they see my Corvette: “That's a beautiful car; have you driven it down The Gorge?” And I don't like to reply that I haven't. We packed folding chairs & a lunch cooler in the trunk, and set up for the Three Hour Tour.
The car made it; drove perfectly, in fact, along the picturesque curvy roads high over the river, but it's no match in power or handling with newer cars, and we had trucks & Subarus, the automobiles of choice in the PNW, lined up behind us for at least a mile. When we finally pulled over at Bonneville Dam to turn around, it took several minutes for all of them to zip by. No one seemed angry; they all just googled the Corvette, waved, and some honked in appreciation. When we got back I emailed John, “Trip was a success but my ears are ringing and my back hurts so I'll be borrowing one of your cars.”
John was driving his new Ferrari 488 Pista Spyder. He'd given his visiting from Kansas City friends, Dave & Brenda, a Ferrari California to drive, and suggested I take his new Porsche 911S. Gwynne & I buckled up, and after a moment to figure out how to turn it on without a key, we headed out along the curvy roads on the Washington side of the Columbia River; we were the pace vehicle because I'm built that way. Of course, when the 3 super vehicles simultaneously pulled into a podunk gas station, it caused quite a stir among all the trucks & Subarus. Inevitable, somebody asked John, “How much does a car like that cost?” John, always courtesy, would reply, “Just shy of a million dollars.” The person would nod sagely every time, as if they'd guessed that already. After the third time, John's friend, Dave, commented, “Just shy? That's not a word that comes to mind when I think of million dollar automobiles.”
John wanted to make a phone call so he traded cars with me. With Gwynne acting as navigator, we accidently-on-purpose detoured off Highway 101 without the others knowing. After a bit, I rhetorically asked Gwynne, “How many people in Washington or Oregon are driving a Ferrari Pista today?” With the top down, blasting Country Western music around curvy back country roads, we accumulated a train of cars behind us; trucks & Subarus all embarrassed to pass a just shy of a million dollar Ferrari. We visited Ft. Stevens, constructed during the Civil War, and the only place on the continental U.S. attacked by a Japanese submarine during WW2; and stopped at the Tillamook Creamery on my recommendation. I bought everyone fried cheese curds. We couldn't eat them inside so we had to stand around the cars eating in the parking lot. I washed my hands with the diet Coke I'd bought before putting my hands back on the steering wheel. But the highlight of the trip was finding perhaps the last original “Little Black Sambos” restaurant in world?!
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