Category: Cars

Apologies for dropping the ball on blogging of late… the whole flood thing earlier in the week threw me off schedule. I promise to wrap up my political rant from last week, though election day has come and gone, with precisely the outcome I was looking for (balance, not a D-win/R-lose)… but I still need to say what should be said.

Anyway, on to the CPOTD… I was walking the field of the Amelia Island Concours when the sight above appeared before my eyes. When I was a kid, my dad brought me to the Can Am races at Road America in Elkhart Lake WI. To say that I was blown away was an understatement. The rumble of those machines was sweet music to my young ears. The cars that appealed to me most were Jim Hall’s Chapparals. He was a perennial second or third behind the McLarens everytime we made the drive up to Wisconsin, but I cheered him on nonetheless. It was like meeting a childhood hero to see this car in the flesh back in 2003. Everytime nobody was looking, I touched it. I probably spent 10 minutes just looking at this machine from every angle… gleaming white in the Florida sunshine. I wouldn’t know Jim Hall if he bought me lunch, but I can recognize a Chaparral from a mile away.

I took this photo several years ago, but other than the dashboard (of my old VW) the scenery hasn’t changed much today. We really only have two seasons here in the Pacific Northwest: Wet and Dry. Wet arrives sometime in the Autumn, usually accompanied by high winds. It arrived today. The past few weeks have been clear, but cold. The leaves on the trees just started changing, and this big wind will likely strip them off. I’m working at home today, watching the trees bend and sway. I took a brief run into town to grab some stuff at the store and mail a letter at the Post Office. On my way back to the house I noted that the roads were covered in fallen needles from Western Red Cedars. One of the two prominent tree species around here are WR Cedars (the other is Douglas Fir) and in the autumn every Cedar has some portion of their needles turn red, and all come off at the first big wind. The Fir trees just lose branches, which litter the roads with a Christmassy red and green.

Wet season means the Jaguar is put away in the barn, all wrapped up in a blanket.

Wet season also means my veggie oil filtering system slows down in the cold.

Wet season also means days getting shorter, and daylight saving being over, which means darkness by 5 pm now, and 3 pm by December.

I don’t mind it all really. Go figure.