Words and Photos by Carl Foleen.
Saturday, September 14, 2024 saw 22 (mostly Jaguars with a mix of other beautiful machines/cars and approximately 33 people get together on a nearly ideal day (weather wise) to spend about an hour and a half driving from Powell Butte Park in Portland to St Josef’s Winery & Vineyards in Barlow, Oregon.
There was only one major “glitch” in the route: A bad accident had closed SE Foster Rd. from about SE 162nd to SE 174th. After some skillful “back road navigation”, we re-established ourselves on course and continued our “caravan” through the countryside. We had to split the group into two sections of 11 cars each, and at one point we wound up running together because of the “incident” on SE Foster Rd. (See?? “Foster” isn’t just synonymous with “beer”) and again when we were backed up having to cross Hwy. 224 later along the route. (Left-hand turns from a secondary road onto a highway are always a challenge, and in this case it was an order of magnitude at least 22 times more difficult to keep the groups together.)
Fortunately the last section of the course led us out into more rural areas of Marion and Clackamas counties, which enabled the drivers and their navigators to enjoy scenic and much less crowded rural roads.
Interesting to note that at random intervals our “lead” caravan received waves, thumbs up (no other single digit salutes, thankfully), and the occasional toot of a horn from cars coming the opposite direction.
St. Josef’s had reserved a beautiful and shaded area of their property for us to park our cars which was handled with great aplomb by the drivers. Congratulations an thanks to everyone for being considerate of how the cars were parked and displayed. A very orderly display was accomplished without the need for any marshalling, which is a tribute to the respect and camaraderie that the participants have for each other.
At least one car decided to take the Canby Ferry back rather than deal with the traffic on either I-5 or Hwy. 99E. The scenery and quite placid Willamette river made it a very beautiful and relaxing drive back into Portland.
