Portlanders (the Oregon kind -- I don't know about the Maine kind) tend to have just a touch of chauvinism about visiting Washington State. After all, Portland is a very nice city surrounded by lots of scenery to drive around in, so why bother to cross the river and see what's on the other side? The original proposal that the unclub's New Year's drive be to Mount St. Helens -- well north of the Columbia River -- was foreseeably doomed to failure. Nevertheless, the weekend before found me poring over a Washington map and plotting out several alternate routes. We could drive perhaps two hours to the south base of the volcano and take scenic back roads on the return trip, or we could drive three hours to the visitor center on the north face and then backtrack; scenic value unknown. I e-mailed this information to Cameron Lovre, who's usually the best of us at organizing stuff.

"Maybe we're getting old and stodgy," came the reply. "But that's too far."

"Fine," I messaged back. "So where do you want to go?"

A series of conference e-mails between me, Cameron, Shayne Green, and Peter Eulau then took place. Cam suggested a roundabout route to the Japanese Garden in Portland itself. Shayne suggested a restaurant in the town of Sandy called the Evasive Flounder (or something like that). Peter opted for the McMenamin's complex in Edgefield (microbrew beer and huge mounds of French fries). All those were okay with me, but none of the drives appealed -- I get lost in Portland even when using non-roundabout routes, and the other two were mostly just jogs on I-84 east of the city. If it had to be in Oregon, my best idea was to visit Multnomah Falls. It's scenic, there's an excellent restaurant in the lodge there, and (best of all) 45 minutes of the one-hour drive would be over the old, twisty, historic highway through the Columbia Gorge.

We put it to a vote, and everyone predictably voted for his own idea. Hmmm.

"How about this," I sent to everyone. "We have four potential destinations. I vote for the Falls, so I give it four points. My second choice is the Illicit Octopus, so that's three points. I give Edgefield two points and the Japanese Gardens one. You guys do the same and we'll total up all the points. High points overall wins."

That worked, sort of, except nobody was enterprising enough to actually keep track of the votes. Peter cast his last with a note that the Reluctant Oyster seemed to be ahead, and by the way, he had an appointment at 2:30 p.m. on the day in question, so could we start early, please? We agreed to gather up as many other Volvo fans as we could and meet at Peter's house in Portland by 9 a.m.

And so, Marsha and I got up early on the last day of the (true) millennium and parked the 1800S on Peter's block in plenty of time. Peter's 1800E gleamed facing the street in his driveway. Cameron's 122S was already there, as was Boris Kort-Packard's (Boris had gotten up really early and driven up from Corvallis). I recognized Jeff Meek's 122 wagon, and across the street were a 142 and a hotrod-looking 145 I didn't recognize. The 142 turned out to be one of Mike Harding's many Volvos, and a young couple named Mark and Andrea belonged to the 145. Shayne and wife Sarah soon arrived in the Radio Flyer. We all went inside and milled around Peter's beautiful house for a while.

A thought struck me. "So, we're going to the Hidden Flounder, but we'll get there around 10. Does anyone know if they're even open for breakfast?"

"I thought we were going to Multnomah Falls," Shayne replied, "Or I woulda called to find out."

We milled around some more. Well, we'd better go someplace or other soon, or Peter would never get back in time for his appointment. We gradually milled in the direction of the door and then the cars.

"Wherever we're going," Mike announced, "Jeff and I have to get gas first." Some discussion of gas station locations and brands then ensued. After a while, we all agreed to meet at a particular gas station fairly close to the freeway. No more than 30 minutes later, we were all traveling east on I-84 in several dispersed groups.

One feature of our unclub jaunts is that it's fun to take turns leading the group. The downside is that the leader may have no idea where he's headed -- and in this case, Shayne was the only one who knew where the Annoying Halibut actually was. It turned out well this time and we all managed to get off the freeway at the same exit and proceed through the city streets of Gresham, a Portland suburb. People who live in Gresham seem to do so voluntarily, but in my opinion, it's far from being the garden spot of Oregon. Marsha began some low-key grousing about getting up early, boring drives, and stupid men. We all got separated by inconveniently-timed traffic signals, but everyone managed to keep sight of someone who had someone else in sight, so we all negotiated our way onto the next highway without incident. It helped that Shayne's wagon is a very bright red and easy to spot in the distance.

And so we made it to Sandy. Based on this first-time-for-me look, it's a pleasant small town with an Alpine flavor. There's an eastbound main street and a westbound main street -- naturally, the Frightened Cod was on the street going the way we weren't. Shayne and Sarah suddenly ducked into a narrow alley between buildings to get to the other side, and we all jammed in behind to trickle out singly headed the other way as traffic permitted, and then into the restaurant parking lot. All except Boris, that is, who failed to comprehend that crossing three busy lanes within 50 feet was required -- we watched him rev happily on past trying to catch up to cars that had apparently suddenly sped out of sight.

The Elusive Trout (I think that's its real name) was thoroughly closed and empty. Marsha, Sarah, Andrea and Peter's wife Kendra all stayed in their respective cars. None of them looked pleased with us. The rest of us got out and resumed milling about, keeping an eye out for Boris to come flying by on his next lap around town. It was plenty cold and starting to drizzle. The "where are we going" discussion started up afresh and with no signs that rapid progress would be made.

By the time Boris finally came sliding into the lot, I'd put my foot down. Multnomah Falls it was; we were already a good part of the way there. Trouble was, I had no idea of how to get to anywhere from Sandy -- we'd go back through Gresham and pick up the old highway from there (not that I could quite picture how that worked, either). Off we went from whence we had just come, happily taking turns zooming by each other.

Somewhere in Gresham, Mike and Jeff at the rear of the pack suddenly turned off and disappeared down a side road. Mike knows all the back roads in that area and had decided on a short cut. We just let them go; no way to get us all turned around anyway. One gas station rest room stop later, Cameron led us back onto I-84 and promptly went right past the first exit, which is the only one I knew to take to get onto the historic highway. I therefore did the only unclubish thing to do -- I took over the lead.

Fortune smiled five miles further down the Interstate: the sign said the next exit led to Corbett, and I remembered that tiny town as being the start of the interesting part of the old highway. In short order, I was leading us up a road I'd never been on, but with some confidence that it would end up someplace I'd recognize. The only incident that almost happened was when we entered a steep climbing turn that was sharper, longer and wetter than it looked going in. I did a heel-and-toe maneuver shifting down to second, which would have been slick if I hadn't happened to be wearing my hiking boots at the time -- the right edge of my clutch boot caught the left edge of my brake boot, and we were suddenly in neutral and unintentionally braking heavily with the nose of the car pushing hard towards the bushes. There was nothing to do but lift both feet, regain steering and start over. Right behind me, I saw Cameron do an entertaining slide trying not to hit me, and Boris (right behind him) heading for the shoulder. No damage done, luckily enough, but embarrassing.

The rest of the drive to the Falls was its usual spectacular self, the old highway climbing ridges with terrific vistas over the river and diving down into old-growth forest between overhanging cliffs. I didn't push the pace, partly because of the boots and partly because sandy gravel covered much of the road, preventing taking any sort of lines through the turns (they don't salt snowy roads here; they gravel them, and when the snow melts away, the gravel can stay for weeks). We cruised past a number of lesser waterfalls and finally arrived at our destination: the highest waterfall in Oregon and, I believe, a number of other states around.

There was no sign of Mike or Jeff in the parking lot. We milled around briefly before heading for what turned out to be a terrific buffet brunch in the upper story of the lodge. About the time we were all finishing second or third helpings of eggs, waffles, ham, roast beef and biscuits (or whatever), the missing guys came trooping in. They'd just taken the Interstate all the way and had been parked in the other lot across the railroad tracks waiting a long time for us to arrive.

After brunch, we all felt like stuffed geese and no one wanted to waddle up the short path to the base of the Falls. Instead, we agreed we'd all take the old highway back towards Portland and make a final milling-about stop at Crown Point, site of an old lookout station high above the Columbia. What they built it to look out for I don't know, but the view is great.

Arriving at Crown Point, we proceeded to annoy what few tourists had braved the chill wind by circling the building four or five times until we were all parked facing the wrong way so Marsha could take a nice photo. Wind will follow the path of least resistance, and any weather wanting to move from one side of the Cascades to the other finds the Gorge to be such a path. We huddled against the stone walls of the lookout going "Ooh!" "Aah!" and "Brrrr..." Cameron's ball cap blew off and was promptly run over by a tourist in a Subaru. It's things like that which give ball caps character -- I thought of tossing mine out too, but decided that would be cheating. After a bit, we noticed all the women were no longer with us -- they'd had the sense to actually wander around to the sheltered side of the building while the best plan the rest of us could come up with was just to shiver harder.

From there, we all headed back home independently. We may not be organized, but driving our old Volvos in a beautiful place and generally hanging out with like-minded friends was a pretty darned good way to end the year 2000. None of us will make it through the next century, and it's unlikely any of our cars will -- certainly not as viable road-going vehicles. Who knows what cars will be like 50 years from now, much less 100? But I think we, and they, have some decades left to go, and that suits me fine. I'll take as much of this stuff as I can get.