After my CAD Design contract with Freightliner Trucks ended a few years back I had to move back up to the Seattle area for some work...
I do love Portland...Beautiful Rose gardens...An awesome river running right thru the town...A park the size of most of Seattle across the water...Every kind of bridge you could imagine...Killer skiing on Mt Hood...Many many things are great about the PDX area...
But the ONE thing I miss most is idling into the PIR Beaches cruise in in my semi finished '67 Chevelle SS396 Ragtop...And behind me, Jonsey in his '70 Cobra Jet Ragtop...Behind him, John-boy in his '72 Stage 1 Ragtop...Coming in third but really first was Allen in his '68 400 4 speed 25 option GS Ragtop, then occasionally we'd have another buddy in his '67 GS400 Ragtop with us...
We would all stop at the '76 station just north of PIR and pour at least 10 gallons of the 110 leaded octane gas that they wouldn't let you pour into your car, but would let you pour into a 5 gallon can and then into your car...
There is only one way into Beaches and it's a single paved strip that leads to grass parking for at least 400 cars...All of us drop-top guys would ditch work early every Wednesday night to be the first few down that strip so that we could park our rides and set up our lawn chairs on the sides of that strip and watch as car after car after stang after cuda after coupe after AMX after Shelby after Chevelle/Camaro/Corvette and everything in between would just put along by us like it was 1970 all over again...
Us different brand guys learned something the first time Beaches hosted that cruise...It ain't about brand...It aint about shine...It aint about "My exhaust end is bigger diameter than yours!"...It's about seeing all of these cars DRIVING to one event every week...
GOD I MISS BEACHES!!!!!
This photo is actually from the place that Beaches outgrew in one quick season, an air strip in Vancouver...PIR is sooooo much better...
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