An American Journey (or two)

An American Journey was originally posted under the FEATURES section of my website on November 26, 2004.

An American Journey is unofficially brought to you by the 1991 Dodge Dynasty LE and the Argus DC1512 Digital Camera.

 

Introduction

In December 2003, I bought my first car.  It wasn't really a planned purchase.  It was my Senior year at the Milwaukee School of Engineering in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  I was planning on having to get a car around graduation, because it would be necessary to get a job, but while in school I didn't really need one, so I wasn't concerning myself with the car issue yet.

My roommate Cody, already graduated from college and working, was offered a good deal on a former company car from work in November, and went ahead and bought it.  He offered me his old car, a 1991 Dodge Dynasty LE, for $1000.  Knowing that was what he had paid for the car two years earlier, and that it needed a little work (mainly replacing the right side mirror, and a lot of cleaning) I talked him down to $800.

In Wisconsin, license plates are issued to people, not cars.  If you sell a car, you keep the plates, and can put them on another car.  The purchaser of your car is responsible for acquiring plates of their own.  Thus, Cody took his Wisconsin license plates off the Dynasty and put them on his new car.  I may have been in Wisconsin, but officially I was still an Oregon resident, with an Oregon driver's license.  I investigated licensing the car in Wisconsin.  License plates would have been $60 a year, plus the initial fee.  I probably would have had to get a Wisconsin driver's license as well, plus car insurance in Milwaukee, Wisconsin was a lot more expensive than in Rainier, Oregon.  I knew there was a good chance that I would be returning to Oregon after graduating, and I didn't like the idea of going through all that for just a few months.  In addition, in January, Oregon's auto license would rise from $15 a year to $50 a year, so if I took the car home over winter break, I could save some money.  (This may not make sense, as it would cost far more to drive across the country and back than what I would save, but I justified it because I would have gone home for break anyway, and would have spent about the same amount.)

Thus I acquired car insurance in Rainier, (it really helped that Rainier is a small town and the insurance agent knew my parents) and purchased a temporary Wisconsin license plate for $3.  These are necessary for out of state residents to buy Wisconsin cars, and not get pulled over for not having plates.  The temporary plate is made of heavy paper, and is good for 30 days.  The number on mine was V97 666!  Not a good number for the superstitious, but fortunately I'm not.

The Dynasty's temporary Wisconsin license plate

I was now committed to driving home, to sign my insurance policy and license the car.  The trip would take me west on Interstate 94 from Milwaukee to Madison, where I-94 met up with I-90, which I would follow all the way to Ritzville, Washington, southwest of Spokane, where I would switch to U.S. 395.  At Pasco/Kennewick, I would join I-82 briefly to I-84, which I would follow into Portland.  From there, I would take one of the familiar routes of either I-5 or U.S. 30 home to Rainier.  I estimated a one-way trip would take about 33 hours of actual driving at freeway speeds, not counting any stops.

This map shows the route, with all the stops I would make, for gas, food, lodging or any combination of those, on all the trips covered on this page.

Continue to Preparations…