When I moved to America, I tried catching public transport. That didn’t last long.

The cruel shouted jibes of “Communist!” and “Mexican!” wore me down. So I brought this car –

I spent my first weekend in the car up in Idaho. I drove rally style around the City of Rocks, skied at Pomerelle, and drove back from Sun Valley on Monday morning in time for work. I only got one ticket.

Owning an All Wheel Drive car in Park City made a lot of sense.

It made a lot of sense, but it wasn’t without its problems.

On a short break in Milwaukee I was watching Top Gear Season 12, Episode 2 and got inspired to take The Loneliest Road in America as a way to get from Park City to meet Craig in Laguna Seca for the Grand Prix. As was my way back then, I planned to camp outside en route.

After a thunderstorm on the first night, I drove off The Loneliest Road in America, and into … glue. So I continued until I was almost completely bogged, then turned around to get back onto the bitumen. I made it back, at the expense of my gear box.

Caught midway between Nowhere, and Well Beyond the Black Stump, I was still able to hitchhike 50 miles to the nearest town, make a phone call to get the car towed, and then got a ride with the local sheriff back to the car with seconds to spare before the tow truck driver left for good. Then I had the Audi towed 50 miles the other way to Ely, Nevada. A third world town with only a Casino and two brothels. After a few days of that, and even though I had the loan of a F250 from the car shop, I needed to be rescued.

Although the car still made sense when I moved over to California, keeping it on the road started to cost too much money. It was hard to keep the car on the road at the best of times, particularly when encountering elderly englishmen who liked to drive on the left.

When we moved into the Santa Cruz Mountains, it made sense to keep the car around as Yard Art. For nine months. Just to fit in.

I played Banjo music loudly as the truck towed the Audi away for the final time. I didn’t want to scare the neighbours.

So many adventures with the Audi, and I was emotional seeing it go.
To replace it, we now have a car that is so environmentally-friendly that we are sure to see dolphins gambolling in our creek sometime soon. A car that augurs well for plenty of adventures of its own. Watch this space.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 4th, 2012 at 2:07 pm and is filed under Life in the Santa Cruz Mts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.