Getting Started

Drove around some today, drove up north, drove down south. Drove and drove and drove. Traffic and lights and nowhere to go. Short on ingredients. Wanted to take pictures - could not get started.


I have a car that won't start. An old trooper. I love that thing. I used to drive around with a sleeping bag and a change of clothes in the back - hoping, waiting for adventure to strike. Took it over Steven Pass once - one of the last cars over before they closed it that weekend. The heater was dying - glass was fogging real bad, had to rub my hands against the glass to keep sleet from turning to ice. I have always wanted to put a bike rack on the top of this vehicle. Drive as deep as I can drive then ride till I can ride no further. Then start setting up a base camp for hikes and pictures.

But it does not start these days. Something is broken deep in the block - I've heard rumors that it could be the spring that maintains tension on the timing chain. So it sits. 300 miles away.


Won't go.


I can want it to go - but all the want in the world can't make that car go.

I could sit in it and pretend that it works. I could close my eyes and dream of far off adventures. I could sell it - I could go out and try to find one just like it. Red with dinged up doors, new seats, a shift knob I made from a chunk of Madrona, and a Maglite holster. I could search in junk yards and used car lots and find something close, 1990 Isuzu Troopers are not hard to find these days - they are not the easiest cars to own.



I could sell it, I could give it away, or . . . . or I could drag it out of Karl's driveway - park it, and start saving the 2,000+ dollars I'll need to get it repaired. It could take a while. It could take a very long while. I may find a year from now that I no longer am so attached to it. But in the meantime I'm saving up looking forward to all of the hard work that engine repair entails.


It will take lots of hard work someday, and some planning on my part now. I don't know if I'll ever get it started again.






I hope it will, but even if it never does, all those places I wanted to visit - they aren't going anywhere soon.