Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Still Car Crazy After All These Years - Day 11

Will walk to Van Ness/Bush around 4 to pick up rental car.
Distance: 14 blocks + I'll probably add some more distance to the walk.

Turns out my car has a few leaks, needs a timing belt and won't be ready until 'maybe' the middle of next week. That will be at least 10 days without a car and 'opens the door' to what I'll do next when this car becomes too expensive/outdated/quirky.

I've always been a teenage boy about cars. As a child apparently I stood in the back seat (or rode in some way that is now illegal for children) and announced the names of all the cars on the road. Then after getting my license at age 15- a great reason to live in Minnesota if you're a teen - I began to own a series of totally great cars: Hillman Minx (first car, famous around school, hand-me-down from my father because my mother was mortified to be seen with him in it), Chevy Monza!,

Pontiac GTO!, Porsche 356!!

BMW 2002!!

Subaru GL 4WD Wagon,

BMW 325!!

Audi A4 Quattro (See 1/16 Blog for picture).

Since the beginning I've bought used, in cash and then pampered the car for as long as I could sensibly (maybe beyond sometimes) keep it going. My 325 was 18 years old - still adorable but so quirky that it did things like turn itself on in the middle of the night so the battery was dead in the morning. Really! I thought the mechanic was taking advantage of me when he said this, but then the car did it 2 more times. End of my false pride on that one.

Running out of space or there would be more pictures of these 'friends.' Now it is very green and good to not own and share a car (http://www.citycarshare.org/), but my inner teenage boy isn't ready. So, I'll continue to pamper my Audi. Non decision really, but at least I opened my mind a little and hve published the car share website.

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