When we were planning our trip, we considered several transportation alternatives. Renting a car turned out to be ridiculously expensive. The seemingly natural choice was our Ford Windstar minivan, Wendy. Yes, we always grant names to our vehicles.
However, though merely 8 years old, Wendy has a very rusty body, and we got several implicit warnings from our mechanic back in Pittsburgh, about her fitness for the task. A mechanic in Colorado defined her as “all rotten”...
We chose to take the risk, and count on Wendy. We had her delivered by truck to Nevada, saving the 2000 miles drive and increasing the chances she’ll get us to San Francisco, our final destination.
As such, we were continuously expecting her to break down. She did once, when we had to replace a starter in Colorado, but that’s fairly normal. Other than that, and I know I might be taunting fate, so far so good… The gas mileage is not stellar, we get quite some clanking now and then, but after several thousands of miles and several long lags (e.g. Anat had an exquisite way of celebrating her birthday – driving for more than 25% of it...) we’re in California. We still have almost two weeks to go, but we will be spending them within a distance of several hours at most from the bay area.
Wendy has also made Anat very proud (justifiably!): when a mysterious fuse blew out, silencing the music, Anat found its location in the vehicle manual and replaced it all by herself!
Our current plan is to donate Wendy to some charity, which will probably sell it for scrap or for parts. Again, it might be too early to say, but I think we were really lucky with gambling on her!
Giora
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