Former:
1987 Suzuki Samurai
1986 Suzuki Samurai
1986 Toyota 4WD turbo truck
1985 Toyota 4Runner
2002 Toyota Tacoma 2WD (fuck this vehicle)
2004 Subaru WRX (this car was so amazing)
2000 Toyota Corolla
2001 Dodge Ram 2WD
2010 Mazdaspeed 3
Current:
2011 Mazda 3
2012 Jeep Wrangler
2015 Subaru Impreza
I had a whole thing about lease v. buy but fuck being an adult outside of the STONKS thread, so I'll just share these three things instead:
- I owned the WRX for 5 days before I said "okay car, what can you do" and hit 143mph in the mountains. It felt like I was on the Millennium Falcon because the stars began to blur above 130mph and it remains one of the greatest rushes of my entire life.
- Some years before that I hit 95mph in my second Samurai up there and was probably a lot closer to death than I gave a shit about at the time. If you've ever piloted a Samurai you know that achieving let alone maintaining even 65mph highway speed is a challenge, so when a several mile long downhill stretch of freeway presented itself, my buddy and I did our best. It took something like 70 seconds to get moving that fast. I think the sound was similar to going over a waterfall in a soda can.
- But anyhow the greatest vehicular joy in my life was on a trip to Death Valley not long after I bought the Jeep. Some friends and I went there for a few days of camping in the middle of nowhere, and my plan was to come home on New Year's Eve since my wife couldn't make the trip. After several days in the dirt far away from cell reception, internet, and people, but with some rooster soup that they made from their own slain birds (have you ever had homemade homeraised rooster soup whilst camping on a frozen winter night? Best. Meal. Ever.), we were setting up camp in a new spot. I thought it was December 30th and was going to leave in the morning, alone, but my one friend convinced me that no, it was already NYE and the afternoon was waning. Holy shit, so it is, I had best be on me way home!
I left going out on a long dirt road that I had never been on before, with a blown shock from a few days prior, wearing some hiking boots that were definitely not broken in yet and killing my right foot (fun fact: these boots were finally truly comfy after about 6 years). I had done fuel calculations beforehand and I had 60 miles to go on dirt, then 30 miles to the gas station, and finally a long 175 mile lonesome highway stretch to get home. I had half a tank of gas left, so as long as nothing went wrong and I could maintain a steady pace, I'd make the critical 90 mile stretch without issue.
About 40 miles in on the dirt, the road started heading uphill. "Well I didn't factor that in to my fuel calculations... let's see what happens!" That's when it started snowing and all snow is magic but I have a particular affinity toward desert snow because it is uncommon, unexpected, and unique. It was beautiful, there is nothing like seeing Joshua Trees and Yuccas covered in fresh powder. Unfortunately I was getting pretty paranoid about a fuel gauge reading about 1/4 at this point and didn't want to stop to enjoy the sub-frozen wonderland after dark because I hadn’t seen a single soul for about 4 hours. Anyhow I made it back to pavement and was definitely quite low on fuel, and knew of two gas stations. One was east and likely not open at such an hour on a holiday, the other was west and further away, but by the main highway. So I went west, got to the gas station nearly on fumes, and texted my wife:
“Hey! We climbed a really tall mountain out here and have one bar of reception! I miss you and hope you get this message. But I won’t be home until tomorrow, I lost track of the days off the grid.”
Several minutes later I got her reply: “I’m glad you’re having a fun time but I really wanted you to be here on NYE. I love you.”
Man she was so bummed out so I couldn’t keep up the joke: “Okay just kidding, I am at a gas station on highway 395 and will see you before midnight. I did lose track of the days though, story later!”
“I KNEW THERE WAS NO RECEPTION IN DEATH VALLEY okay good see you soon yaaaaay <3”
I made it home around 11pm. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep about 3 seconds after the New Year Ball dropped. So much more meaningful and quite an adventure but gorram it 143mph in a small Japanese wagon was pretty cool.
DRIVE FAST, TAKE CHANCES
