Last Monday, I traded my car in of ten years, and I got a new one. It was not that hard of a decision, my car had just reached 140,000 miles, I had spent so much money on it making sure that it continued to work well, and the last time I took it into the shop for an oil change, I ended up spending $3,000 on it, which is absurd. Also the heater was always crappy, which is mostly fine in Georgia, but when I moved up here, it was a serious detriment. On top of that, it was only two-wheel drive, and in New York, all wheel drive is pretty much standard due to the snow. I know at this point, it does not sound like much of a eulogy, but I promise it was a good car, and I loved it.
I got the car when I was a senior in high school, and I think one of the first things I did with it was go to prom, which is funny and seems like forever ago, but that is not really a core memory of the car, most the memories center around driving around in the mountains, which is the way it should be, because this beautiful blue car was an SUV, so technically it was kind of built for the mountains, except for the lacking of the 4 wheel drive.
This came back to get me. One time I parked to do the hike to Panther Creek Falls, a moderate hike up in North Georgia to a medium sized waterfall, that was wide, and it had a decent swimming area in front of it. The problem was that after the hike, I could not back my car out of the spot. It was only a slight small gravel incline, but the tires would just spin and spin no matter what I tried. Eventually a good Samaritan saw me struggling, and he had some tow cables in his car, and he helped to pull me out.
Speaking of the Georgia mountains, back when I was used to hike every weekend, one thing that I would often go out of my way to do was sit on the top of the roof of my car and enjoy lunch. It had a roof rack, so I figured that it was strong enough to hold me, and the occasional friend who wanted to join. It was great to munch down on an apple or a sandwich on the side of the road looking out at a beautiful vista. One of the most popular spots for me to do this was on the road to Raven Cliff Falls and Duke’s Creek Falls, which had a nice pull out that was basically created for having lunch on your car with a view.
I also loved to zip around the mountain roads. My favorite road to drive on was the road to Fort Mountain. It was always exciting to go and see the splendid red deck that was built into the side of the mountain, but it was also nice to zoom up the road that zig zagged to the top. There were definitely multiple times, when I was going way too fast going up and down that mountain side, but it was so fun. The other mountain that was great to drive up to was Blood Mountain for the same reason. I think the last time I did the drive; I was listening to a Metallica CD as I sped up that road, which seems very fitting looking back.
The other roads that I loved driving it on were dirt roads. The one that I probably got to drive on the most was the dirt road to the old mill at Berry to hike up to the res. It was not a long road, but it got the job done. I love riding along those bumpy gravel roads, and even more so hitting the gas and swerving just a little, just enough to get the tires to slide on the dirt. That is one of the best feelings just doing a little slide. It can be done in the snow too, but that usually causes a little more panic for me when that occurs. The road to Minnehaha falls was also a treat. It went along Rabun Lake, so when I took it I not only got to enjoy the bumps and slides of taking the gravel, but I also got to see some spectacular lake houses plus it took a few miles to get there.
It was also a generous car. In college it was regularly driven by others. I had a couple of friends that did not have cars, so they would ask to drive it. My roommate would use it to go to mass often, and I had another friend who lived on Mountain Campus, and there were times when I would let her use it to drive to mountain campus and come back whenever she needed to.
The car was also well traveled in its 140,000 miles. I cannot name all the states that it went too, but there is a hefty list. I once was going to do a road trip across the country, but I had just gotten back from Costa Rica, and I contracted a respiratory infection when I got back, so the trip got off to a rough start. Then my first night in Mississippi, my tent flooded, which sucked, and I did not realize how lonely it would feel after just three days on my own. So my car only made it as far west as Arkansas, specifically Glory Hole Falls, and it made it as far North as New Hampshire, which was just this past summer, when I spent three days running around the White Mountains, and I was much more suited for the solitude this time around, and I think the farthest south it went was Panama City Beach for a whole summer, where it was used to help caravan people to and from Five Guys for our summer job.
The one thing that I wished it was more capable of is having enough room to sleep in. I think I only ever slept in it once. This was two summers ago, when I went down to Asheville to visit my friends. I drove halfway down and caped in Jefferson National Forest, then on the way back, I slept in the same forest, but I did not feel like setting up my tent, so I just put my sleeping pad in the back of my car, and I did my best to sleep. It felt a little cramped.
Also I specifically chose a not scary book to read before I went to bed, because there was no service out there, so I was reading a book about Scott Jurek running the Appalachian Trail, and of course, the one chapter I read before bed was about all of the murders that occur on the Appalachian trail, and although I was not technically on the Appalachian Trail, I was in the vicinity, so I did not sleep easy, but at least I had a metal shield around me instead of water resistant tent flaps. The spooky part was that there was a sleeper van parked a couple miles away, and when I drove past it the evening before, the doors were open, and it looked like no one was around, and then the next morning, the van was still there with its doors open and no person in sight. It seemed odd, but I survived.
It was a car that truly fit me. It was an SUV, so it represented the mountains, but it was minimalist and the base model, which also I feel like represents me, I am not much of a bells and whistles kind of person, and it was the perfect color of blue. Basically Florida Gator blue, so it went with most of the clothes that were in my wardrobe. When I bought it, we were trading in another car, and the guy gave us a low offer, and he said that people often confuse the value of their car with their good memories of the car, and I do have so many good memories of my car.
When I was leaving it for the last time, I kept looking at it. I felt like there was something left inside, and I could not remember what it was, but I needed it, and to be as cheesy as possible, there is a part of me in that car, and it will always live in there. Of course, part of that is nostalgia, but there are so many memories that cannot all be unpacked, some are left to sit in there forever. The salt stains on the seats from my sweat after runs. The random stain that undoubtedly came from not being able to wait till I got home to eat my pizza, and countless trips to trails. I loved my car, and I am sad that it is gone, but new is also good.
They only gave me $4,000 for it, which seems low. I was hoping for about six. I do not think that it is just the nostalgia and memories talking either. It worked well, and I recently put $3,000 into it to make sure that it kept running. It was a little rusty on the bumper sure, and it had been in one accident that took over $2,000 to fix, but I had put the money into it to keep it looking good and working good. My dad helped out and gave me some money for my sorrows to get me closer to the $6,000 that I had been hoping to receive, and I put down a decent down payment as well. I had just had a car that stood out, and it seemed like the only colors I had available was black, white, or gray, but I added a couple thousand to the overall cost of the car, so I could get a nice forest green, but I just saw like five of them, so it definitely does not stick as much as the blue, but it also drives itself on the interstate and it basically has a tablet on the dashboard for the radio and the map, so it is safe to say that I am happy, and that the pang of nostalgia will slowly wear off.
(I just used it to drive down to Asheville, and I slept in the back, and it worked out better than sleeping in the back of the Xterra, so we are off to a good start!)
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