Never argue with an artist when they have a vision. Never. They see things in a way that you can't understand.
When Satu found her dream car, it didn't surprise me at all that it was a 1979 Toyota, Corona LE lift back that had to be cream colored. She has been hunting this car down for years only to find one after another in the Philippines or in such disrepair that it can only be scrapped for parts. Finally, she found one for sale in California, so I new we had to fetch it.
We constructed a plan, not a good one, but a plan none the less to get out to Hemet, CA and drive the car home. We each took a week off of work to execute our plan, thinking that might give us a few days to troubleshoot since it was an old car.
Here is the original plan:
1. Fly to California.
2. Meet car owner and buy car.
3. Drive home stopping in Santa Fe to spend a day with Satu's sister.
Here's how it went down:
Day 1
We flew to Palm Springs while Satu, who is deathly afraid of flying focused all of her attention on not having a break down. It was a long flight. When we got there, we rented a car to drive out to Hemet. We met Randy at a local restaurant. The car looked a little more ragged than we expected, but when I saw Satu light up, I knew we were buying it anyway. We were planning on fixing it up, so it just had to make it home. The owner showed us how to wire the lights to the battery and gave us some spare parts in a plastic bag. We bought the car and drove off to find a hotel for the night. As we were looking, the sun began to set. That was when we realized that the interior lights didn't work. Luckily, Satu had a flashlight that she could use to scan the gauges. I realized as I was driving behind her, that the tail lights didn't work at all unless you were braking.
Day 2
The next morning, we got up early to return the rental car in Palm Springs. It overheated on the way. When we pulled over, I opened the radiator cap creating a green geyser before I thought about it. We made a quick trip for fluid and shop towels and drove the last ten minutes to Palm Springs before it overheated again. We got another rental car and a tow truck to Pep Boys. They added fluid and did not charge us because they were afraid to change the oil or flush the radiator in such an old car. I guess the top off worked though, because the car was holding on to life again. It was getting dark when we got the car back, so we decided to stay in Palm Springs for the night. Doubts startrd to creep in, but we didn't listen, we went downtown and poked around a little while.
Day 3
The next morning we returned the rental and headed out. We made a stop in Palm Desert for some Christmas gifts before heading through the Mojave. The car seemed to be doing fine, but I didn't know that the next two hours of road would be so unpopulated. We almost ran out of gas. When we were down to our last fumes, we coasted into the only gas station for miles. I paid well over the going rate to fill up and bought a $25 gas can and some water (just in case.) Within another hour, we found the interstate. Right as we were turning on the on ramp, the Corona gave a sigh of relief and shut down. We rolled to the shoulder and talked nicely to it for ten minutes. It started up again after a little protest. By the time we needed gas again, the car was turning itself off every time we slowed down. It made the turn into the gas station especially nerve racking. We stopped for the night in Kingman, AZ and tried to calm down after the long day. We decided that if the car started in the morning, we would take it as a good sign and try to make it to Santa Fe and figure out a plan from there.
Day 4
The car started. We thought it was a good sign, but it was just tricking us into getting an hour away from any town so that it could crap out for good in the middle of nowhere. After we yelled at the car for a little while, we drained the batteries on our phones getting a tow truck back to Kingman. The cheapest plan we could come up with was to rent a truck and a tow dolly to make the trip home. We were both too fried to try to fix the car and risk it letting us down again. We got a 16 foot moving van from Penske because that was the only thing we could rent to tow with. This turned out to be the best part of the trip though, because the guy who ran the rental place was truly AWESOME. Jim Hinckley loves classic cars and rustled up some tools so I could disconnect the drive shaft. I felt bad about lying to him and telling him we were sisters, but I didn't want to risk him not liking us. He was that cool. He turned out to be a route 66 historian and when we were all set to go, he disappeared into his office and returned with a hand written list of places he could recommend on our route. It was so refreshing to meet such a kind and intelligent man that we began to see the trip as an adventure again. We had a few hours left before we had to stop for the night, so we decided to make the best time we could.
At the first fuel stop, Satu was in good spirits. She bought something called Bit-o-honey and we looked at some crazy little desert trinkets. Back in the van she handed me a bite of the candy to try. "Hmmm. Yummy. Uh Oh." I said spitting out a tooth. There was nothing to do but laugh and hand Satu my tooth for safe keeping. We just laughed for an hour.
As the sun set, Satu found us a place to stay for the night. We were both more calm now that we had a truck we could trust to make the trip in. We stayed at La Posada in Winslow, AZ. It was like paradise.
This is a picture from the website since Satu has all of the hotel pictures on her phone. I will have to do a separate post about how wonderful this place was. We had one of the best meals of our lives there at the Turquoise room. The service was outstanding and the hotel was full of amazing art. We decided that this is where we will get married.
Day 5
We hit the road late the next morning after we had toured every corner of the hotel and eaten a fantastic breakfast. Refreshed and optimistic, we called Nicolette and told her we would be in Santa Fe that evening. We made it to Albuquerque, NM before I got pulled over. It took me a moment to figure out that the siren was behind me since I couldn't see around the moving truck. When I got over, the cop informed me that I was losing rubber from the tires on the Corona and they were about to blow. He kindly suggested that I stop two exits up at a local tire place that could give us a good price. Thank heaven for him, because I couldn't see the car and might have dragged it an hour without tires if he had not intervened. Between being pulled over and getting to the tire place, we blew off enough tire to put a huge dent in the Corona's wheel well. When Satu saw it, threatening dark clouds formed over her head. Some very handy gentlemen of Mexican origin had our new tires on almost before we could ask them.
We made it to Santa Fe right at dusk. As we turned down the residential street that her sister lives on, it became clear that we would never get the moving truck down one of those narrow neighborhood streets. I went a couple of extra miles and parked in the small parking lot of a local pet store. I felt pretty confident that we I would have enough room to maneuver out of there. Satu's sister called and said she would meet us and we could park at her church. It was here that I realized that I could not in fact maneuver our rolling monstrosity out of the parking lot, so I just drove it down the adjacent street and jack-knifed it so badly that we lost all hope. Fortunately, Nicolette showed up before Satu could dump me. She called a friend of hers who came to the rescue and hooked up his farm truck and bailed us out. Nicolette tried to reassure me when we went for gas and gave me a very kind pep talk. That night we had some great Mexican food and a little while later I had a terrible panic attack. I don't know why, but Satu didn't dump me then either.
Day 6
We got to see some of Santa Fe with Nic and met some of the people in her church. Around noon, we were able to trade the tow dolly in for a trailer so we wouldn't risk losing any more tires. Both of us wanted to stay, but we were already so behind schedule that we decided to try to get some miles down that evening. We made it to Tucumcari that evening and stayed at one of the places Jim had put on the list. It was a great place called the Blue Swallow Motel. The owners were great and let us pat their dog and made fresh coffee in the morning. They loved old cars too and made us feel more hopeful about our dead Corona. We bought Jim's book in their lobby and made plans to return to route 66 when the car was running again.
Yes, they had 100% refrigerated air
Day 7
We were back in adventure mode. We drove with determination and focus all the way to Dallas that night. I was not prepared for every single road in Dallas to be under construction. Once we got through the city, we started looking for a place to stay. The city traffic was so bad that I had started to shake and couldn't do one more left exit or lane change. I tried to stop at a HoJo, but couldn't find the hotel and ended up back on the interstate. We tried a second time and had to do a couple of gas station loop-de-loops before I could make a landing in the Holiday Inn parking lot. We walked to dinner on shaky legs.
Day 8
We finally hit our stride. At noon, we realized that we wouldn't make it all the way home, so we picked a medium sized city to stay in on our last night. In Meridian, Mississippi we made reservations at Weidman's restaurant, but weren't really sure how we would get there. I called a local cab company where I encountered the worst customer service of my life. The dispatcher hung up on me, and when I called her back an hour later to ask where the cab was, she told me she still didn't have one available. We got in our truck and headed down town. Luckily, there was a bank near the restaurant and we were able to park there and walk to dinner. The meal was great and we had a fun date night.
Day 9
We returned to Atlanta victorious. I jack-knifed the truck and trailer one last time in Satu's driveway and blocked off traffic in her street. Her kind and handy neighbor Dave came to the rescue and now we have a new project to fit into our lives. That evening I saw Satu pat the Corona's hood lovingly and I knew we had chosen the right car.
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