Bumper Sticker: Our Other Car is a Trek

We continue to be a one-car family. In part for the savings in gas, insurance, upkeep. Except that gas costs are negligible when you drive about 50 miles A WEEK! Still. In order to stay a one-car family, Nick is now relying on pedal-power. He invested in a Trek mountain bike which he often rides to town for meetings and etcetera. It’s all downhill. Well, to town it is. Coming home, he has to get off and walk the bike the last 100 yards because it hits a fairly steep incline.

This is relevant because the car broke down last Tuesday evening about 2 blocks from the house. Fortunate for us that it broke on Tuesday, because on Thursday morning, we were supposed to take off for San Diego. If you look at a map – trust Google or MapQuest only so far, but they both at least show the same route from here to San Diego and that is right straight through the desert. We had to have the car towed into R&L Service Center. And here begins this week’s saga.

We own a 1998 Volvo sedan. Where we came from, that is nothing of note. At any intersection in the Northeast or Middle Atlantic cities, you will see 3 Volvos. They are very popular because they have a tendency to last forever. My last Volvo? I earned a 350,000 mile longevity emblem. But we weren’t the sages of our Volvo dealer. The longest-running Volvo there sported a half-million mileage emblem on its grill. Volvo puts out a million-mile emblem because, one assumes, there are Volvos that earn that honor.

However. In Silver City, Volvos are exotic creatures. I’ve seen a handful since we moved here. A friend has one – hers has a spoiler—I always wished for a spoiler. Another gray Volvo lives in our neighborhood. Other exotic cars here include: Mercedes Benz; BMWs; Chryslers. Cadillacs are rare enough to be eye-catching. Perhaps that’s because there is only a Ford Dealer and a Toyota Dealer here. I think the Toyota Dealer also sells Jeeps. There’s not even a Chevy dealer that I know of. How can you see the USA without a Chevy dealer? Oh, sorry; showing my TV age. If you don’t drive a Ford or a Toyota, you are an endangered species with limited habitat. And so you find R&L Service Center or their equivalent. R&L came highly recommended by the neighborhood Volvo and has lived up to its reputation. They got to our crippled car as soon as they could (Thursday morning) and fixed it promptly – as well as they could fix it. They couldn’t replace the part – the ignition key cylinder. To give them credit, they called a Volvo dealer to see about ordering the part for long-term repair. Unfortunately, Volvo apparently keeps the replacement of keyed parts close and so told R&L that we’d have to bring the car to a Volvo dealer, or have it towed there if the car broke down again and R&L couldn’t clean and repair the cylinder again. Nearest Volvo dealers: Albuquerque-5 hours drive; Tucson-3½ hours drive; El Paso-3 hours drive. Can you imagine the towing bill? Small towns can be wonderful: this small town has a terrific bakery, an arts community, an energetic and diverse community made up of caring friends. Small towns have their drawbacks: limited services to keep you, your car and perhaps other durable goods healthy and humming.

My daughter was telling me about the Cash for Clunkers program where you trade in your gas hog and get credits toward the cost of a new car that has better gas mileage. I think that’s wonderful. I don’t think our Volvo would qualify because we get marginally better than the 18 mpg or less to qualify. Last I measured, we got about 20 mpg/town and 25 or so on the highway. But I have to laugh. If everyone in Silver City with an aging vehicle decided to take up the Federal government on the Cash for Clunkers program, it would make the bailout of General Motors look like pocket change for the Salvation Army. We have cars on the road with brand names that no longer exist – there’s a Datsun 280Z that we see regularly when we walk the dog. Numerous Datsun sedans are to be found lounging in the WalMart parking lot. There are several Dodge Comets, Plymouth Barracudas and Ford Falcons roaming the territory. Raise your hands if you remember fins on cars. Think they are only exist in classic movies or tv ads? Nope, still tooling along Hwy 180. Before Nick committed to a Treck instead of a truck, we looked at a Ford F150 pickup that was advertised as a 1990 vintage. When the seller brought out the actual title, it was 1980. There are any number of trucks running the roads, mostly Fords but some Chevys, that have a split windshield. A buck to the person who writes me back with the last year that trucks, or sedans for that matter, had a seam down the center of the windshield. $10 to the person who actually drove one! (A virtual bet only, but tell me if you remember or drove one anyway.) The winner of this cruise down Silver City’s old Rt 66 is a Jeep that surely saw action in WWII. Still seeing action on NM Hwy 90 but hasn’t been painted in the intervening decades. I think the thing is that nothing really rusts here because it’s so dry. And because we’re not really desert with sand or dust storms to grit up moving parts, you can keep most anything running. And people do! I have a great time watching the variety of 4-wheeled workhorses and basic transportation that folks here still coax along from home to ranch to store to work. Perhaps you’ve seen images and video and stories of the cars of Old Havana? You don’t need a passport or permission to ride on down to Silver City and see our mechanicals any day.