The day after Valentine’s Day, I was to buy a well-cared-for Subaru down in Naples Florida, previously owned by a little old lady, and promise to be a reliable vehicle. I’ve been borrowing my brother’s truck for the better part of two years, driving enough and on when I was back home between seasonal jobs. When I woke up that morning though, my stomach told me that some thing was some thing was not quite right with this decision I was about to make; it didn’t seem it struck me that it doesn’t seem big enough to hold all my dreams, and so I did a quick search for the vehicle that I do always dreamed of owning in my touring days with my last band - a Toyota Dolphin.
The first search result I found yielded one in seemingly pristine condition, complete with a motorcycle in flamingo in the photo, both indicators that both as visual placeholders for other parts of my dream as well. The flamingo in homage to my home state, motorcycle another stent another a companion vehicle to another vehicle that I’ve always dreamed of having; a little motorbike that I could park a bigger rig and tear up the side of a mountain to check out our road, or to just explore a little bit further.
The seller was responsive, and we had a quick half hour chat as I speed-walked around the neighborhood between meetings. He said that he had a seller or buyer offering him a little less than he’d wanted, and with no deposit – if I put a deposit down, it would be mine, if I decided to get it, and I lose the deposit if I didn’t. I mulled it over for about an hour, and then nervously sent a decent deposit over at the first chance I had. It was mine, or would be, soon enough.
Two weeks later, I landed in Grand Junction Colorado, slept the night in a hotel, and in the morning the seller met me in the parking lot. Us having breakfast inside together, me hemming and hawing over the various flaws I wasn’t aware existed before, but also, what did I expect from a 30-year-old RV? The seller had since received two offers for more money than we’d agreed upon to buy it from him, but he kept his word and his price.
After a days worth of driving from Grand Junction to lower Utah spending the night in the morning in front of his coworkers house being invited in for coffee and muesli and then later that day transferring over the vehicle, I had driven over the same mountain range three times, each time still in awe of its snowy and vast beauty.
On the last leg over the pass, I noticed the engine laboring at idle - was it that way before? I studied it as I cruised down to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things before heading to Mystic Springs’ campground. Nothing I could do about it then, in the dark...