The Car Bust (A Long Time Ago)

In a recent post, DFV said...
> Love those stripey trousers! Feel free to fill me on the Car
> Bust story (if you haven't already).

Long story. As you know, I'm a big fan of Indian food. When I invited a co-worker to Udipi (a South Indian Vegetarian restaurant) for lunch, my South Indian Vegetarian co-worker said he couldn't resist, as it's his favourite restaurant. I drove, and on the way, we discussed car repair, since I had recently had the brakes done. The car now has more than 210,000 miles on it, and it's the one that I took to Louisiana in December. My friend mentioned that it was a brave thing to do, to take a car with that many miles on a trip of that distance. I had confidence in the car (unlike the Omni, which we still owned on December) and I commented that, should we have difficulties, it would just make the trip more "interesting".

Mike and I have been on several out-of-state overnight road trips (invariably planned around attending at least one sporting event). Before marriage, I can think of New York (with Doug), Chicago/Milwaukee, Chicago again (with Joe), and Boston/Montreal. Baltimore/Washington (with spouses) probably doesn't count, and neither would a Hamilton (Ontario - with Joe) trip that wasn't overnight. All of the trips have fun memories associated with them. One thing that happened on the Montreal/Boston trip is that, minutes after we got on the highway to drive home from Boston, the car ceased to move. Apparently, the engine seized, and we ceased to have transportation. To make a long story short, we ended up taking the bus home. For that trip, we wrote little signs on cardboard to put in the window of our car: "Montreal or Bust" and then "Boston or Bust". The last sign was "The Car Bust". I thought that there was a picture of me in front of the car holding the sign, but I couldn't find it. That's what the search was for on Saturday. Archivist Mike quickly found himself with "The Car Bust" sign and sent me a copy, but he couldn't find one of me holding the sign. Maybe it never existed or (more likely) I lost it.

Anyway, looking back on these road trips, they were all good. However, I think that the best one was Montreal/Boston, and it's probably memorable because The Car Bust.

So, basically, the fact that the station wagon ran well and the memory of the Montreal/Boston trip made me not worried about driving it to New Orleans.

Kicking the tire in mock frustration:


Waiting for the late-night bus out of town just outside Boston. I'm posting this photo as evidence that I wasn't the only one who wore short shorts back then. It was the style. I have underwear longer than that guy's shorts!