Van was an ideal “home base” for our California Naturalist certification, in that it was not too big, too thirsty, or too pretentious for the field trips. It kept us warm and happy on rainy nights, and grew a raven shrine. An article about it showed up. We’re very sad to see it go, but it sounds like it has a wonderful new home (it’ll be in the Placerville Pride parade!).
I’d never gotten attached to a car/bike as quickly as I did to Van, and I’d never had a car for as long as the Element (nor had one as generally-excellent). I was reflecting on selling the Element, which has been a good friend and had a great many adventures, and was sort of surprised that (as with Van) I was sad, but not really sad. I just feel lighter. When I’d bought the Element it was sort of a dull used car, but I kept it nice and now it’s sort of a thing, where people want to talk about it. “What were you going for with your Element build?” Well, I was going to Post Creek Guard Station, so I put bigger tires on it. I didn’t “build” anything. It’s just a happy guy. I dunno. Same with Van.
And in ditching all this, friends have kindly been like “ah, now you can afford *this* cool car, or *this* cool bike”. How cool is a car which sits in a garage in Davis for driving up 128 every third weekend? My '92 Miata has a hallowed place in my memory, but what a dull liability a Miata would be now. The Element wasn’t a cool car because I kept mine nice and garaged while the others rotted so now it’s socially-acceptable to like the survivors – just like us, its adventures and its stories made it cool. One of my earlier car memories is crawling up Mount Rainier in my Grandpa’s Super Beetle, and hiding inside it as he hucked snowballs at the window. I don’t remember whether it was a nice Super Beetle or not. I think that Super Beetle had some good stories to tell at the REI parking lot in 1998, though.
Car shopping with this mindset was particularly liberating, too. I thought I’d love the Passport, but seeing one up close I’m like oh, what a porker. The Defender is hilarious. So on and so forth. As a result, now I love my stupid CR-V Trailsport. I’m going to be the most smug little bastard in the world when someone with a Wrangler goofs on it online and I’ll get to be like “well, it worked fine when I was a Forest Service ranger”. So, I'm happy that after 20 years of being a car weirdo, I've made it to "buy a single boring car, love it, and spend life being weird in it". I suggest it! Either that, or I’ll keep my dumb CR-V nice and give ya a good deal on it once it becomes socially-acceptable to like them.
