Learning to drive. Again.

Here it is, the unofficial sequel to BOXES! by Maureen Vigland. Join me for another exciting tale of a car bound for California.

As some of you know, for the past several years I've been the "proud" owner of a 1994 Chevrolet Lumina van (aka the Dustbuster). While this vehicle had its pluses, like being able to haul all of my stuff and a decent portion of Joel's from MN to ND, its likelihood of making it to Sacramento was deemed questionable at best. Then there's the consideration of my willingness to be seen with it ever again and well, long story short, this summer seemed like a good time to find a different car.

After two long weekends of driving around half the state of MN (along with a side trip into Wisconsin) and using up my entire cellular data plan on used car ads on Craigslist, my dad and I found a keeper. The car: a 2001 VW Golf 4-door hatchback, 98k miles, prior accident resulting in a new front end and a very reasonable price. The seller: a Russian guy with a small used car dealership selling this car on the side for his friend Sergy. We gave him the money, he gave us the key, and we went on our merry way. After leaving the car at a mechanic to get it looked over, my dad and I made one more trip down to Minneapolis (about 4 hours from my home) to pick it up on the 4th. That's where the fun began!

You see, this car had one catch...I didn't know how to drive it. Before the 4th, I knew approximately how a manual transmission worked, but had never actually driven one. After a few circles around a parking lot and some deserted side streets, I started to get a feel for it. At this point my dad and I went our separate ways, as he headed back home and I stuck around to visit relatives and trumpets. The first few days with the car were probably the most stressful days of driving I've had since I was 15. Highway driving was great, but city driving was a bit terrifying, as I had a bad habit of stalling the car whenever I wanted to start moving and there were cars waiting behind me. Our very own Tim O'Brien saved me by driving the one day we had to venture into downtown Minneapolis and slowly but surely I got the hang of driving again over the long weekend. It's amazing how quickly you can learn something new when you know that it's your only way of getting home.

Since getting back, the car has been keeping me entertained by fixing all the little things that are wrong with an 11-year old car.
Objective #1: Fix broken rear sit latch. Status: Accomplished with drill and tennis racquet stringing equipment (see photo). Why buy a new latch for $6 when you have extra tennis string lying around?

Objective #2: Replace burned out lights. Status: 2/3...side markers aren't that important anyway. This also led me to discover that the front end of my car was painted red in a former life. Too bad they matched it to the silver of the rest of the car. A two tone car would be a way better conversation piece at the very least.

This entire post would be rather silly without a picture of the car and since I've been a big fan of VW's advertising style for quite awhile, I decided to try my hand at making an ad:

And now for the happy ending: I haven't failed at driving in public any time in the last week and have already reached the conclusion that I will never own an automatic vehicle by choice. Hopefully I still feel that way after I drive it to California at the start of August!

Thanks for reading! (or at least skimming to see if there was anything good at the end)