Demise

Today my mechanic took me aside. He said, It’s time. I knew it was coming, but still...

We took the Trooper for one last trip this summer to the U.P. We let her do easy jobs, a trip to the lakeshore on a paved road, that sort of thing. We knew we wouldn’t be forging streams, picking berries off of logging roads, climbing up into the hills to chase old graveyards. On the way home, in Grand Rapids, she turned over 180,000 miles.

The first sign that even a paved existence was going to be too much was at Best Buy. I approached her quietly, she refused to budge. The tow truck had to come the next morning and haul her away. But we still had hope. A new fuel filter and she ran for a few days. Then she left me stranded at IUSB in the pouring rain.

The Finlander tried to make things right with her, but in the end the tow truck had to haul her back to the mechanic again. He replaced the fuel pump, a rusty pipe, some other assembly things. And he gave me the news, one bad pothole and she’s liable to break in two. And we had just bought her new tires, too.