I find myself floating above an endless sea of thimbleberry bushes. The berries are all ripe, infinite delectable crimson caps punctuating a sea of green. I can’t see the trail, but somehow distant and hidden legs carry me along and know where to go, while I gorge on the fruit. Now I’m behind the wheel of my car, watching an endless movie loop of a winding serpentine road, with a rushing river to my left and a wall of towering firs on my right. I have no awareness of actually driving; the car knows what to do while I gorge on the scenery. The road through Oregon’s deep woods is utterly deserted. Then an image confronts me, so unexpected, so surreal, that now I know I’m dreaming.

(Read More…)

In 1971, I committed a crime, the repercussions of which still affect me today. I was a bored eighteen year-old whose over-developed automotive memory banks craved stimulus. In those pre-web dark ages, the information gap between monthly car magazines was excruciating. Desperate, I plied the 629.22 rack of the Iowa City Public Library, and found the font of automotive history. I slipped the heavy Rosetta stone under my baggy Army surplus jacket and walked out. I’ve been guiltily absorbing its contents ever since. (Read More…)

Spontaneous road trips are a like a treasure hunt without the clues. The prizes always appear unexpectedly. Like Goldendale’s night-shift police officer. “No, Mr. Niedermeyer, your speed was just fine. But you seem to have your high-beams on. That’s against the law within city limits. But… you’re free to go.” With those words of affirmation, our road trip to Wenatchee resumed. Adrenalin flowing, we were alert to the next roadside attraction. (Read More…)

“You’re free to go.” With those hackneyed words, the Goldendale police officer returned my license. They were the very same words I’d heard in my head just a few hours earlier. At one-thirty last Sunday, my older son Ted called: “If you can drop Will [(his brother) here by three, we can take him back with us to Portland for a few days.” Cabin fever was at 103. The ninety minute deadline to pick a destination and pack the xB was just the tonic I needed. Time to head for… (flings open the atlas)… Wenatchee! (Read More…)

For me, driving bliss is all about the setting. Give me an empty road, spectacular scenery, good company and the freedom to explore without an itinerary or time constraints, and I’m in Heaven. Sure, a nice set of wheels enhances the pleasure. But if it came down to it, I’d take an inexpensive reliable car and an endless open road over a garage full of under-used toys that never really get off their leash. I knew the basic formula intuitively in my youth. (Read More…)

“Scion does not recommend towing a trailer… your vehicle was not designed for towing.” Welcome to the great American anti-towing conspiracy. Manufacturers of anything less than a big SUV or pick-up are trying to take away our God-given right to tow with our cars. For a guy who’s towed everything from a Radio Flyer wagon behind a pedal-powered John Deere sidewalk tractor, to a three-bedroom house, I feel like I’m being singled out. Of course, there’s a possibility that I’m the cause as well as the target of this jihad. A lot of lawyers do drive the Ventura Freeway, and one of them may well have seen my spectacular stunt with a trailer. (Read More…)

Somewhere west of Ogallala, rocketing across the plains at ninety-six in a sixty-nine Plymouth Fury, a twangy voice lectured us with the old song: “love and marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage.” My two female traveling companions and I exchanged glances, laughed and sang along. “…you can’t have one without the other.” In that precious moment, everything crystallized: what it meant to be nineteen in 1972, free as a bird, barreling down the freeway in a powerful American sedan. (Read More…)

They say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Of course that was NEVER going to apply to me and my nerdy, car-clueless Father. He drove boxy Detroit stripper sedans. I drove VW’s and Peugeots. He’s a world-renowned neurologist– but totally impractical. I never finished high school– but rebuild cars. I grew-up in the time when political pundits pronounced our cultural chasm a “generation gap.” Except ours was more like the Grand Canyon. Or so I thought… (Read More…)

Santa came early in 1972. My older brother had taken a civilian job on a military base in Greenland. Out of the blue, he gave me his 1963 Corvair. It was my very first set of wheels. Instead of bracing myself for the thousand mile-long hitchhike from Iowa to Baltimore in freezing weather, I was driving home for Christmas in comfort. But there was a catch: Santa had deputized me. I had a present to deliver, and deliver I would, come hell or high snow.  (Read More…)

What eye-candy poster was pinned up on your bedroom wall when you were thirteen? A black Lamborghini Countach sprouting numerous spoilers? Farah Fawcett-Majors with blindingly-white teeth? Metallica? KISS? What I gazed lovingly upon– whilst sprawled across my bed– was a giant detailed cross-sectional drawing of a Chrysler hemi engine. Thus was the spell that the mythical engine had on me. (Read More…)