Farewell, old mechanical friend!

As my wife and I considered our upcoming move from Seattle to Martins Ferry, Ohio, we shared three concerns:

1. Leaving our adult children who live in Seattle
2. Our daughter’s corn snake, Bethsaida, which we’ve been caring for
3. Our Dodge Caravan

I think most all of you can relate to the challenge of separating from family, but our daughters and son were supportive of our move. Our daughter, who lives in a small place, still didn’t feel ready to take the snake back, so it’s going to Ohio.

Now about that van… It’s at 280,000 miles and we weren’t sure it was up for the trip. But we didn’t want to just sell it. Because, well, it’s been a good friend. A long friendship.

That friendship began in 2007, when we were considering getting a new vehicle for a cross-country trip. We’d been driving a Chevrolet Lumina (like the one Meryl Streep drove as a rental in the film Adaptation) and that sedan was getting too small for three teens, especially for a long trip.

My wife went with our youngest daughter to a dealership in Cloverdale, CA. A van caught our daughter’s eye because it had a DVD player built in. My wife called me about it. The 2006 Caravan had been a rental on the lot and had 60,000 miles. I came to look at it; we decided to buy. Our daughter named the van “Harold Bijoux” because it was a mobile movie theater.

It served us well on many family trips; to Yosemite and Yellowstone, to the snow and Disneyland. But the biggest trip was to come.

After our kids were grown and out of the house, we decided it was time for adventures. In 2015, we spent our weekends visiting churches throughout California to prepare for our big 2016 journey, to go to a church and a bar in every state. (If you want that full story, you can read the book.)

So, Harold Bijoux took us to all of the contiguous United States. (Sadly, it couldn’t come with us to Alaska or Hawaii.) We didn’t get stickers for the back of the van in every state, but some we particularly cherished. Such as:

A sticker from Booked Up, Larry McMurtry’s bookstore in Archer, Texas. We also visited his favorite fast-food stop (I recommend reading McMurtry's Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen.)

A sticker reading “All Writers Are Local Somewhere” from Flannery O’Connor’s childhood home.

“Scum of the Earth” is the sticker with the name of a wonderful church in Denver, CO (referencing I Corinthians 4).

Of course, a sticker for Wall Drug in South Dakota.

“Life is a Great Adventure or Nothing at All” from NASA in Florida.

“NOLA Til Ya Die,” a sticker from a dear new friend in New Orleans.

So many more, but one of my favorites must be the “I Like Ike” sticker we bought at the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene, KS on election day 2016.

That trip made for one of the best years of our lives, and the van really never gave us any problems through the whole year. Except that one time. For our time in Alaska and Hawaii, we flew out from New York and left our car with a friend in Connecticut. When we got back and started the car, it made some truly frightening sounds. We wondered if Harold was seriously ill. If it was the engine or the transmission, we didn't have enough money able to pay for it. It might have been the end of the trip.

We took it to a shop our friend recommended. Turned out they only needed to change the spark plugs. One of the mechanics said 2006 was a great year for Dodge Caravans. Just how it is sometimes, he said. Some years for a car company everything comes together. The models for that year just last. He said if we kept regularly changing the oil, the car would last for a very long time.

Harold hit 200,000 miles at the end of 2016, when we were driving back into California, the state where we started and ended.

And it was our only vehicle until last year. But when it hit 275,000 miles and the shocks were pretty iffy, we thought another vehicle was needed. We bought a Ford Edge. We’ve been using two cars this last year. But it didn’t seem feasible to bring both vehicles on the move to Ohio.

So, we wondered what to do with Harold.

I’ve been working at Seattle's Union Gospel Mission. Last month, the truck of a friend of ours was hit by a drunk driver. Our friend was a program graduate who now works for the Mission. He needed something to get him to work. We didn’t have to sell or junk Harold, we could give Harold to a friend. A friend who would keep Harold’s stickers. And off to Ohio, we can go.