Caddyput. A Short Love Affair with a Long Car.

I really just wanted a motorcycle. Andrea felt obligated to do her part as a wife and block any attempts at obtaining such a device.

My job in Kentucky came replete with an old beater mini-van company car. Leaving the job meant the joy of no longer having to endure hours of commuting in a radioless reeking box that smelled of a decade of spilled milk by my former bosses snotty kids followed by several years of hauling strange smelling medical supplies. I rejoiced at no longer having to drive that machine and figured that now would be the perfect time to rationalize a new motorcycle to my very wise, beautiful, and sort of practical wife. I related to her that until the house sells we should probably stick to inexpensive options and not try to purchase another CAR until our house sells. We should however, implement a economical strategy for me to get to work, and presented my motorcycle plan. Once the small cost of buying the bike is behind you, the savings on insurance and gas would be a financial windfall! Right!?

She bought my plan hook, line and ... stinker, she did not buy the sinker. She latched very tightly onto the "save money and don't buy another car" plan but she staunchly, as any wife would, balked at the buy a motorcycle part. Rats! She did not have a better plan at that time but she was determined not to buy another car, or motorcycle for that matter.

In a quickly converging universe there sat a baby blue Cadillac Sedan Deville in an aunts driveway that was left over from Andrea's grandfathers estate. The car had failed to sell in a KSL classified ad for 1000 dollars. While Bennett and I were driving the moving truck across the country I spent many a good hour daydreaming about the freedom of the open road on a nice little bike that did not require the GDP of a small country to fill its tank like the behemoth we were driving. Meanwhile, Andrea related the hook and line part of my plan to her parents. I'm sure she never mentioned the motorcycle part because my father-in-law, who is a very sensible man, also understands a man's need for a motorcycle having pushed his own marriage to the brink several times purchasing a long string of Harley-Davidson bikes over the years. Not knowing that he would deny a fellow biker a sweet opportunity to tuck a new bike into his quiver, my father-in-law offered The Caddy.

Andrea was thrilled like she was let loose in a calorie free candy store!!! She called me to tell me the great news!!! She could not figure out why I took this burst of sunshine onto our otherwise dismal financial picture like a stingray barb to the heart. It was pretty clear that my beloved bike that I had in my daydreams ridden across thousands of scenic desert mountain ranges with the sage scented wind blowing through my hair, was dead prior to arrival.

I have to admit that from the beginning I was more than a little skeptical. Not only was this an American car from the early '90s but it had every possible automatic device and convenience. In my experience if you had to drive an older car that might need some field repair it was much better to have fewer moving parts. With pliers and a little baling wire and a few scrounged parts from a demolition derby car or two I kept my '87 Sentra going places it never should have gone for nearly 300,000 miles. I had a sinking feeling and reluctantly agreed to fly to Utah to drive my boat of a surrogate motorcycle back home to Carson City. While Andrea was in Utah I joked all week with my co-workers about getting a teal blue suit with a big plastic orange daisy boutonniere, some gold sequined boots with a goldfish in one heel, tinting the windows real dark, and setting me up a bizniz down on south Roop street. Would a cane and cubic zirconia glued to an incisor be too much??

When I saw her for the first time my concerns were pretty much confirmed. The otherwise light blue car was covered with a thick green film of tree pollen with more than a few white and black bird poop highlights. ugggghhhh. This was not the shiny black and chrome ride I had longed for. It is about a million feet long and looked extremely cumbersome to drive. I was so over driving a big ugly box after all that time in Kentucky. The only bright spot was the fact that it came with some pretty cool looking golden keys. Wow, now that IS pimpin'.

Before we left The City of the Saints I stopped at a carwash and after about a billion dollars in quarters I must admit that the baby blue did look pretty good in the morning light. And the ride...not to bad either...if not for the screaming kids all the way across the desert the car would have been much quieter than my Honda Civic. Man could the AC keep that joint cool across the salt flats to Wendover! By the time we hit Battle Mountain I think I started to appreciate the plush blue leather seats. After I had Andrea read me the owners manual that was as thick as a Tolstoy novel I started to understand the obscure and mystical buttons and dials. By the time we hit Winneyucka I have to admit I was starting to get a little weak in the knees. Did we just luck into a dream road trip machine? I used to say in Kentucky that lake living is wasted on the elderly as all our geriatric neighbors thought we daft for actually getting into the lake. Were Cadillacs and other boats that usually seemed reserved for later in life the key to a better roadie? I was starting to get used to this thing! She handled like a dream on the one curve between the Utah line and Fallon. I grinned and gunned that big purring V8 up the Truckee river canyon to Reno. Somewhere in the Washoe Valley I started forming big plans to use that voluminous trunk to pack in all sorts of camping gear for a Sierra east side ramble.

One short week later...

We were loving our scenic drive to our camp spot that Friday night and reveled in the scenery where desert turns to alpine forests through a volcanic twist. We flew past laboring SUVs with the cruise control set and managed the corners like on rails as The Caddy effortlessly flowed up the last steep twisty canyon road to our campground. "Man this car is AWESOME!!, " I'm sure I giggled to Andrea several times while grinning like an idiot. Just as I backed her into our site the "SERVICE ENGINE SOON" light popped up its ugly orange head.

I did not waste too much time dwelling on the warning light and quickly set up the tent get a few hours sleep before hitting the trail at 3:00 AM for a nice little hike I had planned. I'll just let the pictures of South Bishop Creek serve as a little intermission...





After getting back to the campsite high in the South Fork of Bishop Creek around noon the next day, we loaded up our camp and headed out for a picnic and a little more kid friendly hiking. After a few miles up canyon the dash board array lit up like a Philly 4th of July. "COOLANT TEMP!" "STOP! ENGINE OVER HEATING" and a few less threatening messages started popping like paparazzi. Holy Moley! Where did this all come from! This is exactly what I expected a week ago but now I was crushed. Like a crying kid holding an empty cone while my rocky road melts on the sidewalk I popped the hood...like that was going to help...I was way out of my league on this thing. Wires and belts and pulleys went everywhere. It would take a real man to tinker with this baby.

But you all know that to save some macho face I checked a few liquids levels, banged on a few electric motors with a handy granite rock and tried not to look like I was way up a creek. South Bishop Creek to be exact. After an hour with Tolstoy's car ownership manual and plenty of time to cool the engine down we got back into The Caddy and coasted the 15 miles back into town in neutral and the heaters set on full blast. Things were just starting to look up as no lights came on all the way back to town. Smugly thinking ourselves pretty smart we limped into the only mechanic shop open in town with an hour to spare.


Four greasy guys poked around under the hood pontificating on all the causes and just how expensive they might be. I was impressed how sensitive and noble these mechanics were as they began to suggest possible charities we could consider donating The Caddy to... They stalled with their clock running right up until quitting time when they all ran off to the closest bar. I'm certain that there was more than one joke told about the young family in the granny car.

Now it's after 5 PM in the middle of nowhere on a weekend. The guys at the shop did say they could fix it, "should be able to getter done in bout a month or so..." The car rental place in town was not going to open up until Monday, there was no bus out of town, it was too far to call for family to come get us. We were busted! Triple A came through and sent a tow truck with an extended cab from two hours south of Bishop to haul us all home.

After 3 hours of languishing in the Chevron parking lot our tow truck arrived.

As the car was loaded we got settled into the crew cab and I was really hoping that I could nap as the 3:00 AM start and the stress of the last few hours started a crushing headache. Of course it was not to be.

"My name is John and I'll be your driver tonight..." This is were he started but certainly did not finish. Our driver was friendly enough but obviously starved for conversation. He was also a little short on eyesight. He used the rumble strips both on the edge of the road and in the median much like a poor bowler uses bumpers. He might have been blind as he seemed to use the auditory cues from the rumble strips more than actually watching the road. He insisted on maintaining eye contact with his captive audience rather than focus on keeping his truck, my family, and The Caddy out of Mono lake. I was never able to doze for more than 30 seconds before he jolted me from much needed sleep with that whamp!, whamp!, whamp! of the rumble strips that meant John needed to give me a few more hours of his insight onto just what might be the problem with that stupid car that was costing a huge portion of my motorcycle earmarked cash just to tow home.

Instead of zipping to work on a shining new pair of motorized wheels I pulled out my 'ole bike and slowly rode to work this morning. On the way home I stopped by the Cadillac dealer and asked the sales sharks where the service door was. They had a good laugh at the sweaty dude in a button down and slacks by telling me, "We don't fix bikes man!" I'm kinda thankful they had no clue what the damage would be yet. I'm still waiting for that call. At least I can dream one more night about my black streak of freedom before any cash that might have been left for it gets sucked into a long blue hole. A hole with a big motor and plush leather seats.

I really just wanted a motorcycle...