So long, Esmeralda ...

The time has come to part ways with my little green caravan. She needs a new fuel pump, and when I had the mechanic look her over recently, I heard something in my cell phone message about "the transmission going out ..." Those were the words, I had always told myself, that would seal the deal. The van has clearly seen better days, but Esmeralda (so named for its green color by my friend Colleen shortly after I bought her in CA) is a tough one for me to let go. I find I can get attached fairly easily to inanimate objects, especially ones that carry fond memories. My van has reliably hauled me to nearly every national park in CA, throughout the entire southwest on my road trip back to Iowa, down south to Mardi Gras and Georgia, and over to New Mexico, and not to mention all over the Midwest in between.

It's not to say that Esmeralda hasn't come with its share of bills, headache, frustration, and outright bad luck. It simply comes with the territory when you're a 28-year-old driving a '95 Dodge Caravan. There was the few month stretch a couple of years ago when every time I shut the door, a piece of trim fell off on the opposite side and the moment where my two friends and I nearly veered off the NM desert highway when a portion of the wiper blade snapped off and slammed the windshield. Last summer, for a good few weeks, I drove around with the driver's side door bungee-corded to the steering wheel and the driver's seat because of a broken latch. (Getting in through the passenger door all the time grew old rather quickly.) My parents were kind enough to help me find a junkyard near Reasnor that had a matching van in year and color to exchange the door for a mere $25. Not a moment too soon thereafter, my mother called me and chortled, “Do you have comprehensive insurance on your van? He he he.” (She always laughs when nervous and has to deliver bad news.) Turns out a mini tornado ripped through our yard and broke off a massive tree branch that plummeted downward --- squarely in to the hood and right front panel of my van. Back to the Reasnor junkyard it went for a $125 body repair. Good as new.

Clearly, common sense would have dictated that I got rid of her a long time ago, but sentimentality would tell me to fix her up just one more time. But her duty is not yet over --- you might just see Esmeralda roaming the Searsboro gravel roads as a farm vehicle for my father, that is, once he removes my Hillary bumper stickers. As for me? I’m trading onward and upward --- to a 1998 blue Dodge GRAND Caravan with dual sliding doors and a CD player. Watch out, highway!