A Foreign Car ?

We had been sort of half-heartedly looking for another car. We sold one of our cars about the same I bought the scooter last year. Having one car and one scooter has worked pretty well for us except in a few situations. Usually those situations occurred when the weather was bad, and my wife and I needed to be different places at the same time. Another problem happens when one or the other of us might need to be out of town. There were many times when we thought that it would be nice to have another 4 wheeled vehicle, but I steadfastly maintained my determination that I could prove to the world that I could exist and live by riding a scooter. Sometimes we would look at the newspaper in the morning to look at the advertisements for cars. Saturdays are a good day for this because most of the dealers in town take out good sized ads on the weekends. We did not need anything fancy as we didn't think the car would be used very heavily. Well, suffice it to say, there was a car advertised on Saturday that we became interested in. Yeah, it's another Subaru! Some people say we are in the minority because we like standard transmission cars, even though I drive a scooter with an automatic transmission. It is really hard for us to find standard transmission cars. Well we found one! The price was okay, maybe a little more than what we wanted to spend, but we got them to knock $500 off the price. The only problem? The car was originally sold in Canada! Bobskoot, Baron, other Canadian readers, please help us out here. The car speaks Centigradian and Kilometerian. Eh? We wondered If the GPS device we have could be adjusted to speak in Canadianese rather than the sexy female British voice we have been using up to now. How the heck are we to survive if all the mileage figures are grossly overinflated and the temperature readings are grossly understated (as long as the temp is above the freezing point of water) and overstated (If the temp is below freezing). The conspiracy theorist in me is suspicious that this is some sort of sinister government plot to make America conform to the rest of the world! I will only conform If I am allowed to kick and scream first! Thinking about sticking a conversion table to the front of the steering wheel or someplace noticeable. There is even an owner's manual in French. It seems that the car was traded in by someone that moved here from Montreal. He was employed by Bombardier, a company that owns a Learjet factory here in Wichita. We now are an Outback family with an '02 outback Sport (Impreza chassis) and an '01 Outback Wagon (Legacy chassis). If we ever get to Australia in our lifetime, we will be ready. But it will be a perfect second car for us. It has a lot of kilometers (miles?) on it but is in nice shape. We really anticipate that our cars in total may only get driven about 10,000 miles (? Kilometers) a year in total because I commute to work on the scooter. The scooter got about 4,200 miles in its first year and may get a little more than that in the second year. Unless of course I decide to make some extra longer distance trips. I have thought about many such trips. Maybe a Pirsig type pilgrimage from Minneapolis to San Francisco. I am thinking that Harv might want to join me on at least the initial portion of the trip. Better yet, maybe I can talk Jack Riepe into joining me on a ride from Dodge City (KS) to Deadwood (SD). I am hoping that Charlie6 and Torch might be able to ride along. A celebration of cowboys, feedlots and wide open spaces. What a pisser that ride could be. Or maybe a trip to Chicago to join Sharon and Baron on a drive along LSD and around Lake Michigan (can you do that?). Or meet up with Joe, Paul and Steve in Pennsylvania and ride through some sticks in the valleys of PA. We might allow Jack Riepe to come along, but only If he rides pillion with me and brings his laptop so he can chronicle the trip for us as we ride. Note to self: check the weight limit on the scooter first. Or join Lance, Dan, Bobskoot, Stacy and Orin in the great northwest for a ride along the Cascades or the Pacific coast. Maybe part of that Pirsig trek. Then another fun trip would be for everybody to make their way into Key West, with loud pipes rumbling, terrorize the city and make our favorite dispatcher call out the troops on us! We would all plead insanity (the Triumph defense) and plead for the leniency of the court. And wouldn't it be thrilling for all of us to ride through Turkey and parts of the Middle East and have our pictures taken in a sneaky manner by the famous Mad Dog himself. At any rate, now there is a 4 wheeled back up for my wife and I. It may sit a lot in the garage, because I still plan to ride the scooter year round as much as I can.

I just bought a license plate accessory from Aerostich for the scooter.

Maybe now there isn't actually one less car, but I guarantee you that the scooter will be on the road more than the car.

Two wheeled transportation is better, but a 4 wheeled backup can be important too.

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone with SprintSpeed