[Silly Little Cars] My new Interceptor...

Sun Apr 11 23:25:24 PDT 2010

Well ok, as we sip margaritas looking over the bay in Tiberon, a quick
update:

Lots and lots of backroads since we left the flat Central Valley. We'll take
pretty much any road as long as its brown or grey on our map, we don't mind
big looping out of the way routes as long as they *generally* make southward
progress and don't violate our cardinal rule, which is Thou Shalt Not
Backtrack. We're willing to do a shocking amount of driving to avoid even
the slightest amount of backtracking.

In the last few days we've done yoga at Harbin Hotsprings, drank wine in
Napa Valley (served by a somalier!), gotten ridiculously drunk at the
Russian River Brewery, eaten oysters at Tomales Bay, eaten cheese in Point
Reyes while looking at cows, and on the off chance we needed more style
points we even ate Cowgirl Creamery's Mt. Tam cheese on top of Mt. Tam. We
tried to smoke a joint in Bolinas but didn't have the heart to beg for it.

Our only encounter with the police was in the redwoods above Bolinas. We'd
just finished a pee break and a police jeep came out of nowhere, missing a
glimpse of Maxime's bare butt by like 10 seconds. The poor guy. He rolled
down his window and called me over and said "what the hell is that thing?"
(meaning my car, not Maxime's butt). I'm used to the question at this point
so gave him my spiel about it being a "rehabilitated metermaid buggy" that
we'd driven from Mt. Shasta and then we were all best friends. One funny
note: when he asked how much it cost I said "34" and didn't realize until a
good few minutes later that he'd been thinking I paid $34,000 for my silly
little car. When he realized it was $3400 he no longer thought I was insane
and we may have some off-duty police driving around in Cushmans soon.

We've now driven far enough that when we tell people what we're doing their
eyes light up and we get the VIP treatment wherever we go. Turns out a
roadtrip with a gimmick is a great way to meet people. So after the
bartender at Russian River Brewery (my vote for best brewery in America)
sees our cellphone pics, our glasses are never empty and we're getting a
guided tour of all their spectacular Belgian style beers. Without going into
too much detail I'll just say that a bottomless glass of their Consecration
Sour Ale with its 10% alcohol can definitely get you into some trouble...
And when we stop at the sole proprietor type thriftshops or antique shops
everything gets really cheap once they see R2D2 and hear our goofy stories.
Seriously, I bet you could drive one of these things across the country and
never have to stay in a hotel if you didn't want to.

Over the 500 or so backroad miles of our trip we've been getting between 28
and 40 mpg, I guess depending on how heavy my led foot gets. I do love
hearing that engine growl through its custom chrome tipped exhaust system...
And today was absolutely pouring rain but we stayed dry and even warm.
Really the biggest source of wear during this trip has been to our butts,
which have been sharing a narrow seat all this time, and my right knee is a
bit sore from the weird angle it has to bend for my foot to reach the gas
pedal. But R2 is a champ, about the worst I could say about him is his
defroster doesn't work very well, but I'm sure all the stuff we pile onto
his dashboard doesn't help. And he even has an "intermittent" setting on his
windshield wiper! I haven't had a car with that feature since the last
millenium.

Attached are a few cellphone pics, you can get the general idea of what
you're looking at from the filenames.

Well I've gotten good and liquored up so the drive over the Golden Gate
Bridge at night in a gusty rainstorm should be *easy*.

ps- couldn't send the email from the restaurant so you get a postscript: the
bridge was insanely windy but no problem, the best part being when we went
through the tollbooth and the lady asked "is that thing legal to drive on
the highway?" "Yeah, pretty much".

Now I'll sit back and enjoy my status of momentarily winning the Silly
Little Car Derby at least until Raz posts pictures of the Cushman stretch
limo van he just bought...
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