Ohhhhhhh ya.

New haircut. New Car. New License.

Life as we know it will never be the same!

BIG DAY!!!!

Can't wait to see what's next.

Eat oranges

Winter is a drag. We eat oranges because not only is it good for you, it reminds us of summer. So just eat oranges because we told you too and don't argue with us.

So we have had the good old Dodge Caravan for a long time. A clean 1996 Caravan we bought for $1000.00 and it lasted a few years and 240,000 miles. We sold it so we could get some money for it before it died and would result in a trip to the salvage yard and $100.00.
As I sat in bed the other night, a thought came into my mind that shocked me. We have a number of cars. VW Rabbits. Convertable Rabbits. Diesel Rabbits. Pretty much a Rabbit farm in front of the house right now. But nothing big and roomy. My parents have me drive them to the doctors offices and hospital visits often. Almost every week. My parents are tall. Six feet or so. THEY WILL NOT FIT IN A RABBIT!! Panic ensued.

You know how your parents sacrifice for you when you are young, and then when you are an adult you make sacrifices for them? Well I had to put my loved Land Cruiser up for sale so I could get something to drive my parents around in. A sad day.You can see it covered in snow here in this dreadful winter we are having.

But guess what? I had an offer to trade my FJ40 land Cruiser for an FJ60 Land Cruiser! I can fit my parents in that rig easy. AND STILL HAVE A LAND CRUISER!! Boy is it ugly. And it's an ugly gold color like my wifes' ugly Rabbit is too. Serves me right.But so what. The 4WD all works perfectly and is way more quiet down the highway than my FJ40 ever was. Way more room for snowboards and stuff in the back too.

I'm doing very poorly on my car dealing commitment.

So in my quest to be free from the addiction of always feeling the need to purchase cars for whatever reason, a new challenge has been thrown into the mix. My family.

Let it be known that since I committed to refrain from “ever buying a car for myself to restore”, I have kept my promise and still have only my 1977 Land Cruiser and 1979 Mercedes as my personal projects. I have had good offers on both and am very proud of myself in the fact that I have turned all of them down.

But guess what? My oldest boy, Zach has informed me that “in less then a month I will have my license” and intends to drive whenever or wherever without any reason or logic and that he insisted that I “help him find a car”. His money of course, not mine. And since I am helping HIM buy a car and not buying it FOR MYSELF, I have not broken any aforementioned commitments.

So off I went hunting down a car that would be fun, cheap and easy to maintain. And here it is…..

Just kidding. But that is what it will look like when it’s done being restored. In actuality, the end result was this three hundred dollar find in Monroe, Utah. A silver 1988 VW Cabriolet. This will be fun project for him. Here it really is.

It needs a new top and some other odds and ends but it should work out fine.

And then my dear wife, Emily, finally wore down the Ford Festiva she has been driving every day to work. She had put over 200,000 miles on it. The transmission blew up and so it has been retired.

What to do, I wondered, (for a few seconds at least). Since Emily is my sugar momma, the river of which all money flows, finding a car for her to get to work, was now my new top priority. No lazing around the house for Emily like her husband gets to do.

Off I went to look for a car that she could purchase with HER money for HER to own.

The only conditions is that it had to get better then the 42 miles per gallon that the Festiva was able to get and that it was safe and not too ugly. Not a very easy task. Having it be ugly is important because Emily does not like us boys using her car as we trash it up with candy wrappers, spilled drinks and the like. So it was going to be difficult to find such a vehicle. But I was up to the challenge.

Here is Emily’s new ride. A 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit diesel. Look at all those 48 horsepower busting to get Emily down the road to work. This one here is getting about 55 miles per gallon. I do things to diesels and I may be able to get it to about 58 miles per gallon. Recently rebuilt engine that hasn’t even been broken in yet. This should be good for about 300,000 miles before a rebuild.

Not too ugly though. Unless you compare it to Zachs cabby or my “parts car”. Then it definitely ranks right up there on the ugly meter.

It just so happens that I was able to work a parts car into the deal also. I have decided to keep that for myself. It has a really bad transmission. I also think it has a hung valve so it needs real work. Since this is my car, it enters into a “grey area” when it comes to my commitment. Here it is. A black 1989 VW Cabriolet.

The house is starting to look like “Jays German auto” since this now gives us five German cars on our property. Three VW’s and two Mercedes.