Breckenridge Or Bust
By Dave Riker
Our story begins in April, 1998. My '63 Squire Wagon has over 160,000 miles on the odometer. She has been showing some signs of her mechanical age for some time now. Most of her suspension, her transmission, and her engine have never been rebuilt. So I send her to George, our family mechanic (some people have family doctors, but with five cars and no children, you have a family mechanic), with a laundry list of minor complaints and worries.
His mission: to insure that I will have a reliable and incident free trip. After all, Chico California, to Breckenridge Colorado and back will be over 2500 miles, more than the total miles I have driven Woodie in the last two years combined. The first week at the garage, and George's right hand employee gets in an accident and cannot work. The shop gets very far behind, and the regional is fast approaching. "Not to worry," George says, "I'll get to it."
Fast forward...It's
Wednesday, June 17th. The regional is the day after tomorrow, and
George says that there are only a few things left on the list to
check. I tell him I have Thursday off work and can help if
necessary. I have a little extra spending money burning a hole in
my wallet that my wife doesn't know about, so I rush to
Sacramento to pick up a set of re-chromed bumpers. When I get
back, George has everything finished, and lets me use his shop to
put on the bumpers. I wonder how long it will take my wife to
notice the new chrome. I get set to pay George for the work on
the car, but he won't take my money. I guess patience does have
its virtues.
The trip to the regional in Sonoma goes off without a hitch. Woodie is running as well as ever, and I appreciate everything George has tweeked. Due to my busy work schedule, I can only make a day trip out of it, but it was still a very enjoyable drive and a great meet. Woodie picks up a Third Place Plaque, and I wonder if we had been earlier, she might have received more votes. We didn't get there until 11:00 a.m. , and several people said that they had already voted and turned in their ballots before we arrived. No big deal, because I go for the fun, not the trophy. I brought my dog Rosie along for the ride. She picked her own favorite Falcon, but it wasn't mine! She kept hopping into this really nice white '61 sedan whose owners luckily thought that it was cute that she felt at home in their car. Falcon owners are all so nice. I can't imagine, say, the owner of a show quality Jaguar being so forgiving about a stranger's dog hopping up into their recently restored E-type.
O.K., so the shakedown trip went great. I've asked for the time off of work for the Nationals, but I've never gotten an answer. I wait, nothing is said. I leave a note in my boss's daily planner, still, nothing. I drop a hint. No response. It is now Monday, and he says, " So, are you still going to Colorado?"
"Jees," I think to myself, "that's as close to an answer as I am going to get."
"Yes, I will be leaving Wednesday, and I'll be back for work on Monday the 19th."
I wonder to myself if I can still get a hotel room with only two day's advance registration. No, the rooms are all full at Beaver Run Resort, but there is a nice lodge next door. I call there and they in fact do have rooms available, and they're $20 less per night than Beaver Run. Maybe procrastination is a virtue too.
By now a month has passed since I bought the new bumpers, and my wife still doesn't know yet. I buy her a new gold necklace, no questions asked...very out of character. I wonder if she suspects. I want to tell her, but how do you explain why I didn't discuss it first? The longer I wait the harder it is to tell. But then, she still hasn't noticed. We are loading the car for the trip and she says, "I don't know why you always complain about your bumpers, they look fine to me," she says. Confession time! They look fine because I already replaced them. She laughs at me for thinking that she would have been upset and I wonder why I made such a big deal out of telling her. A good spouse is a treasure.