We packed up our gear on Saturday morning at Camp Creek and were underway at 9am, the first on-time departure of our trip. The morning was cool (another first), about 65 degrees and we pulled the first long grade, low and slow, breathing a sigh of relief when the temperature gauge barely cracked 190. As long as it stayed cool, we wouldn’t have any problems.
We crested the Cascades and began the long, slow descent into the Columbia River Gorge and turned east toward Idaho as the sun broke through the clouds and pushed the temperatures back across 100. By late afternoon we descended into another depression in the earth, where the sun baked the barren soil to a rust-colored moonscape, devoid of all life, similar to the one in Oregon that rendered the old Pontiac lifeless twice, stranded and cooking on the side of the road. I turned to Samantha sitting beside me in the passengers seat as we began the miles-long climb out of this barren frying pan of desert.
“We’re not going to make it,” I said flatly, resigned to at least an hour on the roadside beside a nameless road marker somewhere up ahead. The temp gauge was already reading 200 and rising. “This place isn’t hell, but I can see it from here,” I said with a touch of gallows humor.
I held my foot in the throttle completely still, holding the speed steady at 60mph, not wanting to let the speed drop, but not wanting to push the engine any harder either. As we climbed, and the temp gauge climbed in tandem, Samantha and Parker became a cheering section for what couldn’t have been more than a few minutes but seemed like an eternity. “Come on baby, hang in there,” I pleaded with the old car. “Just a little longer...”
Samantha was rubbing the dashboard like a mother might caress the hair of a fevered child, while the pavement shimmered in front of us and modern cars, air conditioning blasting, whizzed past us at 80. On each of our past several outings, we’d drawn the short straw in terms of weather, breaking heat records everywhere we went, but this was one for the record books. Global warming is real people, you can see the evidence everywhere across the west. Lower-elevation conifer forests are dying out, unable to survive in ever-increasing temperatures.
I had a moment climbing that hill, feeling the old engine strain at the very edge of the performance envelope that its designers ever imagined. Sweating, both literally and figuratively, I decided that this would be the last ride of Man vs Machine in its current form. Summer, loaded, traveling up mountains in the heat. This was the last dance. Maybe in the autumn when the highs are in the 80s in places like this we’ll ride again one day, but not in the oppressive cauldron of summer. If I hadn’t wrapped the fuel line in mylar insulation, if I hadn’t reset the timing at Mt. Hood, if I hadn’t gotten ethanol free gas on the last fill up... we were gambling with our lunch money, and our luck, sooner or later, was going to run out.
The grade finally leveled off with the temp gauge at 220 and once back on level ground, it finally began to recede as I backed off the gas to a light cruise. The kids cheered, and I exhaled while the blood returned to my knuckles. We ran the rest of the way to Twin Falls as the sun was setting, windows down as the hot dry air churned through the cockpit.
I chewed on it for at least an hour before I breathed out a long sigh to attract both of their attention. “Hey kids, I was thinking... maybe we should trade in our Honda CRV when we get home and get one of those Buick Enclaves with plenty of room for all our stuff and the dog.” I knew the kids really wanted to bring our new black Labrador, Duke, on the trip but I didn’t think it made sense. The idea of being able to bring the dog with us would be a selling point. Samantha knew where I was going and looked at me with a mixture of surprise and disbelief.
“Dad, this car has been with us on every trip. It’s practically part of the family. It’s part of the magic…” She trailed off. It was true, it was part of what made every Man vs Machine memorable, but only part of it.
“I know, but I’m just not sure it makes sense anymore,” I continued slowly, realizing that I was about to say something that would mark the end of an era. I thought about how to put this in context in a way that would honor all the incredible memories we’ve created on our trips in this art-deco chrome and steel masterpiece. “You know how people sometimes decide to run marathons? It’s a challenge, and it’s fun, but they typically don’t run them for the rest of their lives. We’ve done it—we’ve proven we can do it in a vintage car, we’ve met a lot of people, but it’s become a distraction from why I really wanted to do these trips with you kids. It’s because I want to spend the time with you.”
She was pleased with the compliment, but the end of her lips twisted upward in a smile that belied disappointment as she turned to stare off out the open passenger window, her hair swirling in a halo of golden brown in the low evening sun. I was drip-feeding her and she knew it. Letting the idea sink in... I figured I’d change the topic and circle back to it in the next few days. Then Parker piped up from the back seat.
“Hey Dad, will it be like a newer car, like from 2016 or 17?” he said tentatively. I wasn’t sure where he was going with this but I guessed it would have something to do with having a back seat USB plug or something.
“Yes, it’ll be new,” I said. “Why?”
“So it’ll have a/c?” he asked.
“It sure will,” I said reassuringly.
“Cool, I’m in.”