West Coast Trip 2014: Background

It all starts with the car...

This is kind of a long story, but I feel like it's critical background for the two people who actually follow this blog.  (Side note - are the followers actually... the two of us?  No matter!)

In the summer of 2014, I turned in my lease.  It was a very practical car, but nothing to get too excited about.  I think in the back of my mind I knew I would be up for something with a little more zip after three years.

Then sabbatical came upon us.  It worked out pretty well, timing wise.  I turned in the leased car sometime mid-summer, and then we headed off  to Okinawa.   Alice and I talked about what we would do for cars when we got back to the US and into Albuquerque.  Last time we were there, we managed with one car and I hitched a ride every day (in a Boxster, no less) into the lab.  But this time we would have two kids, instead of one, and Alice and I had talked about the possibility of getting something new for me in Albuquerque once we got there.

So I started doing some research online.  After reading some reviews and watching some YouTube videos, I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for.    These  are basically the other end of the spectrum from what I should be driving, in a rational world - they're fairly impractical, but a lot of fun.  What the heck - you only live once, right?

 I started looking at what was available in ABQ, and... there was almost nothing.  I think one car came up in my search.  I expanded the radius another hundred miles and... nothing.  I maybe could have transferred something to CarMax, or bought one brand new, but I didn't actually like the new designs.  Audi had dropped the V8 in favor of a supercharged V6, and they had redone the front end.  I liked the slightly older models, and they were much more affordable on the used market.

Then I had a crazy idea.  We were planning on spending the holidays in Seattle, and so I checked the market there.   It was great!   There were about a dozen cars matching my search criteria in the Seattle area.  But it's crazy to think about buying a car in Seattle, and driving it four days to ABQ on your own.  I pitched it to Alice, and... she had legit concerns.   I would need to find someone to make the trek with me, to share the driving.

On a lark I emailed Mike and said, hey - any chance you'd be able to do another road trip?  Who else would I want to make this trip with?  Nobody.  Or rather, who else could put up with me for four days?  Probably nobody else.  I pitched it to Mike: four days after Christmas from Seattle to Albuquerque (I might have mentioned the possibility of a stick shift.)  Mike got back to me right away and was like, you know what - this might be possible!  We were off and running.