Abel standing tall amongst California's Redwoods.
Abel is the name that we have given our car. 1992 Toyota Camry Wagon. Bought used in 2001 with 160 000km on it. Between our trip to California and back this year, plus all the back and forths to Oakhill over the decade, we have managed to list Abel’s odometre at 368 000km! What an achievement.
Oh, poor Abel. Not quite as agile as Victoire von Scenic, our dubbed French Renault car that we rented last fall in Europe. Abel is the slow, smelly, methodical soldier marching through those mountain passes in BC and across the Prairies without too many complaints spare the loud rumbling from it’s belly and the modest thirst for motor oil. Victoire, the diesel burning speedster that would cover 1200 highway km’s on a full tank of fuel. 550Kms is all Abel can give on a full tank… well, we can’t fill Abel all the way to the top…
Crossing the Kootenay Pass was Abel's toughest test.
Victoire, with Mp3 hookups, air conditioning, cruise control, storage departments; Abel with loads of storage… the radio did work, the air conditioning did work, the cruise control did… you get the point.
In January we picked up Abel in Toronto and drove to California, driving along the famous Chicago to LA road. Interstate highway system has replaced the slower, more urban Route 66 but we got to drive by all the towns and cities that were made famous by the song. Abel preformed marvelously on the 4400km journey. Overheating from a worn radiator cap slowed us down in Kingman, Arizona, but only for a few hours of our 4.5 day journey. It took French photo radar to slow Victoire down, but that was only to keep us under the posted speed limit of 130kph!
Rescuing Abel from 5 months of LA storage.
Stored under the hot sun in Los Angeles for 4.5 months rusted out Abel’s power steering coil which was inexpensively jerryrigged with the help of a couple hose clamps and some high pressure rubber hose. “How many km’s is the drive back to Toronto for you?” asked the nifty mechanic around the corner from MacDuff’s house in LA. “Oh, likely Ten thousand” said I. “Hmm, I think it will do 10 000”, was his reply.
Day 01 out of LA, packed to the rafters.
On the second day of trip out of LA we were forced to stop and buy a Thule for the roof of Abel. We managed to get all of our stuff into the car (lots of added bagage from our 5 month tour of Brasil and Honduras) but if we were planning to eat during the upcoming 8 week camping trip, we were going to need more space in the car. At the present, there was an impervious wall between the kids in the back seat! Thus, Abel was burdened with the somewhat aerodynamic rooftop load of the Thule. Victoire, hiding all our cargo under the hatchback flap and amongst the sliding storage compartments that were under every seat.
Sadly, we are in the market to buy a new car and will have to replace Abel. Currently, Abel is sporting new tires (a discovered alignment problem last week in Peterborough had Abel’s front tires down to the steel belts!), a fancy roof rack (courtessy of the Thule) and ½ a tank of gas. At $0.99 a litre for gas, I’m taking any offers above $50!
Thanks Abel, from all the GK’s.
gkadventure
petegaffney
Sarah Sal
brazilgk
eskergk
