That’s me up there, next to my mom. But more importantly, there’s a 1968 Dodge Dart behind us. This was the official beginning of my never-to-end appreciation of the Dodge Dart. It was as basic as you could get. There was no power-anything. Not even power steering (which drove my mom to nickname it “the Beast”). Vinyl seats and floor covering, no A/C, AM radio, crank-windows, manual transmission (three-on-the-tree), and the classic 225 slant-six engine.

My family became a Dodge family in 1965 with a Dodge Dart — a two-door medium blue one. This was after a very bad experience with a light blue 1960 Ford Falcon. It had earned itself a reputation with my father as a lemon. Not sure why — I was too young to keep track of such things, but it was bad enough to end an association with Ford that had stood since 1922 or so.

I eventually ended up driving the ’68 in high school, choosing it (as if I had a choice) over the light blue 1973 Dodge Dart that replaced it as our main car. Actually the ’73 became my mom’s car (to which she gave the more pleasant name of Henry, no doubt due to the added amenities of power steering, automatic transmission, and FM radio) and my dad took the ’68 which he then named “Bessie Lou” (yikes, a little cheesy). He later sold it with 160,000 miles to a colleague in ’79 when an underwhelming yellow-tan Dodge Aspen (with the addition of A/C and carpet) arrived on the scene.

“The Beast/Bessie Lou” (names I never actually used — to me it was just “the car”) survived five cross-country summer trips (Maryland-LA-SF-Seattle-Maryland) and my less-than-gentle driving (downshifts to 2nd gear from 80 mph, full-rev clutch-popping starts), and whatever other abuse my friends and I inflicted that I’m not recalling.

My current car, a 1986 BMW 535i with 290,000 miles (“Rosebud”) is really just the 1968 Dodge Dart revisited. Call me crazy but I think it has a similar feel in the driving (though more power and better handling). There’s a certain wonderful harshness that reminds you there’s a machine underneath it all. The BMW has carpet, leather seats, power-everything, A/C (which hasn’t worked for years), and manual transmission (5-on-the-floor). Of this I am certain: that if The Beast and Rosebud were ever to meet, they’d be friends for sure.

I’m thinking of painting my car just to give it a combo retro-tuner BMW art car look. I’m inspired by a few examples I’ve seen from the BMW “art cars” to ones like this WWII fighter-look or this extreme, rusty one by Mike Burroughs. Been thinking of doing this for a few years. Maybe now is the time? Why wait? Why not consider the car a canvas? This scheme is my leading choice. Notice the imitation two-color BBS wheels.

See, the thing is, the car is old (24 years soon) and rusty, with a whole list of things to replace, and 287,000 miles (the last 110,000 of them by me). I’m looking for a replacement actually, sadly. One like it only less rusty/broken/driven. Or perhaps something newer, though, to me, there’s nothing more desirable than a nice BMW E28 — like THIS one.

Only thing is, the paint is, amazingly, still in great condition. It still cleans up well. So it’s kind of sad to “ruin” it. Also, do I want to stand out so much, driving around in an oddly-painted car? Still…if its days are few, and its fully depreciated, let’s go out in style.

I was just reading about a road trip in the Christian Science Monitor, and it reminded me of the many road trips I’ve taken across the USA starting when I was about three, traveling every summer with my parents from the east coast to the west coast, and back. Above is a map of a trip I took in December 1989. Not strictly a road trip unless you count chemin de fer as road. Claremont, New Hampshire to Los Angeles, California by train (Amtrak) and then back to Baltimore, Maryland by car (an unglamourous Chevy Nova—the small, cheap kind from the 80s), then another train to Claremont, New Hampshire, just in time to save my car from being towed (due to a plow needing to clear fresh snowfall) from the lot where it had been parked for eight days.

Throughout the eight-day trip I was was armed at all times with two Nikons (one for black and white, one for color) and about 40 rolls of film (maybe 30 rolls of Tri-X and 10 rolls of Ektachrome). I felt outrageously wealthy allowing myself the extravagance of unrestrained shooting. But if you think about it, that’s, at most, 1,440 images. You could easily do that in a day or two now with a single digital SLR.

The train portion was with my friend Jeff. The car portion was with my sister-in-law Alison. Jeff and I didn’t have a nice sleeper compartment or anything. We just roughed-it on the standard recliners—snoring neighbors, crying babies and all. Alison and I pretty much drove early morning to late night and stayed in the cheapest, scariest motels possible. Since it was December, we took the most southerly route practical and had not a flake of snow or any precipitation the whole way.

Some random experiences:

Sitting in the entertainment car—the last car—of the Montrealer leaving Claremont, New Hampshire at 11 p.m. bound for Washington, D.C. (we were getting off in New York, though) listening to Kenny Holmes’s keyboard and vocals and wild stories. Sadly, the roll of film I shot of Kenny went into the trash with my breakfast leftovers hours later somewhere in Connecticut.

Trying to sleep with a very loud, clunking wheel under our seats between Philadelphia and Chicago. Waking up at about 3 a.m. to bright amber lights and a freight train blasting by and my face against the window.

Lordsburg, New Mexico: Train engineers having breakfast in the booth next to us. We finished eating and drove off in our car; they finished eating and drove off in a mile-long, three-Santa Fe-locomotive, 100-ton hopper-car freight train!

Odessa, Texas: Doing laundry at 6 a.m. in some no-name laundromat on the edge of town. Driving around taking early-morning photos while my clothes washed and dried and wondering if I’d find my way back to pick them up.

Driving past highway 1111 between El Paso and Pecos on US-180. Watching the moon rise huge over the dry land and wishing I had pliers so I could take the sign, and realizing it was just as well that I didn’t.

Big Spring, Texas: The owner of Cafe Frontera taking our photo to put in the local newspaper as happy patrons. He gave me a mirror with Metalica logo etched into it. I’m not a fan of Metalica, but I graciously accepted it.

Memphis, Tennessee: Paying for a motel room by passing cash through a slot under bulletproof glass. It was the only place we could find (the Royal Oaks Motel) at 2:00 a.m.

Does it get any better than that? Aren’t you due for a road trip?