buying miss daisy

So, one day I looked at my bank account and noticed that I had several thousand dollars more than I expected. So, like most folks I started looking for a good way to spend my surplus. It was at this time that I discovered craigslist. After searching through add after add, I remembered that I had always wanted a jeep. So I began the search. After much searching I was not having much luck finding a jeep that met my criteria, for those that know me that might come as a shock since it is somewhat normal for me to buy vehicles missing things like paint, windows, engines... well, you get the idea.. all of the ones that I found, were basically just overpriced piles of rust. Then one day (around the beginning of December) I found an add for a 1975 cj5 jeep with a v8, and claimed that there was hardly any rust. Now from my vast experience of buying vehicles, I have come to learn that most folks selling a vehicle will consider several fist size holes in the body as “hardly any rust”, so of course I was skeptical. I sent the owner an email asking for more pictures, and any other info he had on it. Over the next couple weeks or so we exchanged emails. On the 23^rd After being quite sure that this was the deal of the century, I told the owner that I was interested, and would like to set up a time to come by ( the owner lived in AZ) and check it out. He promptly told me that he would not hold it for anyone and that another fellow was interested and was flying out on the 27^th from Indiana to take a look at it, and possibly drive it home. It would be first come first serve. That night after giving it much thought, I called up my good buddy Tom, aka cynicalifornia to see what his plans for the next week were. I gave him a quick rundown of the situation and asked if he would be interested in taking a road trip to AZ with me to look at it. And him being tom, he was more than willing to go. He asked me when we were gonna leave, I asked him when would work for him. To which he quickly replied how about the 26^th?

So, the day after Christmas I show up to his house, we load our various tools and gear into his car, and head out on the road. It started off, just like most of our road trips do (we have been on several), us barreling down the highway at high speeds, him behind the wheel and me looking for cops. We were making great time and enjoying the drive and truck-stops along the way making great time (as usual). Shortly after crossing into AZ I became aware that I had forgotten to allow for the time difference when planning our trip. This meant that we would arrive much later than expected. I called the owner and let him know our ETA (2200) and asked him if that was still alright. He replied that it was, but it might be better to come in the daylight. Now due to the first come first serve race with the man on the plane, and that the place we had planned on staying for the night (tom's cousin, Matt Wallin's house) was at least an hour away, I opted to come check it out that night. The closer we got to the house, the more we realized how close we were to Mexico (about fifteen min north). We followed the owners directions to his place, down the road till the pavement ends, then follow the dirt till just before the train tracks and hang a right. If you get to the tracks you have gone to far. Follow the road another 3 and half miles and its the trailer on the left. Yep, there we driving out into the middle of the desert in the middle of the night..... sounds a lot like some of our other adventures. We show up to the house a little after ten to find several spot lights on and the jeep idling away with its loping purr. Tom and I jumped out of the car, stretched out a bit as we introduced ourselves. The man pointed to the jeep, said there she is. Tom and I immediately grabbed our flashlights and went to work combing over the vehicle. The man just stood there slightly amused at the two of us crawling around in the dirt with our lights in the middle of the night giving her a good once over. After a few min of inspection, I took it out for a quick drive down the trail and back. True to his word, there was very little rust. I told him I would take it. He started to give me some talk about how he was firm in the asking price, at this time I pulled out an envelope full of cash, his eyes got big, and he motioned us to his shop so that he could get the proper paper work drawn up and get the title. After that was taken care of, he asked me if I wanted the back seat with it, I said sure why not. So we walked out to the edge of his property and after a few min of rustling around in the dirt he came up with what was left of a seat and a few spare parts. We threw them in the back. He then said he was not sure how much fuel was in the tank, and we might not make it to town, so he went over and grabbed 2 jerry cans full of fuel and told me I could have those as well. By this time is was now around 2300 in the middle nowhere on DEC 26. at this time I discovered that I was not as prepared as I had previously thought. It was very cold, the jeep didn’t have doors or a top, and I was used to CA weather, so I put on a t-shirt, a long sleeve, and my sweatshirt, a couple pairs of socks and a beanie. I then hopped in the jeep and headed towards town with tom following close behind as a blocker. Now some of you are probably wondering why I would need a blocker, well the jeep had plates that were about 4 years expired, and it was missing a few lights and was squirly as all could be to drive. We pull into the first gas station we come to, I get out and fill up the jeep, buy some oil and the only pair of gloves the gas station offered. As I get back to the jeep, the first thing I see is a cop car parked in the parking lot not far from the gas pumps. I try to be as inconspicuous as possible as we pull out and get back on the road. It was a miserable drive. It took everything I had just to keep her on the road, every car looked like a cop coming to bust us and it was freezing cold. The only parts of my body I was able to keep warm were my feet resting on the warm floor boards, and my left hand that I would stick out the side (where there should be a door) to let the exhaust heat it up. After what seemed like an eternity, we pull off the freeway and begin making our way through neighborhoods on our way to Matt's house. Since its pretty late, I am trying to be quiet but the jeep is so loud that it sets off car alarms as I idle by. We find the house, park the cars and head to the door. After some introductions and a little small talk about the trip so far we are given a place to sleep and immediately pass out. The the next morning, we get up, have breakfast and are given the grand tour of the house. Shortly after, we pack up all our stuff, throw it in the vehicles and we all head over to check out Round Trip Bike Shop ( http://roundtripbikeshop.com/ ) that matt owns and operates (so if your ever in the area you should stop by and check it out). After a tour of the store we decide to get back on the road and begin the long trek home, only on the way back, tom will only be following me for a little while, then he will switch freeways and head up through Utah to Idaho to visit his parents new place. As we make our way down the road toward the freeway, I start noticing that the jeep wants to stall every time I let it idle. Of course I think no problem, just need to push on the gas a little to keep it going. We get to the freeway and after a little while tom sends me a text cause I cant hear the phone ring let alone someone talk over the sound of the jeep, informing me that I am now on my own as he is heading off on his own course. After about an hour of so of me bouncing back and forth like a ping pong ball between the lines struggling to keep the jeep on the road, I notice the gauges (only half of the gauges were working when I bought it) are starting to bounce around too, and the temp gauge is thru the roof saying the engine is way to hot. So I get off at the next exit, and am quite happy to see an auto-zone right there. I pull into the parking lot, I don’t have to turn her off, cause she stalls as soon as I come to a stop. I pop the hood, grab a rag and start making some basic checks to see how bad the damage, if any is. After letting it cool down for about a half hour and adding water from the jug I had in the back and topping off the oil which was a qt low I noticed that the temp gauge did not go down any. So I bought a couple jugs of coolant, 2 five qt jugs of oil and topped off my water jug and headed back out on the road. I decided that the gauges were just going bad. After about ten min on the road the speedometer stopped working, this confirmed my guess that the gauges were bad. My now only working gauge was an after market oil pressure gauge which I monitored religiously the rest of the way back. Since I had no speedometer and expired tags I decided to go pretty slow the rest of the way, barely keeping up with the speed of traffic. Since I didn’t have a working fuel gauge or odometer, I used the road signs to guess how far I had gone and when I should get gas. I used the 2 jerry cans several times when I rant out in the middle of nowhere cause there was not a station in sight. I checked my messages every time I stopped to add fuel and oil, and in doing so discovered that tom was stuck in a snow storm and the roads were a mess ( but thats his story so I will let him tell you about it). The weather was amazing the whole day, until the sun went down. I resorted back to my multiple layers of clothes and using the exhaust to warm my left hand while driving. Around 2100 I was coming over the pass near wrightwood where I had to stop at a red light. As I was sitting there at the light struggling to keep the jeep idling I looked around only to notice the ground was covered with snow. The people in the other vehicles on the road all just stared at me in disbelief. Made me laugh to myself the last 2 hours home.