And it all started with a car......
September of 2003, my then-boyfriend (now-husband) was in the market for another car. His Eclipse finally crapped out on him and he was tired of the unpredictable Mitsubishi and was on the hunt for something fun, reliable, somewhat fast, handled well and blue. Yes.... blue. He has a thing for blue.
He flipped back and forth between a Dodge SRT4, and the Mazdaspeed Protege. I very seriously told him that if he bought an SRT4, I would break up with him. Even though I knew very little about cars, I thought the SRT4 was, quite possibly, the nerdiest car I've ever seen.
The final decision was made when he spotted a Laser Blue Mica Mazdaspeed Protege on the lot of our local Mazda dealership. It had just been shipped in and was as sparkly as anything I've ever seen. It was instant love for my husband.
It's been 7 1/2 years since he bought that car. And we still have it. It sits proudly in our driveway and greets us each morning. It's not as quick as it once was, but *knock on wood*, we've never had some of the problems some people have had with their Mazdaspeeds or MSP's as we like to call them. It squeaks, has the notorious "clunk", rattles, and sometimes bogs out but it still chugs along and gets us where we're going. All of those things are easily resolved with some much-needed TLC and repairs. For a car that has over 80,000 miles on it, I have no complaints.
The car has become a part of our family. After so many years of service and so many miles, I don't know how it couldn't be. We've travelled to Atlanta countless times in it. It's been to Petit Lemans at Road Atlanta a few times. It's been to Sebring, Daytona, Miami, Orlando, and countless other places and has delivered us there safely and comfortably.
I have a bad habit of becoming emotionally attached to inanimate objects. But it's like Jeremy Clarkson said in Eric Bana's documentary "Love the Beast" (and I'm paraphrasing): when you consider all of the people that have touched a car in its production stages, there's no way a car cannot roll out of a factory without having a little bit of each person's soul injected into it. And I firmly believe that.
Our car's name is "Blue". Simple and straight to the point. I've always named all of my cars. My first car was a 1988 white Jeep Cherokee. I named it "Chuck". I like the alliteration - "Chuck the Cherokee".
"Blue" is also a male. Don't ask why; I'm just weird and assume that most cars are male. So I refer to "Blue" as "he". And "he" has attitude, spunk and personality. He beeps at you when he's angry - okay, okay, it's because of the shock sensor in the alarm, but I like to pretend it's because he's got spunk - and sometimes if you press the doorlock just so, the alarm will go off while you're driving down the street. I've suspected a time or two that he could, in fact, be the reincarnation of Herbie the Love Bug.... only cooler.... and not a VW Beetle, but you get my point.
As I confessed before, I know very little about a car and how it works. I know what wheels are, how to check the oil, where the exhaust pipe is, what a belt looks like and can even point out where the turbo is on Blue. Other than that, I'm a little out of my element. But aesthetically, I know what I like. I believe that some cars are true works of art. But that is for another post at another time.
The purpose of this blog is to document the places we've been and the people we've met along the way. We've travelled to some pretty interesting places and met some very wonderful people who I'm glad to now call my friends. And it's all thanks for a little blue Mazda that caught my husband's eye all those years ago.
In the words of Will Ferrell in the movie "Old School": "You're my boy, Blue!"
Love it :) We have been through a lot with our cars and they have led us to some interesting places, fun times and has brought many special people into our lives. All of this because of a car.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see what other adventures they us on :D