Albert, or Ode To My Wheels

I've had the same travel companion since May of 1999.  He's handsome.  He's reliable. He's sturdy.  He's sporty.  He's always ready to go.  He's willing to take me into - and get me out of - any remote place.


I'm talking about my four wheel drive, soft top Jeep Wrangler.  It's a sandy gold color.  The top is black.  I ordered it from the dealer.  It was delivered to me straight from the factory.  My name was on the sticker that was affixed to the window.  There were eight miles on the odometer.


The vanity plates I ordered when the Jeep was new said BRKN ARW, after a line in a Grateful Dead song.  I was fairly certain its name was not Broken Arrow, but I had trouble coming up with a name that I liked.


Finally, after I'd had him four or five years already, I was driving to my job at a farmer's market in Flagstaff, Arizona.  It was a brilliantly sunny morning.  The sun was filtering softly through the Ponderosa pines along the roadside.  I was thinking that it was high time I named the Jeep.  I decided rather than trying to come up with one myself, as I'd been trying to do for so long, I'd simply ask the Jeep what its name was.  I resolved to ask the question, then go with the first name that popped into my head.  


The name that came to me was Albert.  I was incredulous - really?  Albert?!  Albert.  All day at work I thought about the name.  It grew on me.  It was a good, solid name.  Somehow it fit.  So Albert he is.


Albert's fabric top vibrates ceaselessly.  The plastic windows in the rear slap the roll bars.  Given the right amount of wind, the volume in the Jeep can be like being enclosed in a metal drum with nine thousand geese, all of whom are honking and flapping their wings at once.  There have been days that I have come off the road feeling physically battered by the noise and motion.  If the weather is warm enough to have the front windows open, yet not warm enough to put the top down, I can forget about listening to music or speaking to my passengers in a normal conversational tone.

Albert is probably one of the least aerodynamically built vehicles ever put on the road.  He's fairly lightweight, even when packed to the roll bars with camping gear and pets.  Strong gusts cause him to rock and sway.  In anything but a tail wind, I have to fight to keep him going in a straight line.  If my attention wanders, the wind generated by a passing semi can shove him towards the shoulder.

Albert's four-cylinder engine makes him less a powerful beast and more The Little Jeep That Could.  Inclines of any type intimidate him.  The higher the elevation, the steeper the grade, the slower he climbs.  Plenty of times we've groaned up mountain passes behind semi trucks that were hauling heavy equipment, and the semis have outpaced us.  I'm accustomed to putting on my flashers and settling in for the grind to the top, but in the back of my mind sometimes I wish I could get him a little more horsepower.


Also on my retro-active wish list is air conditioning.  When I ordered Albert my thought process was that I'd have the top down all the time in warm weather.  So, my reasoning went, why would I need a/c?  I didn't take into account what I would do when it rains during the sultry, humid weather typical to Midwestern summers.  When it's warmer than 70 degrees out, Albert's fan blows hot moist air.  It's like riding in the mouth of a hyperventilating ogre, only perhaps a bit less smelly.


These may seem like drawbacks, but I consider them to be Albert's more endearing quirks. Like the dimple in his hood, they feed into his personality.  I wouldn't trade him for a hundred faster, flashier vehicles.


Plus, any number of other factors balance out the quirks.  He's paid for.  He's nearing the 200,000 mile mark on his odometer, yet he starts every time and runs as well as he ever did.  I've had to replace a few parts here and there, but annual repair and maintenance costs have never come close to what I paid in car payments every year.  The smaller engine size forces me to drive more slowly, which has gone a long way towards curbing my innate impatience - thereby preventing me from getting a bunch of speeding tickets. 


I keep thinking that one of these days I'll spiff him up a little bit.  Throw on a lift kit and some bigger tires.  Replace the cloth seats with neoprene.  Remove the floorboard carpets and see about installing some of that spray-in bedliner I've seen used in pickup truck beds, so I can hose him down inside and out and get on with my day.  Maybe someday, when I live in the desert again, I'll do that.


In the meantime, Albert and I will keep chugging along.

Albert on the Mendocino Coast, Northern California.  October 2006.