A New Member's Old Stories
07-17-2006, 11:08 AM
#1
Registered User
Thread Starter
A New Member's Old Stories
A while ago,at another Z-related site,I realized that I was running out of new,interesting stories about me and my Z.Together,we've had a few,but about 6 months ago I sort of ran out of stuff to post.
I thought I'd recycle and thumbnail a few of them here.
Hopefully,some of them will be of passing interest to some of you...
(CAR STORY)
...It's an '03 LeMans Sunset Base model,one of the proud,original,33rd Anniversary Zs--the first of their kind--and I've had it since it had 70 miles on the odometer (if that is what can you call the electronic mileage counter) and before 99.99 % of the population knew what it was.
Today,it has 44,000 hard-earned miles on it and on humid days it smells like a sneaker.
Nowadays,everybody know what a Z is.
Once,it was unknown and fresh as a baby.
Within a week of taking possession,the Z and me were off on a marathon Test Drive,what wound up to be an 8,000 mile journey into the heart of deepest America--Florida to Montana and back again.About a month after rolling over the Dealer's curb,the baby Z had grown into a streetwise adolescent,hip to the ways of America and wise to the expectations of the New Guy at the wheel.A month,10,000 miles.
My first oil change at the hometown Dealer,he said he'd never serviced a Z that had spun out that many miles so quickly.Of course,even the Dealer hadn't serviced THAT many Zs in those early days.
During the journey,dozens of out-of-the way places like Midland,Texas and Anaconda,Montana saw their first,real live Z for the first time ever.I'll bet the kids in Garden City are STILL talking about the Day The Florida Z Came to Kansas.
Anyway,since I'm new to this site and haven't bored many of you with my old stories,here are a few.
(ARMY STORY)
...My 4th night out of Florida,and I'm parked in a dark restaurant lot in El Paso.Over my shoulder,the lights from thousands of Mexican homes fortunate enough to afford electricity spill and sparkle over the receding mountains.
As I burp up guacomole and round the corner,I see 4 young guys gathered around the Z.They are nearly shadows,dimly reflected in Mexican half-light on the near-empty lot.
I felt a moment of fear but I approached the cluster directly,beeping the horn and flashing the lights.
They jumped,then laughed,made immediate reference to the car ("*****in' ride"..."wow,this is the new Z-car,eh???..."how fast is she???",etc.) and the tension was dissipated like air from a balloon.
Turned out they were young soldiers-in-training from Ft Bliss,about to be deployed to the spanking new War in Iraq,and a couple of them were veritable encyclopedias of Z-lore.Mine was the first one any of them had seen.One kid knew a lot more about my car than I did,and I thought that I was well-informed.Nope.He knew more.
I bought a 12-pack from a nearby c-store (they paid) and we stood in the lot,talking cars until the Mexicans across the river switched off their lights and went to sleep and the beer was but empty cans dimly sparkling in the parking lot.
Nice bunch of kids.I hope they made it home...
(FIRST MOUNTAIN STORY)
...The next day,I'm in Arizona,running backroads to a place called Globe.
You enter Globe over the high desert,you leave Globe going down the side of a big mountain.The 2-lane road twists downward like a desert sidewinder,doubling back on itself a dozen times per mile.Steep red rock walls give way to breathtaking cliffside vistas,and you pass through several tunnels and encounter seemingly endless,totally blind switchbacks as you sweep over rocky streambeds.
AZ 60--a Great Drive--until it turns into a freeway,that is.
A cool road to open it up,I thought,a neat,challenging place to toss the Z down some swoopy roads and treat it to it's First Mountain.
At the top,4 candy color Jap bikes bizzed around me on the yellow,no-pass line,their drivers hunkered down and eager to do the same thing I was,only faster.
After they blew by--I was the only other traffic,apparently--I downshifted,hauled *** and caught them.We were blessed with a clear road and I clung to their tailwind,doing the same things at the same speed and agility that the bikers were expending,only I had windows and a stereo.
Revs rose and fell,bouncing off rock walls and sounding like a Bee Concerto.
The road twisted and disappeared around rock outcrops.They could not lose me.We played like that all the way to the bottom of the mountain,maybe five miles of twistys at insane speeds,when cops and freeways simultaneously appeared and everyone grew law-abiding again.
The last I saw of the bikers was a thumbs-up from a couple of them as they buzzed off down the freeway and into their future.
I began seeking more mountains.
( ROUTE 66 )
...Driving West from The Grand Canyon,the main highway(the ONLY highway) sports a small,beat-up sign that directs you Northwest into high desert and away from the tempting fleshpots of Seligman,Arizona.
It says "Historic Route 66",and another sign says "No Fuel or Services for Next 70 miles",and an arrow points the way.The atlas showed a skinny road inked over blankness.
Now that was a challenge I couldn't pass up,riding on a relic of The Mother Road into the Middle of Nowhere,so I gassed up,followed the arrow and went Northwest.
Soon,about where the "TURN BACK" gene kicked in,I lost all cellphone service,but I pressed on until I eventually lost foliage and phone poles.The road was empty of humans and all but forgotten,maintainence-wise,and it led from Forlorn to Heat Sink,where there was a lone,rotted structure that flashed a red "BEER" (one of my favorite words) into the yellow-white desert sunlight.
There were 8,9 vehicles parked in front,mostly dusty pickups of an uncertain vintage.They were parked far enough away so that if the bar suddenly fell down,it wouldn't damage what was left of their trucks.
Inside,it was a cave,cool and dark,illuminated only by other "beer" signs.The place was full of Indians,Hualapais,the real thing.This bar was the only one for 45 miles either way,and it was right at the gates of their alcohol-free Reservation.The customers were the guys who take you through the Canyon on rafts,the ones who organize mule train campouts in the wilderness,and over some cold ones I heard a hundred stories of how they made a living out here where there was nothing but rocks,dust,and the stars of night.
I found myself wishing I was a rafting Indian instead of an Insurance Mogul.
Outside,another Hualapai in another decrepit pickup pulled up,and when he entered,a million suns poured through the door of the cave,blinding everyone for a moment.He was all about the new Z in the parking lot,agitated and excited,and everybody,even the bartender,rushed outside to see it.We all stood by the car,blinking back the painful sudden sunlight glaring off the dusty Sunset paint,holding beers and talking cars.
Here was a real First.A Beer-Drinking,Native American Group First for the Z,as it was for them too,I'm sure.I don't think that this could EVER happen again.
"*****in' ride,Dude" they said,making themselves the only people on the Planet who have legitimately called me "Dude".
They liked it so much they bought me a beer and recommended the Buffalo Burger,which turned out to be the best meat-oriented lunch I had on the trip.Here's a shout-out to my old,new Native friends in Truxton,60 miles from Anywhere Else,where there ARE services and fuel is available if you know the bartender.
By the way,at the 70 mile marker the only gas station was closed.
Just a few stories;...I've had the car for 3 1/2 years,and I've got plenty more.You should hear the Kansas story,or the snow stories,or the one about New York City...
I thought I'd recycle and thumbnail a few of them here.
Hopefully,some of them will be of passing interest to some of you...
(CAR STORY)
...It's an '03 LeMans Sunset Base model,one of the proud,original,33rd Anniversary Zs--the first of their kind--and I've had it since it had 70 miles on the odometer (if that is what can you call the electronic mileage counter) and before 99.99 % of the population knew what it was.
Today,it has 44,000 hard-earned miles on it and on humid days it smells like a sneaker.
Nowadays,everybody know what a Z is.
Once,it was unknown and fresh as a baby.
Within a week of taking possession,the Z and me were off on a marathon Test Drive,what wound up to be an 8,000 mile journey into the heart of deepest America--Florida to Montana and back again.About a month after rolling over the Dealer's curb,the baby Z had grown into a streetwise adolescent,hip to the ways of America and wise to the expectations of the New Guy at the wheel.A month,10,000 miles.
My first oil change at the hometown Dealer,he said he'd never serviced a Z that had spun out that many miles so quickly.Of course,even the Dealer hadn't serviced THAT many Zs in those early days.
During the journey,dozens of out-of-the way places like Midland,Texas and Anaconda,Montana saw their first,real live Z for the first time ever.I'll bet the kids in Garden City are STILL talking about the Day The Florida Z Came to Kansas.
Anyway,since I'm new to this site and haven't bored many of you with my old stories,here are a few.
(ARMY STORY)
...My 4th night out of Florida,and I'm parked in a dark restaurant lot in El Paso.Over my shoulder,the lights from thousands of Mexican homes fortunate enough to afford electricity spill and sparkle over the receding mountains.
As I burp up guacomole and round the corner,I see 4 young guys gathered around the Z.They are nearly shadows,dimly reflected in Mexican half-light on the near-empty lot.
I felt a moment of fear but I approached the cluster directly,beeping the horn and flashing the lights.
They jumped,then laughed,made immediate reference to the car ("*****in' ride"..."wow,this is the new Z-car,eh???..."how fast is she???",etc.) and the tension was dissipated like air from a balloon.
Turned out they were young soldiers-in-training from Ft Bliss,about to be deployed to the spanking new War in Iraq,and a couple of them were veritable encyclopedias of Z-lore.Mine was the first one any of them had seen.One kid knew a lot more about my car than I did,and I thought that I was well-informed.Nope.He knew more.
I bought a 12-pack from a nearby c-store (they paid) and we stood in the lot,talking cars until the Mexicans across the river switched off their lights and went to sleep and the beer was but empty cans dimly sparkling in the parking lot.
Nice bunch of kids.I hope they made it home...
(FIRST MOUNTAIN STORY)
...The next day,I'm in Arizona,running backroads to a place called Globe.
You enter Globe over the high desert,you leave Globe going down the side of a big mountain.The 2-lane road twists downward like a desert sidewinder,doubling back on itself a dozen times per mile.Steep red rock walls give way to breathtaking cliffside vistas,and you pass through several tunnels and encounter seemingly endless,totally blind switchbacks as you sweep over rocky streambeds.
AZ 60--a Great Drive--until it turns into a freeway,that is.
A cool road to open it up,I thought,a neat,challenging place to toss the Z down some swoopy roads and treat it to it's First Mountain.
At the top,4 candy color Jap bikes bizzed around me on the yellow,no-pass line,their drivers hunkered down and eager to do the same thing I was,only faster.
After they blew by--I was the only other traffic,apparently--I downshifted,hauled *** and caught them.We were blessed with a clear road and I clung to their tailwind,doing the same things at the same speed and agility that the bikers were expending,only I had windows and a stereo.
Revs rose and fell,bouncing off rock walls and sounding like a Bee Concerto.
The road twisted and disappeared around rock outcrops.They could not lose me.We played like that all the way to the bottom of the mountain,maybe five miles of twistys at insane speeds,when cops and freeways simultaneously appeared and everyone grew law-abiding again.
The last I saw of the bikers was a thumbs-up from a couple of them as they buzzed off down the freeway and into their future.
I began seeking more mountains.
( ROUTE 66 )
...Driving West from The Grand Canyon,the main highway(the ONLY highway) sports a small,beat-up sign that directs you Northwest into high desert and away from the tempting fleshpots of Seligman,Arizona.
It says "Historic Route 66",and another sign says "No Fuel or Services for Next 70 miles",and an arrow points the way.The atlas showed a skinny road inked over blankness.
Now that was a challenge I couldn't pass up,riding on a relic of The Mother Road into the Middle of Nowhere,so I gassed up,followed the arrow and went Northwest.
Soon,about where the "TURN BACK" gene kicked in,I lost all cellphone service,but I pressed on until I eventually lost foliage and phone poles.The road was empty of humans and all but forgotten,maintainence-wise,and it led from Forlorn to Heat Sink,where there was a lone,rotted structure that flashed a red "BEER" (one of my favorite words) into the yellow-white desert sunlight.
There were 8,9 vehicles parked in front,mostly dusty pickups of an uncertain vintage.They were parked far enough away so that if the bar suddenly fell down,it wouldn't damage what was left of their trucks.
Inside,it was a cave,cool and dark,illuminated only by other "beer" signs.The place was full of Indians,Hualapais,the real thing.This bar was the only one for 45 miles either way,and it was right at the gates of their alcohol-free Reservation.The customers were the guys who take you through the Canyon on rafts,the ones who organize mule train campouts in the wilderness,and over some cold ones I heard a hundred stories of how they made a living out here where there was nothing but rocks,dust,and the stars of night.
I found myself wishing I was a rafting Indian instead of an Insurance Mogul.
Outside,another Hualapai in another decrepit pickup pulled up,and when he entered,a million suns poured through the door of the cave,blinding everyone for a moment.He was all about the new Z in the parking lot,agitated and excited,and everybody,even the bartender,rushed outside to see it.We all stood by the car,blinking back the painful sudden sunlight glaring off the dusty Sunset paint,holding beers and talking cars.
Here was a real First.A Beer-Drinking,Native American Group First for the Z,as it was for them too,I'm sure.I don't think that this could EVER happen again.
"*****in' ride,Dude" they said,making themselves the only people on the Planet who have legitimately called me "Dude".
They liked it so much they bought me a beer and recommended the Buffalo Burger,which turned out to be the best meat-oriented lunch I had on the trip.Here's a shout-out to my old,new Native friends in Truxton,60 miles from Anywhere Else,where there ARE services and fuel is available if you know the bartender.
By the way,at the 70 mile marker the only gas station was closed.
Just a few stories;...I've had the car for 3 1/2 years,and I've got plenty more.You should hear the Kansas story,or the snow stories,or the one about New York City...
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