Odd little car

I love cars.  I especially love old and uncommon cars.  I daydream about going to car shows and interviewing car owners and taking photos of the owners with their cars for a classic car blog.

 A couple weeks ago, Mom and I were headed to Jenny Wiley Theater in Prestonsburg, KY. To see Grease-it was great, by the way.   We drove past this little car lot.  At the back of the lot I saw a little tan car that looked like an old Volvo or VW station wagon-but I knew it was neither.    I’ve been bothered by it since…What is it?  Where was it made? How much do they want for this odd little car?

Today I went back to Prestonsburg after spending my time at the library.  Aptly enough, the little car lot is called Little Auto Sales.  I parked and walked straight to this odd tan car.  Walked around it, opened the door and looked in.  And I took photos…

When the lot owner came over, I asked questions.  This is a 1967 Trabant- Manual 4 on the column-yes I said on the column, 2-cylinder.  He has done a bunch of work on it: new rubber around the doors, new seat covers and he has a tail light cover for the left side that he’s replacing this week.  He is asking $3995 for it.  I didn’t ask to look under the hood but I should have-I’ve never seen the innards of a 2-cylinder.

After getting home, and showing the photos seen above, I Googled Trabant.  They were made in East Germany… and they were very economical for the time.  It would not be a very good every day car.  It’s a collector’s car.  I imagine it’s slow (being a 2-cylinder,) loud and hard on gas.  It is cool looking though.  And getting to see it up close was totally worth the trip.

If you want to know more about these, Wikipedia has a page for the Trabant

I feel so old

I’m almost 40-Will be on Dec 30^th if you want to send gifts (I like gifts.)  I rarely feel or think of myself as my age; most of the time, in my head, I’m closer to 28 and apparently I look like I could claim it.  There are times when I’ll be talking to someone and think that they are within 5 years of my age, only to find later that they are 25!  Then there are times when I’ll be talking to someone and think they are way older…he was 35 but I think it may have been the bad mustache!

For most of my life I have felt younger; I think it had something to do with being younger in grade school.  I was right at the end of the cutoff date for starting kindergarten.  In grade school all but one of my classmates was older than me.  Then when I got to High School, I was the youngest in my graduating class-I think this may be a contributing factor in my inferiority complex.  It’s my own fault- when registration time came, my parents let me decide.  I sometimes wonder how differently I would have been had I chosen to wait.

There are a few things that make me feel my age:

finding out someone I used to babysit for is married with teenage children.

Seeing how grown the children of my family and friends are-especially if I haven’t seen the child in years.

Trying to go without sleep-I love to sleep and the thought of an all-nighter now scares the crap out of me.  I was a teen librarian for over 5 years and teens LOVE Lock-Ins-they get all hyper and sugar loaded.  The last one I worked was as a favor for a friend (I had already been fired and wanted to feel connected to the library field again)-it took about 4 cups of coffee, lots of candy and hyper teens to keep me going all night… I had fun then I went home and slept for 8 straight.

And now I can add road trips-not all road trips… just ones that include my Mom and shopping.  Last weekend we went to Dayton, OH for my Cousin Susie’s wedding reception.  The drive there was fine, we spent the night before in Lexington at Paul and Lori’s house (older brother and his wife-who puts up with us a lot.) The reception was great, laid back and very casual.  The hotel -Hampton Inn and Suites- was wonderful… mmm squishy bed with squishy pillows…if only there had been a hot tub. Nice helpful staff and hot breakfast included.  Sunday was the shopping day-I knew this going into the trip-I was the one using Google Maps.  I knew as soon as I had both Jungle Jim’s International Market and Sam’s Club on the same day I was in trouble.  I made Mom agree that we weren't going through ALL of Ikea this time.  There were a few other stops in there too… mostly places at least 2 hours from home.  We finally finished at Sam’s at around 6PM and headed toward home.  My back hurt from walking at Mom’s slower pace and I was glad that I had worn sneakers and had flip-flops to change into.

We pulled unto Food City in Hazard to “get the last few things on my list” (-Mom) at around 11:30. I fell asleep in the car while Mom went in to get bread and OJ.  I was completely wiped out the next day and I’m not sure I’ve completely recovered yet.  Today I feel about 35, so I’m almost there.