Also, R.I.P., Van That Took Us On So Many Vacations.
My Smokey Bear is fine, but a wild bear has gone to the Great Hunney Tree In The Sky. A couple weekends ago Smokey was on his way to work in Minneapolis. Driving on a dark county road at 10 p.m., he suddenly saw something big and black and about two feet in front of the car. Bam!
He was not sure whether he had hit a bear or a black cow, but Al, a local guy and fellow car enthusiast, tells us that if it had been a cow it would have been lying in the road after the collision because its legs would have been broken. Apparently a cow, being higher off the ground than a bear, is far more fragile in a dispute with a moving vehicle.
Smokey turned around after the collision and searched the shoulder and in both ditches but found no body nor any debris from the van. He was not injured, but the van is totaled. (see above)
So my Bear went looking for a replacement vehicle suitable for camping trips and found one like this:
The one pictured above is a 1998 whereas the one we bought is a 1988, but both have the same interior floor plan. I can't show you a picture of ours because it is currently residing at Lenny's (remember Lenny, our never-fail mechanic?) waiting for some transmission repair and a new paint job. Since we will get almost three thousand dollars from the insurance for the old van and paid well under a thousand for the *new* one, we can afford to put a little money into it.
The van is dead, long live the [new, camper] van.
A secondary benefit of this whole thing is that my own personal minivan, which has been parked in one of the garages for 4-1/2 years because it had something wrong with the transmission that Smokey couldn't figure out, has now been fixed and is back on the road. With the old van out of commission, the new one not suitable as a daily driver, and Da Yeep having its snow plow on the front, we have had to share the yellow Aveo.
This was clearly not a permanent solution. I, in particular, do not share well.
We took the minivan to Lenny and less than a week later he had diagnosed the problem and replaced the transmission seals -- a minor repair, really.
I love my minivan. It has every bell and whistle and accessory that was available on that model (1998 Isuzu Oasis; identical to the Honda Odyssey of that year), including a sunroof and a 5-CD changer under the passenger seat. Can I get a w00t?
All is good here in our lives. Except for the bear. We are both very sorry about the bear. He should have stayed in the woods and not tried to go snacking in that cornfield on the other side of County Road I. Or else he should have worn a reflective sneakers and vest. Smokey would gladly have yielded the right of way if he could have seen him. Srsly, in 35 years of marriage I have never seen him as upset as he was over killing this bear. He is an animal lover and bears are understandably very special to him.
