So, Walker and Kayla are off to live in a nearby community for the next week or 10 days. Their adventures will be sufficiently harrowing (at the very least two deep river crossings in the car) that they decided to take “baby” and I’m now renting a new Land Rover. If any of you are land rover enthusiasts and can tell me what year this car was made I’d love to hear. My guess is that it’s pushing 35!
Whatever this car misses in terms of creature comfort (crazy seats, bad shocks, holes in the roof) or safety (No power steering and I don’t think any of the seat belts work) it certainly makes up for in character. For some reason the driver’s seat is tiny, even all the way back the steering wheel hits me mid-thigh, and this is my first experience with pump brakes – Yikes! The first time heading down a steep hill and having the brakes hit the back of the foot-well was quite a heart stopper.
On the upside though it’s a convertible! That turns out to be a huge upside outweighing all of those other ‘endearing quirks.’ I took it out for its first game drive on Sunday and we took off the top to get a bit of air and see the animals around us. Yipee! It was fantastic.
We made somewhat of an interesting discovery on the game drive though… To make driving somewhat more interesting, the speedometer is on the “broken list” in the car. As the gas gauge is affixed right next to it in the dash at a rakish angle, and the needle was firmly set below “E” (who loans a car with no gas in the tank?) I assumed it too was among the instruments that had been consumed by old age. It turns out the gas gauge actually does work… a fact we discovered as we sputtered to a stop deep in the Black Cotton. We were rescued after an hour or so… now I’m going to be a bit more mindful of the gas gauge in the future.
Here’s a quick glimpse inside of the cockpit. Note the red and yellow lollypops. Not quite sure what they do but they look tempting… Among my favorites though is the gas pedal – a bent piece of metal and the light switches that evoke an airplane (or space shuttle?).
Colin Donihue 
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