Mr. Ditch goes to Washington: Chapter 1

The big project this week was to get to my sister’s college graduation/meet the fiance party in Virginia. Road distance: 2989.96 miles. The plan was to drive the first 650 or so, to get to an airport I could fly from without selling myself into slavery. I was confident in my car’s fitness for the journey, as I had been coddling her with fresh fluids and conservative driving since my last attempt on her life. She had run flawlessly on the hour long test drive of the week before, so it was with a light heart and high hopes that I nosed out of town and started out on the Alaska Highway. Forty-five minutes south of town, my darling suddenly began to knock loudly under the hood, not unlike a blender trying to make a smoothy out of a rock. I pulled over, checked the fluids, hooked up the fan, and tried again. No difference. I headed back to town, hoping to pick up cell coverage on the way. The noise seemed to get more regular, but the temperature stayed down, and there was no loss of power. “I wonder what could…” My musing was interrupted by a loud bang, followed by the sound of scattering mechanical entrails on the road behind, and the rear-view revealed a prodigious blue haze in my wake. I coasted to my car’s final resting place and hopelessly cracked the hood. From a tree across the ditch, a hawk screamed mockingly into the perfect silence of a motor-free highway. A trail of ants worked on some nameless project by my foot.