Requiem for a Camry

As many of you have heard, I had to say goodbye the Camry. I don’t get too attached to physical things. Well, I like to think I’m not, but everything about my house probably says I’m lying to myself about that. But let’s just go with I don’t get too attached to things, I was still sad to see the Camry go. It was the first (and to date) the only car I’ve ever purchased brand new.

It was October of 2013. I needed a new car. Well, a different car. Jason set me up with Tron at Wilson Toyota. I knew I was going to get a Camry, but I thought I’d be getting one that was 2-3 years old. But after crunching the numbers, it turned out it was cheaper to buy a brand new 2014 since it came with 0% financing.

I sat in Tron’s office for about 90 minutes. For 75 of these minutes, we talked about Iowa State football. Then he looked at me and asked:

“What color car do you want?”

I wasn’t prepared for this question. I hadn’t thought about it because I was sure I was getting a used car and I would take whatever color they had in inventory and was within my budget. I explained that to Tron and he leaned back in his chair and then looked me in the eye and said:

“A big Iowa State fan like you should drive a red car.”

So it was decided. I was getting a red Camry.

When I picked it up. It had 11 miles. I drove it for nearly 12 years. When it was hauled away the odometer read 148,811 miles. We had 148,800 miles together.

The Camry took me on many trips to visit out of state friends. It took me all over the Cyclone State on THE TOWN SIGN PROJECT. In recent years it had become a secondary vehicle. It was the “dog car”. It was the car I drove around when I was by myself. But it was still an important part of the family. As far as a car can be part of a family. I’m not a car person. So not that much of a part of the family.

Here are some pictures of the adventures we went on:

A taxi for Naima!

Took Shorty to Nate’s wedding!

Other than routine maintenance, never spent a dime on mechanical repairs.

Before the pandemic made the Computer Mine a ghost town, the Camry always parked here next to Micky’s truck.

The PIXALOT license plates are born.

A snowy road trip to Minnesota.

So this brings us to the end of the line for the Camry. There was a confluence of events that transpired to spell the end. Monica and I went to Des Moines to support Suzie and Steve’s Celebration of Life. Usually for such events I would take the RAV4. But shortly before I left to go pick up Monica, Logan stopped by.

Logan has this idea for a photo project he wanted us to do together. He purchased an old, old, old disposable camera from the 90s and he wanted me to shoot through the roll of film. He was going to do likewise with a different disposable camera. We ended up getting into a good conversation and before I knew it the time had gotten away from me. I was late for picking up Monica. So rather than switching cars around and taking the RAV4, I just took the car that was at the end of the driveway. The Camry.

We drove down to Steve’s Celebration of Life in Des Moines. It was a beautiful gathering. And while I won’t claim to have known Steve extremely well, I think the celebration was consistent with what he would have liked. I think they “did him justice”.

After leaving the service, we stopped to eat supper at Tasty Tacos. I had bought a couple of 12 packs of Waterloo that I meant to give to Suzie at the service, as I did know Steve was crazy about Waterloo. I decided Perry wasn’t that far away from Boone, so we could just swing by Perry and drop them off on Suzie’s porch.

But fate and a distracted driver had other ideas.

As Monica and I were sitting at a stoplight (boo stoplights – turn them all into roundabouts) on 141 all of a sudden we got hit from behind. It wasn’t a massive collision. There were no airbag deployments. I didn’t think the Camry had been moved that much. My actual first thought was did the light turn green and I had zoned off. So I looked up, the light was still very clearly red.

I got out and talked to the driver. He was very apologetic and he did feel terrible. Emotionally. He was not injured. I was not injured. Monica was not injured. Here are some pictures from the damage.

They did give me a decent sized check for the Camry. I don’t know what I’m going to do yet, but for now I’m just going to sit on the money. I don’t really need a second car. It is convenient at times to have a 2nd car, but it is cheaper to not have a 2nd car. So we will wait and see.

It was a good car. It’ll be missed. Easily the best car I’ve ever said goodbye to. Admittedly, the bar on that isn’t very high.

Editor’s Note: I am experimenting with editing with blocks on this post. So parts of it might look weird. It is all part of the growth process.