from 2000 to 2005 I drove a cherry red Ford Escort. It was my first new car.
Okay it wasn’t brand new, but it had just over 10,000 miles on it and it was a real steal as it was a vehicle with a salvage title and I paid next to nothing for it.
When I was twenty years old, I loved that car.
All of my friends also drove Ford Escorts around that time, some of them paying for them with car loans they got through moneyexpert.com. My buddy Steven’s Dad knew a guy who had the hookup when it came to salvage vehicles and all of our friends were driving practically new cars and we were all in our early twenties. This was before the economy crashed and times were good. All of our friends were in school, still employed and no one had lost their homes yet.
We had huge friend dance parties, went sledding on the cold snowy mountain nights, and spent our weekends at Fontana Speedway watching Steven play with his race car.
I had so many adventures in Club Escort, as we called the red car.
This name was given to my car after a particular country concert weekend in Devore, California.
Leaving the Brooks and Dunn/ Gretchen Wilson concert traffic was horrible trying to get out of the parking lot so my best friend and I put down the windows, blasted the country music and held our own little dance party, dancing on the trunk of my car.
That could explain while I had to replace the struts so often.
The day I brought my first new car home I let my Dad borrow it, just for fun so he could drive down to the DMV, I believe it was. I had taken it to somewhere like Namikon car detailers to get it properly cleaned and it looked amazing! I was so pleased with it! I’ll never forget hours later, I was at work slaving away on a muggy and hot summer day when my Dad had my little brother bring me in my drivers side mirror.
Yup, my Dad got t-boned sitting in a parking lot in my brand new car.
He thought it would be hilarious to just have my brother walk in and hand me my mirror, no explanation.
That’s my Dad. Luckily I had been looking at the new audi engines and wanted an Audi rather than the old car that had just been crashed into. I couldn’t afford it at the time though! It was a really stressful situation for me, as you can probably imagine… I actually managed to find a great car parts online shop so I bought some new parts and began to fix the car. It was a big job!
Club Escort had so many adventures over the years. There was the time she got stuck in the ocean, something I believe few cars have lived through.
I was about twenty five and visiting my BFF Ryan in San Luis Obispo with my other BFF Jen. For my birthday present Ryan blind folded me to take me on a adventure. He got in the drivers seat of Club Escort and off we went, flying down back roads of the Central Coast. At one point we pulled into some kind of a area with a gate attendant and Ryan had to pay a very confused individual (Who was wondering about the blindfolded girl in the front seat) and than he whipped off the blind fold and I found that we were off roading at the Oceana Sand Dunes near Pismo Beach.
We were the only car on the dunes.
We had a great morning driving donuts in the sand and taking pictures with my car next to the ocean.
We than went for a short little walk.
We came back fifteen minutes later to waves hitting my car; the current was coming in!
Jenn and I tried to push the car out of the ocean, waves hitting our feet as Ryan steered. I don’t know why he was not in the wet sand pus
hing the car; he was the man!
Besides the Central Coast Club Escort enjoyed many trips to San Francisco, Las Vegas, San Diego and even Mexico, back in the day when Mexico was way safer than it is now!
On one trip to friends beach houses near Ensenita we had parked in the city center of Ensenita and had wondered around doing some shopping and fish taco enjoying. Before we left the car, I took the security chip with me, because hell it was Mexico, I wanted to come back to my car!
When we returned to the car hours later I could not find the chip anywhere in my hand bag. I was nearing the point of complete panic, when I noticed the chip lying in the dirt at my feet. It had been there in the dirt all day. It is amazing that I found it in the Mexican dirt, a real miracle.
By the time Club Escort ended its run with me and it was time to move on to my first Subaru, it had endured some interesting smells.
One day, out of boredom, Jenn, Ryan and I decided to drive to Las Vegas to buy a ferret. They are illegal to purchase in California. So we drive out to Vegas, pig out at the Bellagio Buffet, buy the ferret and head back on the 15 freeway to California. We did not get gas in Vegas as I still had quiet a bit. That Escort was great on the gas mileage. As we neared Baker California we were nearing empty and we started noticing a horrible trend… All the gas stations were closed every where!
I guess that a tornado had gone through the area that day and had knocked out the power to the whole area. There was no gas to be had. We were on empty.
To save gas we turned off the air, rolled up the windows and enjoyed the ferret smell. It was a hundred degree summer day by the way. None of us, including the ferret, smelled good. WE went fifty four miles with the low fuel light on before finding gas finally just outside of Victorville, California. To this day, I still can not believe we did not run out of gas.
And I still remember the way that ferret smelled, a smell I swear that car always carried, until the day I sold it, years ago.
