i was so excited for this day to arrive; i was able to bring my land cruiser out of storage and back home in the driveway this evening. even though i had only been away in chile for three months, there were the couple months beforehand that i spent up at the cottage, and the month or so before the cottage that i had spent packing up all my belongings. looking back, i had actually parked the cruiser on a friend’s property last june.
…it really has been a long time…
…long enough to stimulate a dream mid-travel in chile of me bouncing up and down in the drivers seat, knees bent up at either side of the bus-sized steering wheel, shifter a full lengths reach to my right, and the reflection in the driver’s side mirror of my arm and the way it seemed to perfectly rest on the open window sill. despite it all being a dream, i remember almost recalling the smell of fuel and oil, the breeze on my clutch leg from the kick-vent, the shifter head vibrating gently back and forth, the speedometer just under a hundred kilometres per hour and the thought to myself, ‘it’s actually driving well!’
yeah… i believe that’s when i woke up in the hostel with a huge smile on my face. my cruiser wasn’t driving that well when i left it back home.
but it was a great reminder of those times when it ran great and served as my daily driver and ‘get-me-outta-town-rig’ for three years. before i had purchased her, the cruiser mechanic who brought her down from the cariboo had only done a ‘poor-man’s rebuild’. i remember him telling me he only took the motor apart as it sat in on the frame, cleaned it up, unblocked some oil passages to the head, replaced the gaskets and topped up the fluids. this seventy-seven has been running on original piston rings, and to date, it has never left me stranded.
this is the year that i give this cruiser the attention it deserves; perhaps a ‘thank you’ for it’s constant reliability.
