I've never been a 'new car' kinda person. Never loved the price, or the feeling that you had to keep them super clean. I've always wanted a quirky car - something that sorta screamed 'me'. A friend of mine found a super cheap Volvo 240 on craigslist and (not to be a copycat or anything) I looked around and found one up in Minneapolis.
I emailed the dealership and got some more information. This car was perfect! A 1986 Volvo 240 station wagon in Scotia Blue, single owner vehicle with just under 75K miles on it. AMAZING. For less than $2500? Sure. I'll bite.
So, on a whim, I drove up to Minneapolis to secure said vehicle. Little did I know (but should have, if I would have spent two seconds on weather.com) but a massive snow storm was due to strike the state of MN. We headed up north anyways, and picked up the wagon. It had a few quirks (tailgate strut doesn't work, heat fan makes a 'killing a squirrel' noise for the first few minutes of running, and the radio didn't work at first) but absolutely nothing I didn't feel confident fixing.
SOLD.
Then, we headed over to Ikea. We spent a bit of time shopping there. It started to snow. What's up with this white fluffy crap everywhere? Oh wait....the windshield wipers are leaving a huge streak RIGHT in my line of vision. Random trip to Walmart. Surely I can figure this shit out.....damn it. Nope, I can't. Well, let's hope I can make it home. It's already 6pm. 4 hour drive. Hmmmm. Well let's see how far we can get.
90 minutes later, only 30 miles down, and a full 180 on the highway? All those numbers add up to finding a hotel room for the night. And so we did. The kiddo and I stayed overnight in a hotel with no clothes, no toiletries, and no sense of humor about the whole thing. We found an Auto Zone, where the nice guy (who I batted my eyelashes at to the point that he likely thought I had something in my eye) changed out my wiper blades for me.
We slept, we awoke, we drove 35 mph down the highway for over 2 hours (pulling another 180 in front of about 10 other cars and a semi, one who almost hit the backside of us). But....we're home.
So the journey begins. There's going to be repairs and upgrades and changes and alterations and fun stuff galore with this car. I can just tell.
