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Flying from Detroit to Phoenix to buy a 1987 Straman CRX Si, then driving the car back, had allowed me to revisit the red rock canyons of Arizona and the mountains of New Mexico for the first time in over a quarter-century. To the east lay more familiar territory populated with friends and family, both for me and the car. Might some fun be had?
I live near Detroit. The usual reasons some people dislike Detroit—the cold, the snow, the insular culture, the urban decay—they don’t bother me much. What really ticks me off about living there is that there’s not a single great driving road within three hours. I fantasize about living near mountains. For the next 24 hours, I get to live that fantasy. Maybe.
I’d badly wanted a Honda CRX Si ever since test driving one back in 1985. I’ve also been wanting to tour the American Southwest again for nearly as long. By flying to Phoenix to buy a rare CRX sight unseen, I’d accomplished the first goal. My new car wasn’t just any CRX, but one of the few fuel-injected Si’s that had been transformed into a convertible by Straman.
Religion, especially its more cult-like forms, can inspire people to do stupid things. Mine recently compelled me to place a sizable wager on the reliability of a 29-year-old Honda, on forecasts of unseasonably decent weather, on online friendships, and on other, even more questionable things.