Yesterday my unelected dictator, the man who usually drives me – a well-groomed and sprightly 2023 Ford Transit Trail – fell down and got a boo boo. I’m not impressed, and not very sorry. He’s been pushing the envelope – taking me into snow, ice, cold like single digits on the Kelvin scale, and parking in those slopeside parking lots with all those fancy campervans with the flashy orange and red recovery boards lashed to their roofs. What do they think this is, a 12-step program? My “recovery boards”? Some rug remnants and good judgment.
Oh, the boo boo. Nothing orthopedic, just a sprained calf. He calls it a gastrocnemius. Woo, woo! Latin!! Now he’s all limping around and the woman is driving me. She managed to back into a tight driveway in Ketchum just fine. You should have seen the look of disbelief on the husband’s face. You go, girl.
So it looks like Sun Valley will be the last stop on the winter 2024-2025 ski tour. We began in mid-December and visited Steamboat, Crystal Mountain, Whistler Blackcomb, Sun Peaks, Revelstoke, Lake Louise, Banff Sunshine, Jackson Hole, Deer Valley, Snowbasin, and now Sun Valley. Busted my water heater, the water pump, and the water lines to both the indoor and outdoor showers. The grey water tank has declared its independence from the coalition of reliable class B campervan components and has gaslighted us into believing it’s all our fault. The smell? That can’t be something we did. Right?
Word on the street is that the Ford Motor Company is shutting down the Transit Trail model line, converting the unsold inventory to de-trailed Transits, marketing them as used, with regular tires and suspensions and pride. Fine! Be that way! I just need to stretch out my front wheel wells an inch or two, get an oil change, see how thin my brake pads are, stuff in some next-generation insulation, buy a nice ladder and a full-sized spare, get some underbody lights and some porch lights. I’m thinking a starboard green light and red on the port deck. A mount for our Starlink Mini. And get the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle equation (pq − qp = h/(2πi)) emblazoned on my left side, along with some pinstriping and a tasteful portrait of the feline named Milton, Erwin Schrodinger’s actual cat. If you want to backstory for why quantum mechanics prompted my overseers to give me the name Milton, check out this earlier post from Scott’s ‘Gap year’ blog series: https://scottdmclean.com/2024/05/05/gap-year-week-unknown/.
Remember what Einstein said: “There are two means of refuge from the misery of life: music and cats.”
Ironically, my owners are dog people. I think the people at Ford are too.
In Ketchum, Idaho today, I am reminded that Hemingway walked these streets, taken the view from Bald Mountain, fished these streams, and must have kept a cat or two here.
“No animal has more liberty than the cat.”
He also said this: “”Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.”
Scott D. McLean, MD 