Mid-Life Crisis Road Trip

Just purchased our Mid-Life Crisis Mustang

Mid-life crisis road trip 2018

In 2017, my wife and I had our “midlife crisis”. Now this wasn’t the “normal” crisis. We weren’t cheating on each other. We didn’t go out and buy a fancy new red sports car……. well, we did go buy a fancy sports car…. but it wasn’t red…well…more on that later. Anywho, our crisis started when we sold our house and became homeless.

See, we had recently become empty nesters, had a 4,000 square foot home, and hated our jobs. You know, the typical “American dream”. We decided we wanted to downsize, sell off almost everything we had, buy a motorhome and travel across the country. Well, we sold the house, downsized, almost bought the motorhome, but instead bought a Mustang GT California Special. WHOOPS! How did that happen? But hey! At least we still got to travel across the country in it…well, almost.

Our plan was to cruise Hwy 101, start to finish, since we lived only 20 miles from the end of it. So on January 1, 2018, we loaded up the car, ran down to Olympia, turned around and started our venture north on Hwy 101. We got a late start that day, and by late I mean like 4 in the afternoon. So we didn’t make it too far, just up to Port Townsend the first day.

The next morning we jumped on the ferry to Coupeville (nope, not on Hwy 101) and made our way over to Bellingham to see our daughter in college. Then ventured up to Canada before making our way back over to Hwy 101. We followed 101 all around the Olympic Peninsula, down into Oregon, where we visited more family, and finally into California.

Pismo Beach Sunset

We ended up staying in Pismo beach a couple nights because we enjoyed it so much! But then the day we planned to leave, there was a huge mud slide on 101 south of us, with no plans to reopen soon. We held out a week in Pismo, yep it sucked (sarcastic). By our original plans, we could have been stuck in the slide, so we were very thankful for staying extra time in Pismo! Because of the slide, we had to skip our 101 start to finish (sadly). 

Instead we figured we would head to Vegas for my wife’s birthday! We made our way through Death Valley and on to Vegas for a good time. After Vegas, we cruised down to Lake Havasu, AZ to visit a friend of my wife’s from high school. Well, our communication with him was a bit lacking. Turns out he was home in Washington visiting… oops, next time through maybe. We had a great time in Lake Havasu for a few days and then another few days in Phoenix to visit more friends.

We were ready for the road again, so we packed up the ‘Stang. As we were heading for the highway, the car started making a funny sound. The funny sound got worse…and then I recognized that noise. It was not good! We were only a block from a Ford dealership at this point so I coasted into the service bay. A few people came out to “greet” us (probably heard me a block away) and see what they could do for us.

Coyote self-destruction

Long story short, we needed an engine. The car had a whopping 30,000 miles on it. Only 3,000 of those we put on, if that! With that, we picked up a rental car, another Mustang. This one was classic red. We transferred all of our shit over to that, left the CS in good hands (we hoped), and continued on our trip.

The rental Mustang took us up New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, then down into Texas where we crashed (maybe not the best phrase) for a week at a friend’s place. We still had not heard if the damage was covered under warranty or not at this point. I was debating about buying a truck and trailer in Texas since they were so cheap there, going back to Arizona to get our car, and head for home. Oh, wait, no home to work on the car. Well shit.

In that case, we kept heading east! The little red rental took us all the way to Key West before we heard back from the dealership. Yep, the engine is covered!!!! “Sweet, when do you think we can pick it up?” He told us a week. PERFECT! We were about a week away.

We visited more family in Florida, lost my debit card (and retrieved it thankfully) and made our way back to Arizona to get our car. When we dropped off the rental car (covered by the warranty company), the clerk about had a heart attack…… “You put over 7500 miles on the car! Where did you go, New York?” “Nope, just around the desert here and out to Key West.” “Key West? Like Key West Florida?” he exclaimed. “Yep.”

After getting our ‘Stang back, we headed back to Cali. We played in San Diego at Sea World and then in L.A. at Knotts Berry Farm. We also decided to drive down Crenshaw in Compton at dusk. Not a great move. If you know the area, you know a couple of white folk shouldn’t be there. Got gas and dinner at this little shit store on Crenshaw. No other white people around. There was a Subway sandwich shop inside. We were hungry. My wife asked if we should go or not. I told her to follow my lead, walk in like we belong, show respect, and we’ll be ok. The girl behind the counter looked at me BEFORE we placed our order behind the bulletproof glass, and said, “You shouldn’t be here. You best get you food and get out.“ Lots of strange looks from other people. I assured my wife we were good. Just act natural, don’t show fear, we will be fine. Oh, and I was NOT armed….. It’s all good, we survived with no incident. It just goes to show a bit of RESPECT goes a long way!!!

We ended up back on Hwy 101, ran that up north, and back into Pismo Beach.“Technically” made the 101 run, start to finish, just with a ‘little’ 8,000 mile detour. Some of the best memories come from adventures that don’t go as planned, and problems arise. It may suck at the time, but looking back, it was a hell of a run!!

I plan to do a full trip write up in an upcoming book.  Is that something you would want to read, comment below.