Indiana or Bust: day 0

I'm doing something unusual this week. Tomorrow morning, I'm taking off in a 2003 Jetta Wagon TDI on a road trip for over 2,500 miles to Indiana to drop the car off, then I'll fly home.

Why I'm doing this is a long story I'll get into over the next few days, but someone in my family loves old VWs and lost theirs in a crash and needed a new one and we found one in Oregon that I've spent the past few months fixing up to prep it for the big drive to its new owner.

To date, we replaced all the fluids, replaced the battery, fixed the previously-non-functioning turbo, replaced all the shocks and struts and suspension bushings. The original exhaust was rusting out so I put a replacement one in. I had to buy new 3-peak rated all season tires and wheels (one of the OEM wheels was bent). Finally, I got it detailed and tinted the windows.

In general, parts for a 20+ year old VW are pretty cheap. It's kind of funny because I think back to high school when friends would buy a VW bug for $500 and you could replace a whole fender for less than $100 and pretty much any part was $50-100 on a bug. An entire new Bilstein suspension for all four corners of this Jetta was $250 total. The entire new exhaust in rust-proof stainless steel was just over $200. It's wild, but old VW parts still remain relatively cheap in this day and age.

I've been driving it for the past few weeks to run occasional errands and what's weird about a 22 year old car is that it came from the factory with around 90 horsepower. All my current newer cars are larger, heavier, have tons of crash protection, more airbags, and have engines in the 200-500hp range. I forgot what driving a <100hp car was like, and whenever it struggles to climb a long hill I can't tell if the turbo is on the fritz or if it's just the tiny engine. I'm not looking forward to crossing the Rockies in Colorado in a couple days, but I'll take my time and struggle along with the other diesels in the slow lane over the passes.

My plan is to drive about 8-10 hours a day for the next 3-4 days and fly home after. I think I'll get to Indiana by Thursday or so but who knows. The longest road trip I've taken was about 1,200mi each way, but going 2,500mi in one direction is going to be a new milestone for me.

2,500 miles is a lot and it sounds like enough to cross the entire country but in my mind Indiana still feels like the "middle" of the country. I kind of wish I was going all the way to the Atlantic Ocean for as long as this is going to take. I'll be sticking mostly to interstates but I'm hoping to find cool things to do and places to check out. I'm going to hit at least a couple states I've never visited before so I'm looking forward to seeing things I haven't experienced in person like the St. Louis Gateway Arch.

I plan to post nightly updates here and photos from the trip as new blog posts. I'm heading out in the morning and hoping to make it to Idaho or Utah by tomorrow night, but I haven't packed or planned much, relying on Google Maps mostly to lead the way. I have AAA if all goes horribly wrong. My hope is that the trip is generally uneventful, but I'll keep everyone posted on how it's going.

Onwards! To Day 1's recap.