Took the Mercedes out for a long drive up into Pennsylvania and around and back, in anticipation of the coming snow and ice that might make it impossible to drive it for a while. Since I had the DEF tank heater fixed and several tire valves that wouldn’t hold air when the temperatures dipped replaced, the car is back to not caring how cold it gets, and it’s a pleasure to just hop in and drive. If I wander far enough there are always some roads I haven’t yet explored to detour off from all the roads I have. I was particularly pleased to see an ice cream stand where I was treated rudely some years ago gone now. I figured I wasn’t the only one. Treat your customers right and they’ll come back.

When I started out it was all warm-sh, bright and sunshiny. By the time I got home it was all grey and and a bone chilling cold was settling in. So good thing I took the opportunity when I did. The car is still a pure pleasure to drive and wander around in. You can stop showing me ads for new cars now Facebook. This marriage has been saved.

Which is good…because…

Prince Philip ‘voluntarily’ gives up driving following car crash

London (CNN)The Duke of Edinburgh has surrendered his driving license, Buckingham Palace announced Saturday, weeks after the 97-year-old was involved in a car crash that left a female driver injured.

“After careful consideration The Duke of Edinburgh has taken the decision to voluntarily surrender his driving licence,” the palace said in a statement.

I know this day will come for me eventually if I live long enough. And when it does I’ll give it up without a fight. Hopefully I’ll still have the wherewithal to take the train to places I want to visit, or to fly or take a cruise ship if I want to go overseas. But it won’t be the same. I could not begin to tell you all the things I’ve discovered unexpectedly while on the road. Wagon wheel ruts from the old Santa Fe trail, the spot of the Sand Creek massacre…I could bore you for hours with all that I’ve seen that I never would have, thanks to the automobile. I began my love affair with the open road when I was a teenage boy the day I got my driver’s license. John Steinbeck put it into me when I was 14 and read Travels With Charley. I couldn’t thank him enough. Within a year of buying my first car, a 1973 FOrd Pinto, I’d explored almost all of Montgomery Country Maryland, and the following year I’d taken my first cross-country road trip in it with a couple of classmates in a Dodge Van we’d worked on converting into a camper. My little Pinto went up the highest paved asphalt road in the world in Rocky Mountain National Park, drove through Monument Valley to the Grand Canyon, and alone I went all the way to California to visit family and back. It’s a memory I still take intense pleasure in recalling. When the day comes that I can no longer safely drive it’ll feel like my life is over.

So until then, I’m going to keep wandering the road, to see what it might show me, and for the pure pleasure of driving. I’m 65 and I might not have it much longer. Already I’m finding myself taking the train more often, when driving to a destination isn’t going to be fun anymore, or the weather looks sketchy. If this country put more effort into its passenger rail infrastructure I might not feel such despair at the thought of giving up my driver’s license.