Like the Track, Life Has Hairpin Turns, Too

It has been over 2 months since I last posted anything here, but I have good reasons: sometimes life just gets in the way of everything else.  And that's when you grab it by the horns and face whatever it is.  In my case it's my 92 year old Dad with a broken hip, dementia, his move to a nursing home, and all that this scenario entails.  A lot of people share this same story.  My family has been through a lot in the past 6 months.  It will get better.  And there's always good things happening somewhere:  I'm 3 months into my new job, and it's going well.

Needless to say, I haven't been driving the 911 because I haven't been home and because of the awful winter we had on the East Coast this year: cold, snow, more cold, more snow, sleet, and salty roads.   Seemed like it would never end.  But it did, and everything is blossoming in the Washington, DC area now, including everyone's allergies.

I've been driving my Fiesta ST-- and I will do a technical breakdown on that here one of these days-- to work regularly, and am loving that car.  And after a lot of thought, considering our lack of garage and driveway space, insuring and paying personal property taxes (yes this is Virginia) on 3 autos, and the fact that the 911 was going to need some pretty major service (spark plugs, battery, fluid flushes)  and probably a new water pump, I decided to sell it.

What? Sell the car I love so much and have written extensively about?  Yes, it was the right thing to do right now.  And the timing was perfect.  It's spring: everyone is itching to drive their sports cars after the long winter and if they don't own, they're thinking about buying one.  That's where I was exactly a year ago and I ended up with the 911.   It's been great and I have no regrets, but it was time to make some changes.

So I put it on eBay a couple weeks ago, and watched the bidding begin.  As with the BMW, offered lots of pictures and was honest about it and the few chips and blemishes it had, which were minor.  The 911 got 341 views and 36 bids, but the bidders didn't make the reserve I had set for it by $1000.00.  Things worked out anyway.  A watcher emailed me and we talked on the phone, and worked out an agreeable price.  He really wanted my car and called me 4 times in 2 days to make sure we were still on track.  We had the guys over at Intersport Autos in Vienna, VA do an inspection (the buyer paid for it of course), and all checked out pretty well.  I liked working with Omar and Tony at Intersport.  They were knowledgeable and wow- what an inventory of cars they have!  I'm going back to gawk. 

My transaction with the buyer went lightning fast and he was great to work with.   He wired me the money and after I confirmed that with my bank I FedEx-ed him the title.  I cleaned all my stuff out of the car, loaded the manuals and touch up paint in the trunk, and got the 2 keys together.  The buyer had an auto carrier at my house the next day and off went the 911 to somewhere in the Midwest.  They're getting a nice car.  

Off come the plates

A beautiful spring day

Off it goes

Sure, I'm a little sad about selling the Carrera, but the time may come when I'm ready to get a new one, and may even upgrade to a Turbo.  Life needs to settle down a little, and it will.  In the meantime am having a blast with the ST.  Tomorrow I'm driving it to New York for its first long road trip.  Should be fun!