Oh, you are getting off work early today? I’ve got an idea: let’s drive our new car out somewhere to help break it in. Hmmm, where should we go? How about we go get a steak? Sounds like a plan. Do you think we can make it? Depends on how many stops we make between here and there.

Up north of Flagstaff, it never seems to fail that we see some of the most amazing sunsets and cloud formations.

So, I mentioned a new car. After months and endless loaner cars, the Beetle bit the dust. It will be the last German car we’ll ever own in the United States. We paid $7,000 for a new engine, and before we reached the next corner, the check engine light came on. This is how the next nearly two months played out. The kick in the ass is that Volkswagen had our car at 95,000 miles for a final inspection before the car hit 100,000 miles, and the warranty ran out. VW recommends that the timing belt be changed at 100,000 miles, but we were only at 95,000, and we didn’t specifically request them to change the belt at what we thought was our 100,000-mile check-up. At 107,000 miles, the timing belt slipped and destroyed the engine. Too bad as it was on our onus to ensure we were in compliance with their policies. After half a dozen more times at the dealer, we drove the Beetle over to a Hyundai dealer just to consider a trade-in. The car died again. So we traded it right then and there with a horrible loss that was fortunately rolled into our purchase; that’s right, no more leasing for us and no more Volkswagen or the dealer we leased from.

Steaks are on the grill, cooking up over the burning mesquite. The cowboy cooking our dinner has been our cook before, and that swinging grill in front of him is just a small part of the magic that keeps dragging us up to Mexican Hat, Utah. Being in the Valley of the Gods just north of Monument Valley is another part of the allure. Caroline has a beer, and her veggie patty is getting the same treatment as my hunk of cow flesh as we chill out under the Milky Way on a seldom-traveled road, enjoying the beginning of our mini-vacation. BTW we are at the Mexican Hat Lodge again.