Meet "Bertha"

I'd like to introduce you to 'Bertha' - my oh so trusty 1993 Ford Escort.  We have shared life with Bertha for almost 18 years.  At this time her odometer tells of 220,200 miles that we have ridden together.  In fact, her odometer isn't even set up to show that first 100,000 mile digit.

We first bought Bertha (brand new) in Atlanta, Georgia and she spent almost ten years battling Atlanta freeways (not an easy task), taking us into Georgia mountains and on back road byways.  She was my dutiful craft show hauler - easily accepting boxes of primitive and art dolls plus all their props.  From Atlanta we moved into northwest Georgia where Bertha helped us build a house - carrying many of the essentials we needed to complete the task.  From there she was our backwoods vehicle, manuevering the country dirt roads with finesse.

Six years ago we moved here to North Carolina.  Oh you should have seen her loaded to the ceiling with 'stuff' for our final trip north.  Along the way we've had other new cars but Bertha has become pretty much strictly mine.  She is a stick shift which I love to drive. These days Bertha and I casually downshift and manuever the winding roads here in western North Carolina cheering each other on.  She carries me to town for groceries, she takes me into South Carolina for bead shopping and she is a very good 'junque' shopping car since she has so much room in the back.  However she is getting stiffer (as am I) and I'm afraid that one day in the not too distant future she will have to be completely retired -- but for now she is my dear old friend (still getting 30 miles to the gallon by the way) and as long as we can we'll be highway and byway friends.

"It takes a long time to grow an old friend". - John Leonard