With the car now at our house, my thinking is that I’ll get the car running and safe to drive, so that Liz and the kids can enjoy it before the summer is over. The engine is nearing completion, and really, all I need to do is drop it in and start it up…well hopefully. I had a few hours before work, so I figured I’d work on getting the engine compartment cleaned up before I dropped the engine back in; so I grabbed some simple green from Home Depot and fired up the Kartcher pressure washer. It was at this point, that all hell broke loose. Seems the last paint job wasn’t properly prepared, and the Kartcher made quick work of stripping large. random, sections of paint off.

DAMN, the kids aren’t gonna love this…

maybe they won’t notice.

Well, the guilt had finally gotten to me, and our Rapier had been parked at my parents house long enough. So, as a father’s day gesture, I offered to help my dad clean up his yard, and remove our little eye sore from his driveway. The kids and I unpacked the little rapier from it’s blue tarp wrapping and collected all the loose bits for transport.

I borrowed a trailer from work, and during our lunch break, a co-worker and I made a mad dash to my folks house to retrieve the car. The move was fairly uneventful aside from almost loosing the front grill. thanks to Louis and his cat like reflexes, we were able to save the grill before rolling over it with the trailer. That would have been a real drag…. With the car now home, we were off to El Calor for some tortas and horchata. YUM!

While in Moab a few weeks prior, Lane and I had schemed up a plan that was contingent upon when his dad could deliver the car. In his email, Lane stated the delivery would be just before Christmas, so our plan was, if the car got there before Christmas, I would surprise Liz with it. I mean really, who wouldn’t want a car for Christmas…? Well as luck would have it, the car was delivered with 1 week to spare.
So my plan was this, Lane would email me saying his dad sold the car, then on Christmas day I would surprise Liz with it. Later that evening we received this email:

Hey marc,

I talked to my dad, and He told me that he may possibly be selling the car to someone else. the reason I’m saying this is because theres a guy that has been kinda going  back and fourth on buying for the last few months. In the end it would just be easier not to have to transport it down here to Ut from spokane if he does end up having a local buyer. Ill talk to him more this weekend when I go up there for the holidays, and I’ll let him know how bad Liz really wants it. I’ll let you know a definite answer on wed of next week.   Thanks Alot

CYA  LANE

The ball was in motion, and now I just needed to make sure Liz saw the email before I did.

I got a call from Lane mid afternoon saying that his dad would be driving through SLC around 7pm and that he would have the car in tow. We made plans to meet at my parents house and hide the car in their garage.  Around 7, my buddy Devin and I met Lane and his dad at my parents house for the “delivery”.

My innitial response was that the car was in fair shape, but needed a bit more work than had been stated. In Lanes defense, i dont think he had seen the car in a while, and from what I could tell, the car had been sitting for a fair length of time.

Off the trailer and into the garage.

The day after Thanksgiving, I receive an email from Lane:

Dad said if you will paypal him the 300 for transport costs… then he can get the rest from you when he delivers it, It looks like maybe the week before christmas if that works…  Cya man  LANE…

P>S IM stoked for moab, You wanna meet in SLC fri morning at 900 to head down to moab

Lane and I, along with a few friends, had been planning a 4 wheeling trip down to Moab for the following weekend. I knew we would have time to sort out the details then, but there was something in his email that gave me an idea. After talking with Liz, I sent $300 via paypal to his dad.