David Kennard: Safe travels this holiday season | Robesonian

The good news is I’m alive today to tell the tale. The bad news is one of my favorite vehicles is long dead and gone.

The good news is gas prices in Robeson County are still among the lowest in the country. The bad news is winter is coming.

Back in my early 20s I bought a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle, and it quickly became my most favorite car of all time.

I loved tinkering with that antique and within a couple of months I had it running strong and looking cool – well as cool as a 1963 Volkswagen Beetle can look. In the mid-1980s I took it to college, which — by the mere fact that I owned a car — quickly made me one of the most popular kids on campus.

That fall semester, a good friend decided it would be a swell idea to invite a bunch of us to her home for Thanksgiving — in San Diego. That 15-hour drive would take us through Las Vegas in my 1963 Volkswagen Beetle.

The next part of this tale I swear is true – and I have the photos to prove it.

It was Angela’s turn at the wheel when the lights of Las Vegas began twinkling far in the distance in front of the desert interstate. My little Beetle was cooking along just fine, sipping only drops of gas as its tiny 1,200 cc engine motored us into Las Vegas on our way to SanDiego.

It was about 1 a.m. when I woke up from the backseat and suggested we stop, get gas, buy some soft drinks and play some slots while we were in town.

Angela, bless her heart, did exactly that, making a swift right hand lane change onto the cloverleaf exit doing about 60 miles per hour. Before I realized it, Angela, Missy and I — yes, I was traveling cross country with two girls — found ourselves skidding sideways then airborne and finally sliding to a stop upside down on the gravel embankment.

Then, like a scene from a “Herbie the Love Bug” movie, my little banged up car made kind of a creaking noise and rolled back onto all four wheels.

Police cars, fire engines and an ambulance were on us before we even knew what had happened.

No one was hurt, except for a small scratch on Angela’s ankle from rubbing against the brake pedal. And, of course, my beloved 1963 Volkswagen Beetle suffered near catastrophic damage. Near, I said.

After handing a traffic ticket to Angela for “Failure to maintain a lane,” the otherwise kind traffic cop gave the car the once over, helped me pull out the front fender so it wasn’t rubbing on the tire — and again, I am not making this up — said the following: “You know if you taped up the cracked windshield, you’d probably be OK to keep going.”

And so we did.

We spent the next several days surfing, eating leftovers and even taking in a show at Seaworld. And then we drove the 15-hours back to college in my 1963 Volkswagen Beetle.

I’ve had only one other vehicle that got as good of gas mileage as that old car, but it had only two wheels – a skinny story for another time.

Safe travels if the holidays find you on the road.

David Kennard is the executive editor of the Robesonian. Reach him by email at dkennard@robesonian.com.