Wife in the Dash: Beauty and the Beast
Needing to run a few errands the other day and being blessed with some beautiful spring weather I hopped into my old friend, the Green Monster, our 2007 Jeep Wrangler. It had been a while since I’d driven her, but Jim had just dropped the top and taken off the doors so the invitation to jump in was a little too irresistible. I climbed in, a little farther climb than I remembered, and fired her up. She rumbled to life with a deep, solid roar and a smile spread across my face. I love that sound–that deep rumble from the belly of the beast that reverberates through the neighborhood and announces our arrival. She is a beast to drive on the highway, with 35’s that tend to wander, and an accelerator that is a bit soft in traffic, but she is a master at what she was created to do–run trails. I can tolerate the less than perfect road conditions as she allows me to “speed” down the highway and let the wind drown out the world around me. She is a bit rough around the edges now, but I love her.
I still remember the day we got her. Jim and I had been married for a couple of years and were brand new expecting parents. We had decided that Jim’s massive Ford with over-the- top everything just wasn’t practical for a family with a baby and Jeep had just released their brand new 4-door model. It was like manna from Heaven. I had always wanted a Jeep, and Jim couldn’t resist the idea of a project so it didn’t take much convincing to get him to make the trade. We ordered her brand new. I don’t remember how long we had to wait for delivery, but it seemed an eternity at the time. As Jim and I worked completely opposite schedules back then, it was easy for him to surprise me. I was in the living room of our old house when I saw him pull into the drive. Completely forgetting that I was but a few months pregnant I started jumping up and down like a little kid unable to contain my excitement. We immediately dropped the top and took her for her maiden spin together.
It wasn’t long after that day when Jim came home from work with an invitation from a friend to join their family for a summer trip to Colorado to run the Jeep trails there. Mountains? Cooler temperatures? Camping? That sounded like heaven to me, so we didn’t even hesitate to say yes. That trip was magical–and life-changing. We grabbed our good friends, a four-man tent and not even close to enough gear and headed out for the time of our lives. For most of that trip we were wet, cold, and slightly miserable, but knew instantly that this wouldn’t be our last. We were hooked for life.
Over the next several years, we filled those seats and just kept right on going. From adventures in the mountains to evening rides around the neighborhood,
The Monster has served as our entertainment for 15 years now. Like the rest of us, she has put on a few pounds. Jim has added, and added, and added until she hardly resembles the girl I once knew. I give him a hard time about all the “toys”, the winches, snorkels,
et al, but just between you and me–I love it! I guess I have just enough country girl in me to appreciate a big, cumbersome and, ironically, completely impractical ride. We’ve had so many memorable moments in the Monster. She has taken us to the most amazing places and is still willing to eck out another if asked. Although she is being replaced for this trip by the newer, sleeker “beauty” of “GC”, there will always be a place in my life for the “beast.” We will be letting her rest over the next year and she deserves it, but I sure am going to miss her. We will enjoy the smooth, quiet ride of the Grand Cherokee, but I’ll always appreciate the rugged, the tough, the not-quite-perfect workhorse that holds some of my most treasured memories.
❤️