I'm real sorry to hear about your cancer diagnosis and I admire you for seeing every state in your Mirage.
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I'm real sorry to hear about your cancer diagnosis and I admire you for seeing every state in your Mirage.
I doubt Dirk has done 14,000 miles in 15 days @ high speeds. Loren's races were short bursts of speed, & he replaced an engine. In that case, it was operator error like I already mentioned.
Was Rich's Mirage pushed to its limits & failed?
A lot is being asked of small engines these days. Hopefully, they are designed to take it. It's the unknown that makes me hesitant to spend my money on them. I am not sure what my former 1.3L, 63 hp Ford Festiva could have done, but it's speedometer only went to 85 mph. Keep in mind, the speed limit was 55 mph (1974 National Speed Limit Law) when that car was sold in 1990.
I don't know how people do the drive from Ontario to Alberta. I know a bunch of people who have obviously over the years. I see an Alberta plate about often as I see a Quebec plate here in south western Ontario. Quebec too doesn't require front plates either.
Driving across Canada would be too far to drive for me. My last big road trip was Edmonton to Jasper on 16, and then my last biggie road trip before that was up to upper UP Michigan..and that was in my then-new Mirage.. driving the beginning part of Interstate 75.
Last year I also did the drive through Flint to Lansing. Highways in the States have gotten way faster. I remember everything being 55 mph in NY state in the early 00s... and you have to pay visa if you speed and get caught and they were strict back then. Now Flint is 75 MPH or something like that. Everyone barrelling down questionable roads.
That's barely a 4hr drive if you do the speed limit. The longest I've driven in a day is Edmonton to Kelowna, going through Jasper and Merrit. It's easily done in a day. Except for that one time I took my kids when they were still in diapers and there was a poop explosion on the way home.....
I see lots of Ontario plates out here. I assume if they moved here they keep the Ontario plates on til they expire then sell the car for parts cause their cars are often too rusty to pass an out of province inspection out here unless they're under 5 years old. If they came here to avoid covid they came to the wrong place lol.
The next few years if I can I will fly out to BC and see the Okanagan valley. That's what my Dad talks about 50 years later doing the drive across Canada, so must be a nice place to visit. Poop explosion eh my sisters pulled each other's hair out in their rented Winnebego trip before I was born. That's not the only thing with my sisters ugh still so much drama.
Sucks to hear about your engine failure. That's one of the few I've seen reported. Look on the bright side, though: you're getting a brand new engine for free.
Sorry about your cancer. Because of that, I suppose that the new engine is of little import in the grand scheme of things, as you are probably more concerned about time.
When my dad passed away, I can remember feeling sadness, but more than that, a great loss. I realized that my father had accumulated wisdom from life experiences over the years that could never be replaced, and the loss of that wisdom had somehow damaged us all. It was all lost, "like tears in the rain."
If you have any snippets of wisdom you feel are particularly important that you would like to share and be preserved in the community consciousness, please feel free to post them here. I'm sure it would be of benefit to us all.