"ADIAK the Orange"

"A(erobic) D(ancing) I(s) A K(ick) the Orange" was my first personal transport vehicle.  This 1976 Chevrolet Vega was originally my mother's car and was named for the sticker that adorned its rear bumper.  I began driving it when I turned 16 in 1986.

This small subcompact manual steering and brake tank of a car started to vibrate violently (steering wheel and car) once you hit about 60mph (of course I hit speeds well beyond this) and, if you wanted to stop it, you would have to put your foot through the floorboards to do so.

It conveyed me on many adventures.  One of the most infamous being a journey to "The Wall".  For any of those who made a trip to "The Wall" in the late '80s know that it was (and maybe still is) a perilously long and bumpy ride.  One filled with rocky craters that could swallow an unsuspecting small car.

One fateful evening, M Scott McConnell, Jackey Dickey (later McConnell), an unnamed 3rd person, and I made this journey.  It's a night that none of us will ever forget.  It seemed to take an eternity.  The small "ADIAK the Orange" was weighed down so much by the four passengers that it barely cleared the ground.  Our average speed was about 5mph as we scraped our way to our destination and back.  "ADIAK the Orange" and we survived but neither the car or us would ever be same again!

When I went to Indiana University of Pennsylvania in Fall 1988, I left "ADIAK the Orange" behind and began my new adventures with "The Charger" but that's a blog post for another day.

RIP "ADIAK the Orange"!