A Small Car …

My Honda Pilot, the vehicle that got me to and back from northern Illinois 17 times this year, has died.

It gave up the ghost as a mechanic was looking at the vehicle's rear gasket while checking a major oil leak. I guess I'd die, too, in that predicament. A stranger poking around your rear while you're hoisted up on a rack is probably not the most dignified thing.

The mechanic had put two other gaskets in the Honda earlier in an attempt to stop the gush of oil, but it continued on. The Honda bravely took me on one last trek after that first costly repair — a late night trip to the train station some 30 miles from here to pick up Holly, my Illinois girl — before blinking on the Check Engine Light and then lapsing into a coma. Her return trip here was delayed a day and I was afraid the Honda would conk out before I could get her home. It didn't, although the oil light came on and the Check Engine Light began flickering that night, foreshadowing its demise.

Maybe I could have put in a new rear gasket, but the transmission was going fast, the brakes were bad and it was simply time to get another car. The expenses of repairing a car with over 180,000 miles was high. I had the Honda for eight years and it served its purpose. It will be missed.

Its last voyage was to limp to the Honda dealership in my town. I bought the Pilot eight years ago under similar circumstances. I had just bought an Izusu Trooper that September 2008 and was headed to cover a news story about 50 miles from home. The remnants of some hurricane blew into northern Arkansas then, toppling trees and smashing homes. There was one fatality and I was headed to the destruction.

The Trooper threw a rod in Weiner, Ark., 30 miles from my home, which, when looking back, is kind of ironic. I mean, “rod” and “Weiner” in the same sentence is somewhat appropriate, I guess. But I digress. I had the car towed, and later Honda took it in as a trade on the Pilot. I got a great deal on the Pilot, but in the trade, I lost the second CD of The Tragically Hip's double album “Yer Favourites,” which was apparently still in the CD player when I switched cars.

Flash forward eight years and the Pilot sat outside the same dealership while Holly and I agreed to six more years of car payments. I bought a 2016 Nissan Versa, a small, 4-cylinder car with great gas mileage.

It's not the Honda; it sits pretty low and it takes a while to get up to speed. And it's a tiny car. And I'm a fat guy. Watching me crawl out of the car is like watching a rhinoceros giving birth on one of those National Geographic Channel shows.

But the Nissan is easy to handle, it's got a good CD player and because the car is so small inside, it's easy to warm up when the heater kicks in. We're hoping to hit the road and head back to northern Illinois next week for a quick visit, and we'll see how the car does on the long haul. I am sure it will cost less in gas money to make the 547-mile trip there than it did with the Honda.

It's taking some getting used to, though. When we come out of the grocery store, we instinctively look for a white SUV at first, rather than a small grey car. I do have a thing on the key, when pressed, it makes the headlights come on. I do that so I don't look so stupid forgetting which car I have.

And loading the groceries is different. We used to toss 'em in the back of the Honda and then, routinely, I'd complain when the bottles of tea escaped from the bags and rolled around in the back as we drove home. Now, the groceries either sit in the back seat or in the trunk. The tea bottles roll no more.

But life rolls on and everything takes getting used to. And those car payments will take some getting used to. I had paid off that Honda a few years ago. Maybe I can sell video of me getting out of the Nissan to the National Geographic Channel or Animal Planet.