Abandoned roads - Jos Lammers

huge dusty parking lots alongside. Five motels, ranging
from our Sleepy Hollow (‘clean – refrigair – TV’) to the
Budget Inn Motel (’God bless you – free internet’) right
across, Mexican Food To Eat In And Take Out, Harry’s
Bar (Butch Cassidy’s favorite hangout), the post office
with the stars and stripes on top and a number of gas
stations. Our Chevy eagerly slurps it in, because all that
work requires food. And work he does. If you accidentally
forget to put your foot on the brake, Chevy simply refuses
to be put in gear. Doing it his way he immediately locks
the doors, dims the interior lights, checks the light outside
and adjusts the exterior lights accordingly, tells you
whether the trunk is closed and reports an unbuckled
belt. Inexperienced with thinking cars as we are, getting
along requires some habituation. Like at first Chevy
refused to unlock his doors. The drivers door sure, but
the rest stayed locked. When in growing astonishment
we pushed some buttons on the key ring, the solution
had to be hidden there, he angrily started honking and
then started his own engine while we were still standing
on the 7-eleven doorstep with our bottles of water
and fresh buns. It was now completely clear who was in
charge here. Only after some help from a more experienced
Chevy driver he would accept us again and even
open his doors with a cheerful bleep and a wink of his
warning lights. Even The Byrds and Dylan sound quadraphonic
through our little home, after a day of desperate
pleading with the buttons and lights of the audio station.
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