The Official Roller Coaster Tour Vehicle Is?

I’m not sure yet. And tour begins tomorrow. :)

In my quest to find a car to drive these 13,000 miles I looked at my options as far as silly cars, but nothing came up. I directed my search to cars that would simply be comfortable to drive. I found a few.

And I bought one last Thursday. There were two known things wrong with it. The driver’s side door lock needed to be replaced and it needed new tires. All told, ~$800 in costs. The guy I bought it from got a job in NYC and needed to get rid of his car soon. I offered him $500 below blue book minus the $800 in known repairs. So far that car has cost me an extra $934 in unforseen repairs beyond the $800 in known repairs. First, the AC went out the first full day I had it. $350. Then I started having problems with the ignition cylinder (the key would get stuck; I also had this problem in a 1989 Grand Prix I owned in high school), along with an electrical problem caused by the aftermarket stereo that used to be in the car. $584. And just like that my pretty good deal turned into not a good deal at all.

Needless to say, it’s been stressful, and I’m apprehensive about this ride.

Today will be my first full day driving the car since it has been in shops all week. Tour begins tomorrow in Muskegon, MI. Assuming everything goes well today and tomorrow, I will continue on with this car. If not, I’ll drive a couple hundred miles out of my way and exchange it with my Dad’s car. He’ll drive the problem car (he only needs it for ~20 miles/day) and I’ll drive his old Grand Prix.

Assuming all is well I can probably sell the car for the blue book value when I get back. When I had a mechanic check it out he said it was mechanically sound and I got a great deal (ha!). It feels great driving and it has low mileage for a 2000 model year. Who knew a bunch of stuff would go wrong immediately after buying?

With that all said, I’m not going to announce what kind of car I’m driving because I don’t really know for sure yet. And the car I bought, well, it’s just a regular car. Nothing outlandish or fun. Just something that fits my 6’5″ frame and drives well.

On another, much happier, note: I got awesome tour T-shirts made! They’re modeled after band tour shirts. But they won’t be for sale here. I’ll be wearing them at the parks, which will hopefully get me some kind of benefits. At the very least, people will probably open up conversations with me while I’m walking around or waiting in lines.