We were worried that we, er I, had done irreparable damage to the Beetle but once that diesel was out of it and running on “petrol,” as we Aussies say,  we were “good to go,” as you Americans say.  Kaz said that we would one day think of this incident, this ‘Diesel Incident’, and laugh while retelling it, well I guess my writing it down is testimony to that.  At the time however I just felt dumb.  We drove on out to the 95 freeway and had no sooner settled into it than our friend calls us.  Have you left yet? Where are you? How bad was the car?  Did they fix it? Did you pay for it? Is it running again? Where are you now?  When will you arrive in MD?  My wife patiently listened to the cell phone and then replied calmly, “Yes, I-95, not, yes, yes, yes, I-95 still, 4 hours,” and her friend was satisfied, so she said she would spend the day shopping and meet us at a designated mall in MD.

That morning we had walked about a half mile to a restaurant and bought breakfast before the car was ready and my wife has this thing for Dunkin’ Donuts and I gathered that as soon as we hit the 95 we would probably be stopping again to partake of a Dunkin’ coffee and some donuts.  True to form, we had not been driving an hour when we spot a Dunkin Donuts sign and true to form, almost as if the car drove itself we exited and parked in front of a donut shop.  Now, I am kind of old fashioned when it comes to Dough Nuts and if you buy them in Australia they are cooked fresh right in front of you and the girl sprinkles cinnamon only on them, then you eat them, mmm delicious.  In America, well maybe only North Carolina they have this Krispy Kreme company that makes Donuts that would be quite alright, except that they cover them with this glaced sugar cream monstrosity that adds about 5,000,000 calories to them.  This is not to mention the donuts that have chocolate sugary cream coverings on them.  Dunkin donuts make their own donuts but they are much the same with coverings.

I go into this store and the girl says, “Good morning, what would you like?” so I say I just want a small coffee and a dough nut.  Well she starts with, “Yes sir, but what kind of donut would you like?”  I look at her and shake my head.

“I don’t know,” I said, “A dough nut, ah, one with a hole in it, oh yeah, and one without all the creamy crap on it, just a plain simple dough nut.”

“Oh,” She said, “We don’t have any of those,” and she tries to suppress a laugh. My wife came to the rescue, “Yes you do,” she points out, “he wants one of the ‘old fashioned’ donuts there.”  So the girl smiles and yells out to the guys cooking in the back, “Hey, we need more old fashioned type donuts, someone actually bought that one that’s been there for a couple of days.”  I looked at my wife and she smiled her ‘Welcome to America’ smile and we took our coffee and food outside.  After we had consumed coffee enough to revive and hype us up for the drive, we set out on the 95 road again but not before taking snapshots of each other with the beetle for posterity.  

I am not without experience at driving through Virginia and there is a bridge over the James River which is so high that when I drove over it in 2005, I had tingles of vertigo.  I almost expected to turn the windshield wipers on as I expected to drive through the clouds.  I had never been so high and not been in an aircraft. So I nonchalantly suggested to my unsuspecting wife that we do like tourists and take the I-295 bypass around Richmond when we get there.  I made my case with mention of the beautiful scenery of Southern Virginia and the James River etcetera etcetera.  So the question came back,    “Why, is Richmond a bit of a headache to drive through on Fridays?”

“Why, no not at all, there’s just a bridge I want to drive over, it is the highest bridge I ever drove over and you’ll love it,” I calmly replied.

“No!” was the abrupt reply, so I tried a different tack.

“Come on dear, you’ll love it, it’s like a Roller Coaster ride at the fair.”

“I hate Roller Coasters!  Do you want my breakfast all over you?”

“Er nuh.”

 “Well we won’t go over the bridge.”  I resolved myself to taking the flat path through Richmond. 

“Ok dear, maybe on the return trip eh, we’ll have a younger Beetle to drive back with, you’ll feel better about that then.”

 “Let’s see,” she said, “This beetle is 35 years old, and the new beetle will be 34 years old, that certainly engenders confidence, I don’t think so.”  She sang the last 4 words, which sort of gave a finality to that idea.  I thought this was strange as she normally hates anything to do with numbers but she worked out the ages of the cars with no trouble.  Maybe she can do math but she has to be adamant and put her foot down to do it.  So anyway, we drove along 95 and I was able to point out the headquarters of the big cigarette manufacturer, and a clock tower that the 95 passed right next to above downtown Richmond, yes, pretty boring, now that I recall.  

We in Australia have seen many representations of hillbillies and mostly they are toothless, guys dressed in coveralls and girls in cutoff jeans and shirts tied just under the boobs.  Now I consider myself a fairly intelligent guy and I realized that these representations were just stereotypes for comedic reasons and people didn’t really dress like Jethro Beaudine, and Betty Boop.  Anyway the journey continued and we pulled into a Maccas (McDonalds) in Southern VA and behind us in line there came a family that had me staring agape.  They looked like they’d just stepped out of the Beverly Hillbillies.  The men had coveralls and boots and the two teenage girls, blondes of course, blue jeans that were cut off so high that, well I’m married so I can’t think of that, and their yes, checkered shirts, were tied  off under their ample bosoms, leaving a bare expanse of belly open to the breeze.  My wife kicked me secretly and whispered a terse “Stop staring at the hillbillies!”

“Oh,” I whispered back, “so they aren’t misrepresented in films and TV, they’re caricatures are fairly accurate by the looks.”

“Yes dear,” she said gruffly, “And I’m sure your only interest is anthropological.”  

“Of course dear, you know me so well.”

The next few hours of the trip went fairly smoothly with just pit stops for nature calls and leg stretches.  As we were nearing Washington I decided that I had better prepare Kaz for the harrowing experience that she was about to have.  We took the 95 to where it peels off onto I-395, and I told her, “Then you have to make sure you get onto I-495 beltway cuz 395 takes you into Washington, and you don’t want to go there on Friday at rush hour.”  So I was finding the signs and telling kaz what side of the 4 lanes to get on, and I pointed up at the green exit signs, “Look that’s exit 54, now we want Exit 47A, it goes to route 7 ok, so stay in this lane.” We were on the far right lane looking pretty, or so I thought.  Then all of a sudden we start to branch off again onto I-66, dang I thought, I forgot about this thingo, “Quick,” I said, “Get over onto the left, we don’t want this exit.”  Kaz was very gracious and calmly indicated and moved across the road.  I think that everyone just stayed out of our way because it was a classic beetle that was so beat up that we had nothing to lose.  On the other hand they might have thought we were hippies who wouldn’t be able to pay for insurance anyway.  In any case we made it to the left with no problems, but no sooner had Kaz settled into the left lane than we were almost on another exit called Braddock Rd and I tell her again, “Quick over to the right again!” then I play dumb, like “Dang I don’t remember I-66 being there, wow the things you forget.”      Now there’s something unique to Washington Beltway signs, or maybe it’s not unique, I  just haven’t taken notice of it before.  Every couple hundred yards there is an exit sign, but they aren’t different exits, they are all the same exit.  You’re driving along and you see an exit sign and you think ahh, there it is, exit 47, that’s the one I want, and you get ready to pull off the freeway, then as you near it says 1 mile, then a little further it says Exit 47, 5/8 mile, then a little further it says Exit 47, ½ mile, then ¼ mile, and then you think, at last it must be next but no there’s another sign Exit 47, 200 yards.  Imagine that this sequence of signs happens for every exit along the beltway and you’ll have an idea what it’s like.  I was so happy when I could tell Kaz, “Exit now, now, this is it, take the ramp up to Highway 7, the Leesburg Pike.”  Well we made it up onto the Highway 7 without major incident and I breathed a sigh of relief and say that now we just have to go straight to Leesburg now, and take Highway 15.  

Kaz just pulls over to the side of the road and puts her head down and she breathes long slow breaths.  She told me she just wanted to unwind from the experience of the Beltway and I put my arms around her and said a short prayer of thanks to God for delivering us from the Beltway.  About an hour later we arrive in Frederick MD where we were meeting our friend and exchanging Beetles.  We had arranged to meet at Sam’s Club in the car park, for any Australians reading here, parking lot, for any Americans.  She had told us that Sam’s Club was across the road from Sears so we were driving up Highway 87 in MD and looking for Sam’s Club or Sears and we couldn’t see them anywhere, dang!  After about a couple miles of shopping malls I spotted Sears, “There it is, Sears is there.” And we looked on the other side of the road expecting a Sam’s but there was none at all, there was a shopping mall there but not Sam’s.  

“I know, just drive into Sears and we’ll call her.” I suggest, so we went into the parking lot at Sears and called.  They said they were at Sam’s Club across the road.  Well we nearly lost it at that stage because we could not see a Sam’s anywhere, and we asked them to come to us since they knew their way around so well.  They couldn’t because they had already emptied the contents of their beetle in expectation of our arrival.  We drove out of Sears again.

“Do you see a Sam’s Club?  She said it is on the right, and to turn left at the light.” We didn’t see anything and we drove back down 87 the way we had come and we had to go about a mile before we could do a U turn and come back.  Finally we got to the lights where we had turned left and decided to try going straight through, tah dah!  

We had found the elusive Sam’s Club.  There were no recriminations as everyone was so glad to do this swap before dark and go home again.  After we had loaded up everything our friend looked at my wife seriously and shook her finger, saying, “And remember grasshopper, No diesel, only gasoline.”  To which Kaz replied.

“Yeh yeh, yada yada yada, I know, don’t rub it in.”

“And one other thing, the car shimmies at around 55 mph and stops at 60.”  So I pipe in with, “Oh that’s probably just wheel balancing.”  Then she adds,

“Oh yes, you have to adjust the idle arm as it dies when you stop at the lights.”  Now that is a simple enough job to do, why didn’t she do that herself, she had the car all day after all.  So I say, “No worries, we’ll drive it to Sterling VA and I’ll adjust it tomorrow morning.”  Little did I know what I was in for.

When we had been in Virginia at about 5 or so miles up highway 7 we saw a side road called Beulah Lane and I said, “Hey Kaz would you ever call your daughter Beulah?”

“No way,” she said, “but it’s a great name for my new beetle.”  We set off driving “Beulah” and she ran well until we came to a traffic light and the revs died down and the motor stopped. This continued until we came outside of Frederick and we had straight roads where we could speed up a bit.  Going back down 87 to the Potomac bridge Kaz decides to stop at a gas station and go to the rest room so I bought us a couple of coffees.  I neglected to put a cover on my cup and I didn’t think twice about it until I tried to drink from the cup as we left the gas station.  Because of the low idle, Kaz had to gun the engine so that it didn’t die at the take off.  Of course this made the car jerk into motion and of course, spill copious amounts of hot coffee all over the front of my shirt.  Kaz apologized and said “It’s Beulah’s fault because of the idle.”  Meanwhile I was wiping the coffee from my face and shirt and hair, when Kaz had to slow down to take a sharp corner then the motor started dying again so she gunned it again, causing Beulah to jump and this time I spilled the rest of the coffee all over myself.  And so with me drenched in coffee we arrived in Sterling where we were staying with a friend overnight, and we safely put Beulah to sleep for the night.