3 Guys and an Old Bimmer

In April 2003, I was looking for a 1981-1983 BMW 320is, and I found one on eBay in San Jose, CA. I was headed on spring break and would be driving when the auction would conclude. So I called my brother and put him on the bidding.

The first Bimmer I ever rode in was a 1978 BMW 320i, purchased new by my brother in Germany while he was serving our country there. I visited him in the summer of 1979 shortly after he had picked up his new car. At that moment I knew I loved the BMW brand. I had already owned a couple by the time 2003 rolled around. I wanted to find another one…and I wanted the purchase to be paired with an epic driving trip.

So when a Bimmer in San Jose in April came up for sale, I was all in—knowing a drive from California back to Ohio would be perfect. Needless to say, I won the auction with my brothers help. I had asked the owner if he could hold the car until the summer when I could make the trip, and he graciously agreed.

My first invites for the trip went to my brother and to my 74-year-old dad. Dad was a retired truck driver and had never made it to California in his 40 years of big rig drving, though he got close with drives to Arizona and Nevada. I thought this will be great, a trip with two men I greatly admire. Ultimately, my brother could not go along as his son was born that April. So my mind turned to the one guy who I knew would be up for the adventure: my friend. My friend John Casella. John and I had met at a men’s outing in 1999. John was quick to say yes, after confirming with his family. My dad, who I initially feared might have second thoughts, also confirmed.

We left Louisville on a flight to San Jose in July of 2003. Soon after arriving there, we met the seller—a very nice man who had the car washed and ready for us. We took a few pictures, checked the car over and headed out. We did notice the tires were very worn out—almost slicks but not quite. So we made our way to a tire shop, but it did not have the 13-inch tires in stock. So we made the decision to hit the road. Our plan was to make our way up the east side of San Francisco, but we got turned around: No GPS in those days (well, at least we didn’t have one). Oddly, we did not even take a paper map! We were three guys—including a former big-rig driver—who knew their way around; what could go wrong? Remember that for later in the story.

So instead of going up the east side of San Francisco, we ended up on the west side…and in stop-and-go traffic for several hours. Oh, I forgot to mention that we were headed to Sacramento to pick up US50, because that was all part of the experience—no interstates, at least not through CA, NV, UT and CO. Well, we finally made it to Sacramento, grabbed dinner and drove through Lake Tahoe that night. We had not really planned on spending the night in a motel, but we decided on this first night to do just that. The next morning, dad said, “Boys, we are heading home, no more sleeping in motels.” Now that was the truck driver I remembered from the 70’s and 80’s. We headed out of Lake Tahoe on what we thought was route 50, and in about two hours, we happened into a town. We did not notice any signs. We saw a guy painting a building and stopped and asked, “Where are we?” “Reno,” he replied.

“Reno? Just how far off track are we?,” we wondered. We decided at that moment that we needed a map. So we bought an atlas at a bookstore.  I remember when my dad bought his last new truck, they gave him an atlas. I recall as a young boy, always looking at the map, measuring the distance by hand and dreaming of road trips. Welll, there I was, road tripping. The only thing missing was my brother.

With the help of the atlas, we found our way back to Route 50 and begin our trek home on that Friday morning.

More of my story later…