Tag-Archive for » vehicles «
I remember years ago, when visiting DisneyWorld in Florida, an essential part of the holiday was getting a hire car for getting to and from your place of residence to the parks.
Each day you would drive to your park of choice, pay into the car park and have to park miles away from the entrance gate. Then you’d have to wait on the little road-train to take you to the gate, not forgetting of course to remember where where you parked your car.
At the end of the day, you’d queue again for your little road-train (like you hadn’t queued enough already) to get back to your car and head back home. Then you’d do it all again the next day, for a different park.
But there is another way, as we found on our recent trip.
I saw a sight last night I haven’t seen for what must be over 20-odd years. Driving down the road, I saw a small group of children dragging a home made bogey up a hill by the steering-string. I have to say, the sight of it really took me back to my childhood. And yes, deep down inside, I really wanted a shot of it.
Now, for those of you that are not familiar with the term ‘bogey’, I am referring to what we in the West of Scotland called a home made death-trap of a vehicle. Folks from other geographies may variously describe it as a ‘guider’, ‘trolley’, ‘kart’, ‘soap-box cart’, ‘mini-kart’, ‘box-car’ and probably many other terms.
The idea was simple, you made your bogey out of whatever pieces of scrap you could find, then you found the steepest hill closest to where you lived and you hurled yourself down said incline, atop your home made death-trap. Making it to the bottom of the hill was a triumph. Making it to the bottom uninjured was a miracle.
Following a bit of an altercation on the M8 motorway last week, I had the joy of being issued with a courtesy car by my insurers.
I fully expected that I wouldn’t be getting temporary wheels of the standard I had been used to, but what transpired is just a bit beyond a joke. Well, clearly it is not beyond a joke since everyone is openly enjoying the fact I am having to drive the automotive equivalent of a roller-skate.
On my drive home last night, in the dark, pretty much on automatic pilot, I noticed I was following a truck with an unusual load. It was transporting a boat.
The Randan 2 wasn’t a huge boat, but big enough to require a flat-bed articulated lorry.
I’ve seen trucks carrying boats before, but never gave them a second glance. Being stuck behind one in the rain made me think of how out of place it really was up there, towering over me in my car.