Wet Weekend: The Road Trip "To Do" List Begins

After the Rains, Columbia River Gorge, Oregon, Fall 2023 Road Trip

I picked up four white fluffy towels at the reception desk and headed for the hotel exit, self-conscious about the bundle under my arm as I made my way to the Blue Car parked out front.

At 8:45am on Saturday morning, I was part of a steady flow of Porsche owners heading from our breakfast safety briefing to our cars. It was Ramble weekend – the annual Northeast Region Porsche Club gathering that celebrates the start of the driving season. Over 200 people and 150 Porsches were in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for three days, eager to socialize, engage in some car talk, and most of all, drive 130 miles of winding country roads on Saturday morning through the valleys and mountains of the Granite State.

Why the towels? The sky was heavy with clouds and the rain was coming down steadily. And the Blue Car leaks. Badly.

I had been checking the weather app anxiously for the last week and things were looking more and more watery as the days went by. By Friday night, when we all gathered after arrival for cocktails at the Mountainview Resort, feelings in the group ranged from, “OMG it’s going to rain” (the event organizer), to “well, it has to rain sometime,” (a sage and seasoned Ramble-goer). I was more toward the “OMG” end of the spectrum. Over the previous few days, I had seriously considered not doing the drive if the rain was steady but, in the end, it seemed silly to come all that way and not participate so I said, “What the hell, I am here and I am doing this.” The towels were my low-tech answer to the problem at hand. A problem that I was now kicking myself for not dealing with sooner.

For years I never drove the car in the rain. The defrosters have never worked well and the windshield wipers can be persnickety – sometimes pausing in mid-swipe like they need a rest or maybe just want the fun of seeing me panic. More than a drizzle? The Blue stayed in the garage. So, I had no idea the extent of the Blue Car flooding problem until I was on my cross-country road trip. The Porsche gods were looking out for me during that trip; in 3-1/2 months, I had only four days of rain. But when it rained, it really rained.

The first time the skies opened up, I was in Oregon on the Historic Columbia River Highway, also known as Highway 30. This scenic drive consists of over 50 miles of narrow two-lane roadway through forests, along cliffs above the Columbia River, and past waterfalls. One afternoon, I was enjoying the winding road and the scenic views until the sky grew dark and the heavens opened. And I really mean opened. It was one of only a handful of truly scary moments on my trip. Highway 30 is a narrow road and there is no shoulder. I was past the last trail head parking area and a long way from the end of the Highway where it merges back into civilization along a main road when the rain made it nearly impossible to see out the windshield. The Blue Car’s wipers were at full speed but doing very little and I slowed to a crawl but didn’t dare stop – I had no idea of who was behind me or how fast they might be driving.

With great relief, I reached my motel about 40 minutes later. I turned off the car, grabbed my bag on the passenger seat, and looked down. The front mats were soaked and the back floor had 2” of standing water. Damn.

If I hadn’t been so surprised and upset at that moment I would have pulled the small rubber duck out of the glove box—the rubber duck that I got in a welcome packet at a motel back in Cody, Wyoming on my way to Yellowstone. It had seemed an odd gift at the time – why a rubber duck there in Cody, in a hotel room that only had a shower, no tub? That rubber duck would have been right at home in the small lake that was the back floor of the Blue Car. And the laugh would have done wonders for the serious tension in my neck and shoulders. Quack.

Because it was the Pacific Northwest, within the hour the rain stopped and the clouds cleared. I had a plastic cup in my room and started bailing water. The motel owner saw me and he and his wife came over with piles of old clean towels from their storeroom. I gratefully thanked them and got to work. The dripping mats went over the Adirondack chairs on the patio and I continued to bail until the standing water was mostly gone. Then I spread the towels through the floor and sopped up the remaining water. I rolled down the windows and moved the car to be in full sun, hoping the rest of the moisture would burn off quickly. Water is not the Blue Car’s friend.

That was the worst of the flooding incidents in the Blue Car and when the road trip was done, I promptly and conveniently put the leak to the back of my mind. Oh, I went to car shows and events and talked about the leak and asked those more knowledgeable than me about possible causes and fixes, but I have done nothing to address the problem. If I ignore it, it will go away, right?

Until Saturday.

When I reached my car in the hotel parking lot in New Hampshire, I lined the passenger floor and the area behind the front seats with the towels, decided to forget worrying, and drove. Despite the rain, the route was beautiful and there were some seriously great winding roads along the way. And when I got to lunch all the towels were soaked through. But at least there weren’t puddles of water on the floor. Puddles that would make a perfect place for that small rubber duck that now sits on my bathroom windowsill back home.

After a nice lunch and a shorter ride back to the hotel, I found myself pulling sopping towels from the car and lifting out the floor mats (because I wasn’t smart enough to take them out of the car that morning). I dried out the car as best I could while wondering, not for the first time, why did I procrastinate about fixing this for so long?

I suspect that much of my avoidance was rooted in the fear of the cost and the extent of necessary repairs (I am still fearful). Over the last year, at car events and speaking to fellow club members, speculation has ranged from a problem seal (not such a big deal) to a misaligned passenger door or hood (not such a little thing perhaps). Another reason was reluctance to lose any part of the driving season. The Blue Car is in winter storage for five months of the year; the thought of it being in the shop for a major fix (think misaligned doors or hood) just makes me sad.

But I no longer have the luxury of procrastination. I must fix this problem before going to Europe. Indeed “fix leak” is now the very first item on my newly created “European Road Trip To Do List.”

I have avoided making this road trip to do list until now. The trip is still many months away and I don’t want to consume my time between now and departure with a list of chores. I love the joy of anticipation, but I also want to focus on today. Before my US road trip, at one point in the craziness, I had 138 things on my to do list. I think I can avoid that this time around, although I will confess that I didn’t stop writing after the leak. There are now a good two dozen things on the list, six of which are things to be fixed or checked in the Blue Car. I think this means I am really doing this trip – in my world, once the to do list is underway, there is no turning back. The seventh item on the list?: “Give duck to Louis.” My son loves rubber ducks. And I won’t be needing it in Europe.