JUNE 30, 2025

If you’ve known me personally over the last 8 years, there’s a good chance you’ve heard me talk lovingly about my old beater car, Vessel. You may have even participated in the banter. The car has been a fixture in my life since January 2017, but she has now reached the end of the road. It’s the end of an era, really. In a lot of ways, that car changed my life.

When We First Met

Vessel was the first major purchase I made after my divorce. Once our shared assets were divided, I took the majority of my portion and used it as a down payment. Prior to that, I had been sharing vehicles with other members of my family. Since I was a single mother of a toddler at the time, that shuffling meant a lot of chaos. Getting my own car became a top priority. The moment the funds cleared, I was ready to go test driving.

I showed up at a dealership that I’d previously had a good experience with. Their website showed that they had a recent Subaru Forester in stock on the lot with fairly low mileage within my price range. However, when I arrived and told them that’s what I was interested in, it was already driving off with its brand new owner. I was twenty minutes too late. However, they had another vehicle that would fit similar needs. It was a 2006 Ford Escape LTD in a deep red color with about 94k miles on the engine. The moment I got behind the wheel, I knew it was the one for me. The test drive was almost superfluous and I didn’t bother trying anything else afterward. I immediately got the paperwork started and thought up a name for the car. Having grown up on boats, I’ve always named my vehicles.

This one I dubbed “Vessel.” Right away, my father began repeating his advice for keeping up the resale value of the car. I nodded along, but barely heard him, and not only because he’d told me all of it before. I already knew that I would be riding with Vessel all the way to the end of the road.

Making Her Mine

It was with Vessel that I began to claw back some of the self-confidence that had eroded from me during a long illness and a dissolved marriage. I was still living under a roof owned by other family members. There was only so much my living space could adapt to my individual needs, but my car became another story. At the time, my daughter was attending school in her dad’s town, and it added up to a lot of commuting on the days I did both drop-off and pickup. It meant a lot of time in the car, and I wanted that time to be comfortable. So, I made a few adjustments.

I replaced the factory-installed cassette player with a bluetooth stereo to connect my phone. The big jolly roger sticker on the back was entirely superficial, but I liked it a lot. It made the car feel more like mine. I threw an after-market heating pad on the driver’s seat too, and that felt like luxury. I got to tease my sister about how much cheaper that was than her built-in heated seats. AC adapters plugged into cigarette lighters turned the engine into a generator. The joke among friends was that if my car ever crashed into a ditch, I could simply make it my new home. I was always prepared in there; I had everything and could endure anything.

Off On Adventure

From there, it felt like an easy transition into solo camping. Having reached my thirties, it was a lot harder than in my younger years to coordinate camping expeditions with friends. Everyone was busy with conflicting schedules. Finally deciding I didn’t want to wait on a time that worked for others, I took off with only Vessel and some gear. The first time I didn’t even bother bringing my tent. I put the back seats down and slept on an air mattress. It was a perfect fit.

I made it to campgrounds all over the state, then branched out to National Parks. Solo adventures brought me all the way from Acadia in Maine in the summer to Shenandoah in Virginia for some winter camping. I drove her as far west as upstate New York, and even made it as far south as New River Gorge in West Virginia once with my partner. All along the way, I added more stickers like some people collect tattoos to mark transformative experiences. Realistically, I always knew they were less permanent.

Approaching the End of the Road

I have a really good mechanic. Yes, I’m diligent about routine maintenance, but he’s the reason Vessel lasted so long and made it so far. Still, while he was always able to patch her up, after a couple years he started giving me an estimated countdown. Cars don’t last forever, especially on harsh roads like those in New England. Eventually she would reach a point where he wouldn’t be able to get her back on the road. At first, that estimate was around five years. A few repairs later, it was down to three, then two.

On her last repair, there were serious questions about whether we’d even “complete her procedure.” At best it would be buying me six months of time to shop around. It wasn’t a cheap fix that time, either. After he laid out the pros and cons, I browsed the listings that local dealerships had for used cars, including the place where I’d bought Vessel. Nothing I saw was exactly fitting my search parameters, and prices were so much higher than the last time I’d needed to shop for cars. My sister was getting married in less than a week and I was her maid of honor. I called my mechanic back and told him the six months were worth it to me. He reminded me that number was a maximum and got Vessel back on the road by the next day.

The End of the Road at Last

She didn’t make it six months, but she made it through the wedding. She even got the bride to the venue without any issue. That is, aside from a bit of a thumping noise we thought was camping equipment knocking around. I got safely to the afterparty from there, and then all the way home in the wee hours of the morning without incident.

The next day, I needed to drive my daughter’s backpack out to her dad’s house after he’d picked her up from the wedding. I heard that thumping noise again, even though I’d shifted the items I thought were causing it. As I was getting close to the house, after I’d gotten off the highway, I heard the thump another time more loudly. A few minutes later, I noticed a burning smell that wasn’t fading. I pulled over and checked my engine and the equipment in the back again, but couldn’t find a cause. By then I was already close enough that I decided to get to his place where I could do a more thorough investigation without worrying about traffic.

Once the car was in motion again, I realized that burning smell was more specifically burning rubber. From what I could see once parked at my destination, it looked like a piece of my wheel well had rusted clean off, rotated, and started scraping against the inner wall of the tire. It hadn’t ruptured, but it certainly would if I tried driving all the way home like that. For all the things that I did have in my car, at that moment, a car jack wasn’t one of them, so I called roadside assistance.

It turned out I would have needed their help either way. A better view underneath showed that it wasn’t just a loose piece of metal – it was the part where the shocks attach to the body of the car. Detaching the arm allowed the technician to remove the rusted metal piece. I brought it home as a souvenir, driving extremely carefully on back roads all the way home. I cried a lot on that drive, knowing that if there was another after that, it would be to trade her in. It was officially the end of the road.

Moving On

Vessel had reached the end of the road, but I still had places to be. My dad was kind enough to let me make use of his car for a week to get my daughter to and from school until I would have time to do some test driving. Prices for used cars were no better than they had been a couple weeks before. Unless I was looking at cars nearly as old as Vessel’s 19 years, there was a negligible price difference between a used car and a new one. New ones come with a lot more guarantees like warranties.

For the very first time in my life, just shy of my 37th birthday, I decided to buy a new car.

Another Escape wasn’t going to be the right move. The manufacturer has made so many changes to the model over the years that it’s now a separate vehicle in almost all but name. Then again, I thought I might still want a Ford. Vessel wasn’t my first one, and I’d liked all the ones I’d had. Despite all the nautical references, driving Vessel had always reminded me of some of the horses I got to ride as a kid. She was like a sturdy but agile mount. I test drove a Bronco Sport, hoping it might give me a similar feel. It didn’t.

That was when it really sunk in that I wasn’t going to find anything that was “the same.” No matter how I customized the next car, I wasn’t going to replicate Vessel. The realization was like hitting the end of the road all over again, but the facts weren’t changing. I had to find a way to be okay with it.

End of the Road to the Starting Line

In a real full-circle moment, I finally ended up with my Subaru Forester. The local dealership had one on their lot from this year, but a manager had put 1,500 miles on it. That meant they were selling it at a used-car price. I loved the way that it drove, and it was even the same color as Vessel. I’m still getting used to some of the controls, especially the big screen in the center console, but I know it’s the right fit. The familiarity will come. I think I’ve decided on her name.

There are still moments where I miss Vessel, of course. She did limp over to the dealership as a trade-in. The night before, I slept on my air mattress in the back for old time’s sake. They told me she’d be auctioned off for parts. The sentimental side of me tries to view that as organ donation for cars. I’ve still got some pieces of her. It’s hard thinking of some of the antique cars that have lasted so much more than 20 years. I have to remember that those were built differently and that Vessel was not a hobby car. I need a primary vehicle that my daughter and I can rely on.

Vessel got me as far as she possibly could, and she got me there safely until she simply couldn’t do it anymore. When she finally reached the end of the road, she had made it through 19 New England winters and had a final mileage of 216,353 miles.

It was a damn good run.