After weeks of excavation, today I was finally able to access the car. In the glove compartment I came across a campsite receipt from Bishop, CA, dated October 1994. I'd driven, with my bike propped between the luggage rack on the trunk and the roll bar, over the Sierras (with the top down) to that town to ride my first true 100-mile century.

It was a beautiful fall drive, with stops to photograph the colorful aspen groves near Sorenson's on Highway 88. It was also the last real trip in the TR6, before it got jacked up in the garage. Removing 15 years worth of accumulated debris has been as tedious as an archeological dig, every item to be studied and decisions made: toss it, give it away, fix it, store it someplace else?

But at last the car is exposed, the floor is swept, and the tires, nearly flat, are pumped up. As I lean against the fender pressuring the rear tires I feel the car lift against me.

Movement. A bit of life.