New Thing #17 - El Hombre

For my new thing this week, I decided it was about time I learned to drive a stick shift. I know, I know, you're thinking I'm a farm girl, surely I know how to drive a stick! Well, I've always wanted to learn, but when I was old enough to learn, we didn't really have anything except a grain truck and a tractor to learn on. Not exactly what I had in mind. Plus, my dad wouldn't let me anyways. ;-) Since then, none of my friends have had a manual, and if they did, their car was way too expensive for me to be messing around with it.

Since I was already at my sister's house for the weekend, my brother-in-law happily agreed to teach me to drive on his little Isuzu truck. It's an Hombre model, hence the name of the blog. My sister was pretty excited to capture this event on video, since she thought I'd constantly be throwing up gravel and killing the engine. I'm happy to report that I didn't really ever peel out, and I only killed the engine a few times. Actually, the whole lesson was rather...tame.

EL HOMBRE!!

This is how I roll! ;-)

Shawn took me out to show me the ropes, but I was somewhat familiar with how a manual works. I'm not completely oblivious, but a one-on-one lesson was definitely needed to learn all the intricacies. Then, we switched seats and I was in charge. Of course, right about that time, some guy came up behind us on the gravel road. My first attempt at letting out the clutch and easing the gas ended in a quick sputter and then a dead engine. Shocking. But, I started her up again, and the next try was smooth as butter. No jerking, no gravel shrapnel, just perfect execution. I quickly pulled over to the side of the road to let the guy pass, and then I took off to try my hand at shifting past first gear.

Again, it went rather smoothly. The transitions were pretty easy, and I could sort of tell when to shift gears. Most times. We had the windows down, so it was a bit difficult to hear when the engine was ready for the next gear. Fortunately, Shawn was there to help guide me. As far as the actual shifting, I have to say, it was easy and really smooth. It'll still take awhile for me to get used to when exactly to shift though. I think knowing when to downshift was the trickiest part.

I continued to cruise down the gravel road, and was able to shift all the way up to fifth and then back down. I was more coordinated than I thought I was going to be. Sometimes I'm a big klutz, so I wasn't sure how well I'd be able to handle three pedals at once. But, I always was a star pupil (ha!), so I caught on pretty quickly.

After a quick gravel lesson, I decided to take a stroll on the highway. I waited for an empty hole in traffic (I didn't want to hold anyone up) and made my manual debut on Hwy 63. Success! No trouble whatsoever. I'm a natural! lol Seriously, it wasn't bad at all. I'm pleasantly surprised with myself. We weren't on the highway very long before it was time to exit to head back to Steph and Shawn's house.

My only real problem came at the end of the exit ramp at the stop sign. I stopped okay, but starting again seemed problematic. Since we were on a hill, it took me two tries before I was able to drive on without killing it. I wasn't letting out on the cluth smoothly enough. But, after that one more try, it was smooth sailing.

Once I got back to Steph's house, I attempted to drive up to their concrete pad in front of the garage. I didn't quite give it enough gas, so I had to back it up and start back in first gear to get it parked. But I was able to park successfully without hitting their van or my car, so I'd say the day was very successful.

I told my sister that it was a bit anti-climactic afterwards, because I was thinking it was going to take me a lot longer than it did to actually learn. So, an A for me, and an A+ for Mr. Schultz's fine teaching!!