Golf herder

The road to car ownership is paved with hopes, dreams . . . and cows. Lots and lots of cows. At least, that's what Yahoo Maps wanted me to experience on my way to the Volkswagen dealership in Elk Grove, about 15 miles outside Sacramento.

Never heard of it? Neither had I. But it took less than half an hour before I realized I wasn't in the California I knew anymore. It looked sort of like the Central Valley, or at least the one that's fixed in my mind after making the drive to L.A. and back a few times. Two-lane roads, lush farmland, flood warnings, and a festival of cows. A cowstival. Where there weren't cows, there were pickup trucks. So soon after leaving downtown Oakland, it's a weird perceptual shift.

Then you're suddenly in Elk Grove, a near perfect match for the Chicago suburbs: upscale chain stores, traffic lights, and bland beige mini mansions as far as you can see. But if you turn onto Auto Center Drive, then West Stockton Boulevard, you'll reach the Land of VWs, third in a row of giant dealerships that have a tumbleweed feeling early on a Saturday.

Fast forward through a pleasant test drive with chatty Manny the Car Guy, who told epic stories about his two-year-old and gave a practiced lesson in how to work the power windows. Zippy green four-door, shiny and tight with plenty of vrooooooom. Al the Mobile Mechanic, the nomadic repairman I blessedly found through the yellow pages, turned up right on time and spent an hour making sure the car was worth its salt. His assessment? "That's a great color." OK, man, but does it run?

Yes, it does. Exceptionally well, in fact—maintained with plenty of TLC by the dealer and two previous owners. Needs a timing belt in 20,000 miles, but that's not a jaw-dropper. All clear. But I'm not one to buy the first thing I like; the comparison shopping instinct is too ingrained. So I left a deposit with Manny to discourage the couple waiting for a test drive, and hoofed it on over to Napa for Golf #2.

Small family dealership, royal blue two-door with 20,000 miles and one year of life less than the first. Even so, it drove like a sorely neglected carthorse that can still do the job, but isn't happy about it. Coats of dust on the wheels. "I don't know why nobody's come to look at this one," said the painfully honest son of the owner. "Usually Golfs sell fast. It's just been sitting here." But for all that, the salesdad only dropped $250 off the price for the work that needed doing (battery, tires, etc.) before tossing out that age-old failure of a line: "So, what can we do to make sure you drive out of here today in this car?" Um . . . give it me for free?

Back on the road, negotiating with Manny on a terrible cell connection in the Safeway parking lot just before Route 37. Less than an hour until my coffee date with Dad and Ann in Berkeley. Sweating like a sauna dweller, with the weather changing from torrential rain to bursts of sun in that special way only Northern California is cheeky enough to pull off.

But a week or two of research, one six-hour driving day, and a parade of stories about a stranger's kid aren't much to suffer for a peppy, trusty green jellybean of a fine German automobile, purchased for a song at about half the original dealer price and a third under Blue Book. By way of frosting on the Golf cake, Manny even delivered the car to my door yesterday, armed with an arsenal of paperwork.

Sometimes all the pieces fall into place. If you can get a few cows and a stretch of empty golden road in the bargain, then you're a lucky girl indeed.