The many Mini ties that bind

"Pick a car, any car," said the editor.

Now, just because I write in the Wheels section of this paper, doesn't mean I hear those words very often. In fact, never before. So when the spectre of being loaned a dream vehicle for a week was raised, I knew I had to make it count.

I glanced at my 12-year-old son, Jackson. My youngest, an earnest little guy.

"Can I get a Mini Cooper convertible? Please?" I asked the editor.

This is Jackson's dream car. He has spent several years already comparing the old ones with the reissued ones, and he recently announced that he'd like a 1969 Mini. He'd found one. In England. But I was not to worry; he'd already sourced freight costs.

When I picked up the car from BMW Canada, I knew this was no longer just for the kid. I've almost always driven big vehicles – station wagons, trucks, minivans – and thought there was no way I would adjust to something the size of an aphid. I adjusted. Instantly. And Jackson instantly adjusted his yen for a '69.

We planned a bonding weekend to Tobermory, because we thought it would be cool to drive to the edge of somewhere.

I decided I would be open to not just gaining a new perspective on a car, but also on my son. It was to be a boy-directed adventure.

Tossing a bag into the adorable little trunk, we slathered on sunscreen, battened down anything that might take flight and pulled out of the driveway.

We went a block, looked at each other, and pulled over and put the roof up. The convertible part of our experience was going to have to wait until the sun was a little higher in the sky.

Pulling out the map, I told Jackson he was the navigator and I would make any turns he told me to.

This darling little car is terrific on gas, something we're not all that used to. I told him we would stop anywhere he liked, eat when he wanted, he could pick the music and he was in charge of the camera.

Dazed and bewildered, he gazed around his leather cocoon and had, I think, his first King of the Road moment. Well, as King of the Road as you can get with your mother driving.

The boy is a natural mimic, which resulted in Borat reading off directions to me. To stay in character for hours is quite a feat. A teeth-gnashing, mind-numbing feat.

As we reeled in one small town after another, I gloried in the open fields and roadside stands. Jackson gloried in the abundance of roadkill.

In a Mini, you get a little more up close and personal with the dearly departed. We both found the idea of dead birds a little ludicrous. As Jackson put it, "if I had wings, I wouldn't walk anywhere." Nonetheless, dead critters baking in the summer heat were duly catalogued, their demise about the cheapest tourist attraction we found all weekend.

Tobermory invented quaint. A cluster of shops ring a pretty harbour, and all of the roads eventually loop back on themselves or end at the water's edge. We know this, because we went down them all. There were no other Minis in town while we were there, which made us feel like stars. The fact we could squeeze it into the tiniest parking spots was an added bonus.

Jackson had read about the famous glass-bottom boats of Tobermory and wanted to go. As we went down the gangplank and hopped on the boat, we both looked under our feet expectantly. For the glass bottom, of course.

It turns out it's actually a bit of a misnomer; there are two glass-bottomed sections, about five feet square, that constitute the "glass bottom." But because he's 12 and everything was going his way, he adapted.

As the boat slowly steered over a couple of shipwrecks, Jackson asked for the pamphlet we'd been given. He wanted to know if there were any bodies down there.

On the outskirts of town, we found a native handicraft shop tucked into the forest. Carved totem poles, taxidermied critters and hand-hewn bows and arrows required much consideration as Jackson tried to decide what souvenir would cap off the weekend.

Much to my chagrin, he settled on a rabbit pelt. We have bunnies hopping around our backyard that we name. The proprietor assured me they didn't kill the rabbits, just made the best of a bad thing – roadkill.

I learned a lot about Jackson that weekend. He found a glorious sunset as mesmerizing as I did. He's sneaking up on that fine line where girls fascinate him almost as much as dead animals. He still prefers restaurants where everything comes with fries, and in an upscale candy store, he's still, well, a kid in a candy store.

He chose a locally-carved walking stick over a gimmicky T-shirt. Skipping stones at dusk under a deserted lighthouse is better than a movie. You put the roof down whenever you can, and getting there in the car of your dreams is more than half the fun.

I asked if the car was all he thought it would be as we drove home. He nodded.

"But wouldn't it be cool to have a glass-bottomed Mini?"

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