
By Mercedes Lilienthal
Dec. 24, 2020Updated 1:22 p.m. ET
What if you went on a road trip, and never came back?
The coronavirus pandemic has idled both couples and their vehicles, for now, as they all wait for their next chapters.
That 1988 two-door Festiva came to be known as the Peace Love Car. It was Sam Salwei’s home for eight years, and Raquel Hernández-Cruz joined him four years in. After a chance meeting and then traveling together for a month in 2012, they reunited in 2013 — and have been together ever since.
“While I was working on my bachelor’s degree, a friend gifted me the car,” said Mr. Salwei, a 39-year-old native of Crystal, N.D., who got his degree in social entrepreneurship at the University of North Dakota. “A free car that was also gas-efficient was a dream. I really didn’t need anything else.”