Paper. Snow. a Ghost!!!

so, about 2 weeks ago, the time came that we needed to say good bye to old blue…

she was coming down with something, and i’m pretty sure it was terminal. basically, she was old. she was dented. she smelled funny. and she was starting to demand a lot of money in order to keep running. with a quickly approaching 1600 mile road trip, we decided it was time to pull the plug.

old blue served us well. she was our main squeeze for almost 11 years. she was 3 years old when we bought her, with roughly 40k miles or so. her odometer read 217k when we said goodbye. that’s a lot of miles. countless trips to california, 2 and a half weeks through the midwest a couple summers ago, school drop offs, carpools, soccer practices, baseball practices, ballet, gymnastics, track meets, playgroups, scout meetings, work, church, doctors appointments, urgent care, ER, date nights, weddings, funerals, drive-thrus, and all those things that have made up our lives for the last 11 years. she brought a newborn micah home safely, took two dogs to the vet for the last time, carried thousands of grocery bags, has parked outside of 3 of our homes, and truly, has been beat all to heck.

there were scratches on her front bumper from scraping against the rocks on the side of angie’s driveway, when i was parked in at a playgroup and attempted to get out to no avail. there’s a dent in the fender on that same side where my dad once backed his car into me, and didn’t realize he’d done any damage until i tried to leave and couldn’t open the passenger door. there are dents, scrapes, and rust where dave backed into his aunt and uncle’s mailbox (the tail light got replaced for that one). there are scratches at “handlebar level” on both sides from shane repeatedly riding his bike between our two cars, even though he’d been told not to. there was white paint over the rear wheel where i got a little to cozy with a pillar in the parking garage at lakeshore. and then there’s the inside… i don’t even want to begin to tally all the disgusting things that have been spilled inside this vehicle. most notable are the box of crayons that shane left in a cupholder on a warm day, which then melted and “sloshed” when we opened the slider, not knowing there was half a cup of molten crayon wax sitting there, and the ice cream from sonic that layla fell asleep while eating, and then dumped all over the floor. in the summer. in california. it never smelled the same in there after that…

but really, there’s not a lot to complain about. she only ever left me stranded on the side of the road once.

but, it was time for something new. after toying with the idea of graduating from being a minivan family and looking into some full- and mid-size SUVs (for the 4wd), we got pulled back in by the cargo space. you really can’t argue with that factor, and you can’t find it in an SUV unless you’re driving a suburban. and so we found ourselves another 3 year old van with roughly 40k miles on it. we’re hoping this one will last for the next 11 years.

due to her “things that are white” color, we’ve taken to calling her Paper. Snow. a Ghost!! (friends reference), and we LOVE her!!! automatic doors, people!!!! back up camera! stow n go! i have seriously spent the last 11 years living in the dark ages. it was like rubbing sticks together to make a fire, and now i have an aim & flame!

it’s interesting to think about driving this van for 11 years. she’s already taken us to california and back once, and will, no doubt, make that trip many more times. she’s been to baseball and gymnastics, work and church, hauled groceries and library books. we’ll see where else she takes us.

in 11 years, i could be driving around grandbabies!!!