Buying the car

For the past month we have been driving a rental car. We rented it for a month knowing that in that time we’d have to look for a car to buy, after all we are here for a year. 

Buying a car has never been a fun activity for us. We aren’t fancy car people. We’ve owned one brand, spanking new car in our whole married life. It was a 1980 Subaru, with a manual transmission and front wheel drive. Living at the bottom of a hill at that time and getting called in to work in the middle of the night meant we needed a car that would get us up that hill. So we bought the least expensive car that would do the trick. I had my first accident ever taking the first payment to the bank. Great memories.

Ours was blue

We had a Buick Custom Cruiser for a bit, you know the car the Griswold's car from National Lampoon's Vacation movie. It even had the roof top carrier for the dead gram ma. This car was actually stolen on the mean streets of Milwaukee on a night when we had gone to the Milwaukee Rep Theatre. It was parked next to City Hall. It had vanity plates and screeched suburban housewife and kids. The police did recover it, whoever stole it was apparently living it for the time they had it. When recovered it had blankets and diapers and food all over it. We drove that car for another few years until we graduated into the "minivan".

John never liked the Mazda Minivan, but I did. And so did my friend Meg, who bought the same car. in the same color. Since Meg and I lived on the same street our kids never who was in the green van, Meg or me. Me or Meg. One day we dressed in the same clothes, and took a picture of us next to the twin cars, wish I had that picture to post, it's a hoot!

Since then we have had predominately Volvo Station Wagons. I think we’ve had 4, including a diesel that belched a black cloud of exhaust whenever we accelerated quickly. It had a vanity license plate with “Toxins” on it. Need I say more?

We also had a peach of a Suburban (1998) that we drove literally until it would drive no more. I loved that car. We went everywhere in it. Florida, NY, NC, Virginia, and it was great to take numerous boys to college. My good buddy said when she saw it, “It has it’s own zip code”, yes, it was big.

My favorite car

Now we are car-less. We have sold or given away the cars we have been driving for 8+ years. Colin has inherited the last Volvo wagon, he needed to drive one, all the other boys had their turns with one. 

So he’s living in Madison driving the his dream car….not. But the price was right. (He has divested of his high school car, a 2001 Ford Explorer that he named “Dora the Exploder”. Parting with it was not easy for him, lots of memories.

So we decided to try and find something fun to drive here. We went out and looked at Holden’s, the Australian version of a GMC, Toyota’s and some used Nissan’s and assorted others. We have decided to get a Toyota Rav 4 Cruiser, not new, a 2008 with about 50,000 miles. It’s sort of fun, kind of a sporty SUV, and having had a Toyota Camry, we know it will be a good car. 

Rav 4

I know, I know, we should have gotten a little sports car, something like the Mazda RX8 that JP had. That was a sweet ride, until I totaled it. It had 6 speeds and a ton of pick up. John had to talk JP into buying that car, he told him that now was the time to own a car like that, he was a single guy with no responsibilities. The car had attitude. So did JP. I still feel badly about the accident. The good news is the check from the insurance agency helped with the down payment for his condo in Chicago, the silver lining.

The RX8

We need a car that will accommodate friends and family when they come to visit. Practicality is more important than image. Petrol (gas) is about $5 a liter. That, too, is a consideration. 
We will enjoy having a smaller version of the Suburban I loved, they are both white with lots of memories to be made.

Pretty Nice, huh?

Notice the kangaroo deflector on the front bumper, I'm not kidding, it's so when you hit one they won't go through the windshield.