Good-bye Mini

Yesterday we traded in our minivan for a new car.  I have never been your typical car person.  I've always felt that a car just needs you get you from point A to point B.  It needs to be reliable, practical and safe.  I don't really care what color it is or if it has any bells or whistles.  Just want something to get me where I need to go.

In 2006 we had a 3 year old, a new baby, and an unreliable car.  Tod and I decided that it may be time to get a minivan.  I never thought I would be one of 'those minivan moms'.  After test driving just about every minivan that was on the market I decided on the Dodge Grand Caravan.  The dealership had 3 to chose from.  My decision basically came down to color and automatic doors.  If I was going to have to trade in my Cool Card for a minivan I was getting automatic doors/tailgate and it was going to be black (the coolest car color out there!).

Over the next couple of years I was so in awe over my power doors and tailgate.  My life of loading groceries, kids, and overall stuff became so much easier.  Press a button it opens. Press it again it closes.  Ahhh.

Then after another couple of years and I had burned the motor out of the automatic doors.  I was back to manually opening doors.  I have learned my lesson.  Bells and whistles can be more of a headache than a bonus. 

The minivan was a very reliable vehicle for us.  We only had one hiccup.  We broke down in Lexington, KY (only an hour away from our destination).  We were able to pull into a gas station and call our insurance company for a tow truck.    A very scary man with a giant tow truck came to rescue us.  With the four of us crammed in the cab with the scary driver, our minivan was taking the ride of its life.  We cut through rush hour traffic, did illegal U-turns, and took corners at top speed.  All with white knuckles in the cab, but you could almost hear the minivan saying, "wheeeeeee".

We ended up at the scary tow truck drivers shop.  As we drove into the car shop and the chain link fence gate closed behind us I got a little scared.  Three very frightening men took the minivan off the truck and quickly got to work.  These were the roughest men I had ever seen and none of them remembered to put their teeth in that morning.  They told us that it would take about 24 hours to fix.  We called Tod's parents and they came to our rescue.

The next day Tod and I went to reclaim the minivan.  The shop manager (yes, he was toothless too) gave us a detailed list of everything that they had to do to the minivan.  He explained what happened and why. We chatted for a while with him and his mother.  We found out that this was a new family auto repair business and they were just getting their business started.  We were their first customer.  They were thankful, gracious and unexpectedly professional.  When I got back in the minivan I noticed that they had washed it and vacuumed the inside. After a 8 hour car ride you can imagine how dirty the INSIDE of the minivan was.  This "breakdown" taught me a valuable lesson on not judging a book by it's cover.

So I say goodbye to our beloved minivan.  It taught me that going back to the basics just makes life easier and that there is a simple goodness in people no matter what package they come in.