Hondon't, Subar-DO!

For the last eight years, I have been driving a 2007 Honda Civic. It's been fine. To be honest, I don't put too much thought in the vehicle that gets me from point A to point B... which is probably why I drive a Honda.

But since we moved to the mountains, the Civic has been a bit of a challenge. And by challenge, I mean it annoys the crap out of Eric that I have to take a running start with the car to get it up our driveway, and I routinely leave divots in the gravel and spit rocks at the surrounding scenery. This results in hummocks the size of large badgers in the drive. But I got up it daily.

However, driving a 2-door Honda Civic also means that our pull-the-popup-camper options (and most other road trips) are limited to HailNo. We've taken the Civic a couple of places but it just doesn't really cut it.

So, it was time for something else.

Through the magic of the interwebs and Eric's intrepid skills at deal hunting, we located the perfect vehicle.

In Danbury, Connecticut.

It was a 2013 Subaru Forester, with 14,000 miles on it.



The new Subi

For $5,000 less than we could buy it for in Colorado, because Subaru is the state car of Colorado and that comes with a premium.

So we went.

We flew to Connecticut and had the dealership pick us up at the hotel in the morning. Bob, the approximately 105 year old driver, took us on a high-speed chase/tour of rural Connecticut/picked us up and brought us to our car. After the usual delays and blah blah blah, we were able to drive off the lot with our Forester and begin the cross-country trip home.

The band is back together!

But first we had to stop in West Point and see some very important people, our old neighbors, the Flynn's. Samantha is due, basically NOW, with twins, so it was important to see them before they completely stopped sleeping. It was fun to catch up - some people you just fall back in with like it's nothing, and that's them. Plus, their daughter, Hannah, is Eric's girlfriend. She's not even 2, and she's got him hooked around her tiny finger. Cookie, block playing? Whatever she wants, Eric is on it. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't totally adorable.

All of us, plus the twins!

From there, we drove until 0 dark 30 and stopped for the night. The next day, we were up and not moving too terribly quickly, as I had a conference call I had to lead. But then we were on our way. We stopped at Cuyahoga National Park in pouring rain to see the only National Park in Ohio. We left not understanding why this was a national park and not a Metro park (the only time in our extensive National Park history that we've felt that way), but whatever.

And on we went. We traversed Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois (where we picked up for a Chicago-style pizza for friends who just adopted a baby, because nothing says love like deep-dish!) We stopped for the night in Iowa, then the next morning hauled through Iowa, Nebraska, then cut down to Kansas and finally into Colorado.

Somewhere in the Midwest

The new Subi made the trip just fine. We have a new winner. Eric wants to name it Hail Yes, but I'm not ready to commit.

Epilogue: Two days later, we sold the Honda to the daughter of our other neighbors in Monument, who we also fall in with just as well as Samantha and Patrick.

Done deal!