110,000 Miles

I moved away to Atlanta ten and a half years ago.  I wrote a little about it here.  It was August 2005 and hot, hot, hot driving across Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.   My bestie Amy was with me on that journey.  She already lived in Atlanta and was responsible for recruiting me to live there.  She made several road trip CDs with songs we both loved and we both had dry cuticles and applied cuticle oil every hour - weird the things I remember.   This was before Facebook was really a thing and before iPhones and before lots of stuff....so we talked and sang and moisturized our cuticles and watched out the window as the landscape changed from one state to the next and we headed towards my new life.   My new job.  My new apartment.  My future.

A few months prior to moving, I had been in an accident with a drunk driver - he ran a red light and hit me head on.  Thank goodness I walked away with only a broken wrist from honking my horn when the airbag deployed.   My car at the time was a Honda Pilot and it should have been totaled but the insurance company had it repaired and it was never the same.  It drove kinda wonky and made some funny noises.

After I got moved and settled in Atlanta, I knew I'd need to go car shopping.  I was terrified that I wouldn't get any thing for the trade in.  If the car dealership took one look under the car, they would have known it was a hot mess.  My parents came in town to visit me in March 2006.  My mom was a teacher and my dad always took off the same week as her spring break so they could vacation.  That year they choose to come see me on their vacation and I thanked them by making them go car shopping with me.  It was the first and only time my dad would get to visit me there.

My brother was a Mercedes technician and knew a thing or two about cars.  I wanted a small SUV and he recommended a Jeep Liberty as a good, solid car choice for me that would be in my price range.  So we drove all over Atlanta and the surrounding areas to various Chrysler dealerships to check out what they had in stock.  I opened my big mouth about my accident at one place and they were like....um, no thank you.  Dad coached me a little to keep my mouth shut from there on out.  Then we came really close to making a deal on one at another place, but they finally looked at my (should have been totaled) trade in and basically offered jack-squat for it.  We left with me in tears and my mom and dad reassuring me we'd find something.  I was 28 and should have been able to handle this on my own, but I didn't have to because I have amazing parents.  It was late in the day on Saturday and dealerships are closed on Sunday, so I was panicked.  My parents would also be leaving Sunday, so I wanted this done.

We finally found a place that didn't inspect the car and I drove away with a cute, silver Jeep Liberty. It was zippy, fun to drive and could whip into tight parking spaces like no other.

Five months later in August, my dad died in a stupid motorcycle accident.  I did see him one more time on a visit home in June for my Nanny's 80th birthday party.   I still have the job and I still have the Jeep.  Along the way, I met Jade, moved back to Texas and had some (really damn cute) kids.

Jade mostly drives it now while I drive the kid friendly mini-van but today, of all the days, while I'm driving it, the Jeep turned 110,000 miles.  Coincidence?  I think not.  Wow!  That's a lot of miles between that car shopping memory with my parents and today.  A lot of life has happened.  And I would kill for my dad to be here to have seen it all.  Makes me think of the song "You Should Be Here".  He'd be proud of all of it, especially the kids.  But he'd also be really proud that we still have that Jeep and that it only has 110,000 miles on it.  This car is 10 years old, but I know that even when it craps out and it's time for it to go to car heaven, I will have a difficult time letting it go since it's tied to one of the last memories with my dad.  In the meantime I'll keep the essential oil car diffuser going to maintain the "new car smell" in my 10 year old car!

Kudos to my brother on the car recommendation - it has been a really solid little SUV with minimal maintenance and no major issues just like you said it would be.  So far - knock on wood!!