Goodbye old van

We bought a one-year old blue (sort of purplish) van in 1997 from our friends the Kriese's when we lived in Texas. It was a wonderful car. It had a nice speaker system, power everything, a little gauge that said how many miles we could go on the gas in the tank and what the temperature outside was. It seated seven and the rear seats could come out. It had all kinds of drink holders and nook and crannies. I loved that van.

We went on many adventures in our van - to Nauvoo with our friends the Pearces, Parkers and Hodgkins. Up through Texas, Minida, (Mt. Ida), Ark., Liberty, Blue Springs and Far West, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois - Nauvoo and Carthage, and back down through Hannibal, St. Louis and Muskogee, Oklahoma. Each place as well as the drive up and back holds special memories, all experienced in our blue van.

We drove it to Houston and Corpus Christi for fun with friends. We took trips to Utah, one in the dead of winter where the gauge went to 13 degrees below 0 - the lowest it had ever been. We got a flat tire in Monticello on our return trip and had to stay overnight, putting us behind in our trip and making us miss Mesa Verde (which Riley and I finally visited summer of 09.) We hauled tile, lumber, groceries, kids, cats, turtles, fish and spiders. The critters rode with us from Austin to Utah when we moved here. The Parkers welcomed all of us, even the furry ones, into their Colorado home for an overnight stay on our long journey to a new home.

I have pictures of the odometer turning over 55,555 miles in the drive through of a McDonald's on William Cannon in Austin. That was about 115,000 miles ago!

It's funny how an inanimate object can become a member of your family. That van didn't cause much grief in the repair department. We had a few things here and there to fix but overall, it was a trustworthy, solid car. And Riley thinks it was the best, most comfortable ride of any of our vehicles. It was smooth.

For the past year or so it has sat mostly undriven. When we bought Riley's Tacoma two years ago, I took over the Highlander. I tried to sell the van back then but with a tanked economy no one wanted a van with so many miles on it. Amy drove the van quite a bit but finally it started sitting more than being driven. Then, in August, Amy drove it and the AC died. We debated on fixing it - $1,100. We weren't sure we could even sell it for that much if we fixed so we decided to give it to the Kidney Foundation (like we have several other cars.) In a last ditch effort, I thought, let's try to sell it. Our mechanic friend Paul suggested $800 so I put a sign on it last Saturday. Fifteen minutes later someone called and wanted to see it. Paul said, oh, oh, maybe you could have gotten more for it. But then we sold it to people we knew through Amy's high school friends and they said what a blessing it was they were getting it for that price. We could have used a few more hundred dollars but they needed the blessing of the car even more.

And so it's done. The van is theirs. I hope they enjoy it and have as many wonderful memories in it as we did.