This weekend we said g’bye to the car I’ve been driving for the past 4 years, my ‘98 Chevy Lumina (not actually named Dolly; that was my maternal grandfather’s name for his cars). I was 3 months shy of owning the car outright, but with >105k miles on it, things were starting to go wrong - last month I had to pump $1200 into it to fix brakes and other issues, and that didn’t address the broken AC; recommendations were that we trade it in.
My mom’s cousin works at the Chevy/Toyota/Pontiac/Buick car dealer in my hometown, and has been a fantastic resource for our entire family. All of my previous vehicles have been purchased through him, particularly after having some rather unpleasant and frustrating experiences with car salesman and dealerships in MA. Since working with someone I know and trust makes a huge difference to me, we decided to pay Uncle Dick another visit, and took the opportunity to have a mini-vacation in Maine.
I booked a room at a local B&B to make the weekend seem more like a get-away (I highly recommend the b&b. It’s a lovely old inn across the street from the ferry terminal in Rockland, very comfy beds and personable owners - and 3 cats!). We arrived Friday night and got up early on Saturday to head over to the dealer’s. I’d pretty much made up my mind that I wanted to get away from a sedan-type car and get myself a small SUV type vehicle (please, no WWJDrive comments) , primarily to be sitting up off the road a little more (prior to meeting Husband, I’d wanted my next vehicle to be a truck, but as he already has one an SUV was my first choice). I really like the style of the Toyota Rav4, but, alas, the inside of those cars are just not built for large people. After determining that I wasn’t going to be driving off in a Rav4 (or similarly styled and sized Chevy Tracker), we wandered around the lot looking at other options. We test-drove a Rendezvous, which was loaded down with more bells and whistles than I’d ever want (ok, so it might be cool to have heated seats, a sunroof, separate climate controls for both passenger & driver, etc. - but I really don’t need all that stuff). Apparently the perception is that the Rendezvous is something of an ugly car, though I didn’t really notice anything particularly offensive to the eye. Once Uncle Dick determined that I had absolutely no objection to its styling, he said “well, hm. Maybe you’ll like this one…..” and proceeded to take us to what was probably the ugliest car on the lot - a Pontiac Aztek.
Of course, I grinned. What some would call its ‘aesthetically-challenged” nature, I call “character.” We took it for a drive, and I discovered that the marketing spiel (”Roomy like a minivan, rugged like an SUV, and driveable like a performance sedan”) was accurate. It was comfortable, met my desire to be sitting higher off the road (also makes the car much easier to enter and exit, particularly for someone with a history of back problems), didn’t feel as huge as a minivan, and, though not fully-loaded like the Rendezvous we tried, it had plenty of cool features. An added bonus is that we can (hopefully this summer) purchase the Camping Lifestyle Package, which includes a camper tent extension that hooks to the rear of the car and an inflatable mattress. Who cares that it looks like a small hatchback that has been expanded, as a sponge in water, to the size of a minivan, and that when I stand next to the tailgate, I feel as though I’ve followed the “Drink Me” instructions on a mysterious bottle of liquid?
Saturday turned out to be a crazy whirlwind of a day what with test driving, lunch with my mum, filling out paperwork, etc. etc., but by 4:30 we had left my old car in the lot and were driving off with my new Aztek. We celebrated with a lovely dinner at the Thomaston Café, and headed back to the Inn for a relaxing evening with our noses in books.
Now the fun starts, trying to deal with the MA DMV to get a new, out-of-state purchased car registered here (why does MA make things so difficult?! I had absolutely NO trouble when I went through the exact same procedure in NC four+ years ago).
*sigh* I can’t wait to move back to Maine.
new car, with Husband’s truck in background
). Turns out that it requires “Major Repairs” (whatever that means; they don’t specify the details until the thing is shipped back after fixin’), to the tune of roughly 1/3 of the original cost. Yuck. However, with the weather becoming warmer and Spring starting to show signs of arriving, I’ve been hankering even more for some picture-taking excursions, so I bit the bullet and gave Nikon the OK to fix. I still love playing with the Pentax I inherited from my grandfather, but I crave the instant gratification of the digital camera. Hopefully I’ll have it back in my grubby little hands in a few weeks.
