Saying goodbye to a friend of the family...

I have been blessed recently with being able to buy a newer car. I have been driving a 1992 Mazda MPV minivan for about five years now. Why I call this little van a fiend of the family is because it has been with our family since 1993. My mom and dad originally owned it for about nine years. It saw us on family trips as kids and numerous moving trips back and forth for college for me, my sister, and my brother.

When they bought the van I was graduating college that year. My sister was driving her own car, and my parents decided that their full size Econoline conversion van was too big an too costly to drive. So they "downsized" to the MPV. Better gas mileage and easier to maneuver through traffic. I remember like it was yesterday...mom haggling with the salesman over $100 like a shrewed Arabian street vendor. My dad rolling his eyes and us kids waiting hours and hours as the final details of the contract were negotiated. Since then the MPV has proven worth the wait.

I remember one trip in particular when were bringing my brother home from Ball State. Me, my mom, my brother, and my aunt Wanda (she's the crazy aunt every family has) were piled into the MPV with just about every earthly possession my brother owned. We actually packed my brother in the seat and then put stuff on top of him...it was the only way to get us all in there. Anyway, we got to laughing about something that tickled us and we had to stop at a hospital ER on the way home because I had an asthma attack from laughing so hard! That's the kind of stuff that happened with my family. Fun memories. Memories that took place either in or around this little hunk of metal that is a Mazda MPV.




So with a sad "Goodbye" and a heart felt "thanks" I have decided to put her up for sale. I just hope and pray that she will bring as much joy or take people to a place of joy as she did for us these past fifteen years.