As an update to this post from a while ago, I had to get a new car! I thought it might be in the cards for me in about a year or so, but my poor old car kept handing me $1000 repairs about once a month lately, so I thought I’d better find a replacement sooner rather than later.
Eulogy for an Old Honda
I had long thought that I would run my poor old ’06 Honda Civic right into the ground before I got another car. But on second thought, it seemed a slightly better idea to buy a new(er) car before I was forced to do so. Because who knows where I would be when that happened?
I bought my Civic brand new in August of ’05 and put 246,000 miles on it! I’ve driven to Florida multiple (MULTIPLE) times and even all the way up to Canada once!
I was determined to make it to 300,000 miles but I decided the repair costs just weren’t worth it. In six months, I had put $3600 into the car. When my engine light came on during a drive to DC and the mechanic said it was a catalytic converter, I decided that was it. I bought some catalytic cleaner from Walmart instead (which did make the light go off!) and drove it home to Chattanooga with no problems.
My poor old thing – I knew exactly where I had gotten every dent and scratch.
I DO miss my sticker collection
But let’s get real – it was a 15-year old car. It was to the point that parts would just fall off and I’d take them to the mechanic and say, “Is this important?” In the end, I sold it in a day for $2000 on Facebook.
I do miss my car. We’ve been through a lot together. But what I miss most is my bumper sticker collection! Sadly, there’s no transferring that to a new vehicle. And I had made some great additions in recent months… OH, let’s honor the dearly departed, shall we?
The A1A Florida sticker on the left is from my most recent trip up the A1A Coastal Road from Miami to Fernandina Beach.
The “Be Bold” rocket sticker is from a visit to the Kennedy Space Center, part of that A1A trip that I’ll write about soon.
“Falls to Farm” round sticker is from a Helen, GA trip I took with my family last summer. The “Anna Ruby Falls” is also in Helen, from earlier in the week while visiting with a friend. I don’t plan on writing about that week, but in general, we walked to waterfalls and to the Hardman Farm Historic Site on the east side of town. The Hardman Farm Trail is an easy, wide sidewalk with lots of informational signs about the history of Helen. I recommend it!
“Eat Fruit” is from a week in Gainesville, FL watching a cat for a friend. While there, I watched a movie in the old Hippodrome Theater. This sticker is from the popsicle shop across the street.
MAINE is for a stop in Portland during my frantic trip to Prince Edward Island in Canada.
The small Columbia River Gorge is from the trip with my parents to Seattle/Alaska and back.
“OBX” is from a family trip to the Outer Banks in 2018.
“Mile 0” is for a trip to Key West I took with a friend long, long ago. We drove from Chattanooga to Key West, staying on US 27 the entire way down until it dead-ended into Highway 1. It was much more fun than driving the highway!
“I Got Mooned” was from Chattanooga’s own Moon Pie store – I just couldn’t resist.
The small “Black Lives Matter” sticker I got in Montgomery, AL at the excellent Rosa Parks Museum. (I feel like I should say that the size of my stickers are generally in proportion to the size of the trip, not my feelings about the cause. I try to stay away from political stickers in general. Guess I couldn’t resist this one.)
I stayed in Gulf Shores, AL for almost three weeks after my civil rights tour through Alabama.
“Going-To-The-Sun” is for our stop in Glacier National Park on our way to Seattle and then on to an Alaskan cruise.
“White Pass & Yukon Route” is for a fantastic train excursion we went on in Skagway, Alaska on that cruise.
That faded blue octagonal sticker is for our one day in Grand Teton National Park. The two to the right of that are both for our stay in Yellowstone National Park, both on that grand western expedition trip.
Above those, is a “Love Lookout” sticker from my church, representing Lookout Mountain, TN. The “#noogastrong” stickers could be found all over town after the fatal shootings of four Marines and a Navy sailor in 2015.
If you look really closely, above the Chattanooga stickers is a black A1A decal that you can hardly see on my dark blue car. That’s from my first trip to Flagler, FL and the A1A a few years ago.
And right in the corner are two Smoky Mountains stickers. The small bear paw is for a family trip to a Pigeon Forge cabin in 2017. The larger “You Are Here” one was bought during my trip to visit all the Mountain Coasters of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge.
And finally, one window decal with my favorite Tolkien quote – “not all who wander are lost.” There once was a larger decal on the other side with the word “wanderlust” surrounded by mountains. It was so big that it folded up a little when I applied it and I ended up taking off the whole picture, leaving behind only the word in a thick, blocky font. I felt it represented my determinedness to make this travel thing a reality. Once it became reality, I replaced it with a prettier, loopy one, which ended up going on the new car instead!
Introducing: the new car!
In between two stints in the Maryland/DC Metro Area, I had FIVE days in Chattanooga to find a new car and maybe even sell the old one. Saturday I spent driving around to figure out what I even wanted. I hated to give up the 40 MPG of my Civic but I did want something with more ground clearance. I tried out some Subarus, a Prius, a Nissan Rogue, and then a Toyota Rav4 that I decided I really liked.
The price at my first stop wasn’t low enough, so after spending Sunday with my family for Christmas, I drove around Monday to find a good offer on a Rav4. Eventually, I did find a 2018 with a bit higher mileage. They let me have it overnight and I checked it out with my mechanic in the morning and spent the afternoon filling out paperwork (and waiting for them to get it ready…) I sold my beloved Honda the next day, then the day after that left to go back to DC! It was all a bit of a whirlwind.
The Toyota Rav4 LE
So here she is – in electric storm blue! Not the color I would have chosen myself but I don’t hate it. I would like to have a non-blue car next time, perhaps.
It’s definitely a step up from my poor 15-year old Honda. Besides the extra clearance, there’s all-wheel drive, lots of storage, bluetooth connectivity, and TWO whole digital screens to program. It even works better with my old iPod classic through a USB connection. It took me about two whole days to read the manuals and figure out what everything does.
Originally, I had wanted the XLE trim level, which comes with a sunroof and more digital & powered everything but it turns out that I can’t afford it… The LE trim (which is what I got) is a little more manual but still a huge leap in technology for me.
The new sticker collection
I also spent a day wiping all the glass down with rain-x and adding the bumper stickers I collected since deciding to get a new car.
Here’s that replacement decal that was supposed to go on the old car. I think it looks quite good on the new one!
I can’t put stickers down on the black rubber bumper on this car, so they’ll go up on the hatch this time.
So far, I’ve got a Maryland sticker for my time in DC – where I did a fair amount of driving around the Maryland countryside. I picked this one up in Annapolis. A Louisville sticker is for the weeks around Halloween. The Lake Murray decal is from my time at a lakeside condo in Lexington, SC. (I probably won’t be making blog posts about these – I just didn’t *do* much. See my Instagram for the pictures.)
The “PEI” heart is for my trip to Prince Edward Island. It’s a replacement sticker – the one I bought while I was there fell off. You can see the gap in the above pictures, between the Gulf Shores and White Pass stickers. “Ohio” is for two housesitting stints in Akron and Dayton OH, and the garish “South of the Border” is from a pit stop at the infamous NC/SC tourist trap.
So there you have it! It’s a good car and very comfortable! I think I may have strayed into the SUV-version of mom jeans, but what can you do? I liked it best. I’d like it a little better with a sun/moon roof but maybe I can afford one again in the future.
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