Joy ride

In July of 1989, I purchased a new Toyota Camry. Oh, how I loved that car--it had all the features I had wanted, including  power windows (not as ubiquitous as they are now) and a moonroof, which I absolutely adored! I was still driving it in 1998 when Rick came to North Carolina to fetch me and my belongings and bring me to Denver. It rode on a trailer hitched to the back of the Ryder truck we drove across country. When Rick's old van became a liability in 2001, we bought a Honda Odyssey because, at the time, there were 4 little girls and their friends that needed to be driven around, so another van made sense. That became the vehicle I primarily drove since I did not need to drive every day (and, if I'm to be completely honest, the new van was more comfortable and suited my vanity better than the aging Camry!), while Rick used the more economical Camry for commuting to work on a daily basis.

Over the years of Rick's stewardship of the Camry, while it continued to be a reliable friend, its old age became more and more apparent, with almost everything having to be replaced item by item--except the transmission. But recently, the Camry's transmission started declining rapidly, and we were told it would cost about five times more than the car was worth to replace it. Yesterday (Friday) on Rick's way home from work, the dear 19-year-old workhorse said, "No more!"--and so did Rick.

After pondering all the options, we decided that what made the most sense was to buy a new Honda Civic for Rick to drive to work as they get great gas mileage and are ranked highest in their class for safety, reliability and all the stuff that matters. After doing some online research, today, we invoked Easy World and headed out to the largest Honda dealership in the area to buy one, even though I knew the moon was void of course and that it was close to Mercury retrograde--normally bad omens for major transactions. It was obvious, however, that the divinely appointed time was now, so we agreed from the start that this would be entirely Spirit guided and that we would push nothing, force nothing, and if everything didn't feel absolutely right, we would not buy a car.

It must have, indeed, been time, because when we got there, we had a really wonderful, low-key salesman who never pushed us even one iota--he just showed us what we asked to see, and even when we talked about possibly upgrading to an Accord, I don't think his pulse rate elevated a fraction of a point. (We decided that the Accord didn't have a good enough miles-per-gallon rating, not to mention, it was more than we really wanted to spend.) With no effort at all, we found a silver Civic LX that we both really liked and that seemed like "the one," test drove it, loved it, and bought it. The whole thing was so easy, and felt so right, we did not hesitate. I stayed while the transaction was initiated and then I left Rick there to finish since he could drive his new car home and I needed to get on home to get things done in the garden. So it was very Easy World for me--I was home after about 90 minutes!

As it turned out, Stepdaughter #4 needed a ride to a friend's house tonight, and I got to drive the approx. 30-mile round-trip. It is every bit as nice to drive as the 2008 Camry rental car I drove on my trip to North Carolina last month and just as nice as my 1989 Camry was when it was new. It is very tight and peppy and just a joy to drive. Love the aesthetics, too.

We took the quartz crystal out of the Camry that had been in there since 1989 as protection, and put it in the Civic. We are considering the Civic just the reincarnation of the Camry. If the Civic serves as well as the Camry, we will be very fortunate, indeed. Here's a picture from the Honda website of our--I mean Rick's--new ride: