Goodbye Old Girl

Last Sunday Matt and I finally said Goodbye to one of my oldest friends:

Would you join me for a walk down memory lane?   *sighs* Thanks, I really loved her. 

**Summer '00, at my job I saw a posting on a message board for a '86 (or something) car for like $900. I thought... I have $900.   OHMYGOSH I have enough money to BUY A CAR!!!  (ok, in retrospect I see the problems with that thinking, but after that I was determined that I wanted a car!)  

**More Summer '00 my dad encourages me NOT to buy that particular car because of high mileage, not being a great model, and general stupidity and inexperience on my part, but agrees to help me look for one.  I learn how to drive a stick in hopes of having more options and eventually find my Honda for sale in Fairfax.

**It is NOT what I was hoping for.  I wanted it to have a sun roof, and not be red, and the Honda is red *blah* and does not have a sun roof.  On the other hand it does have some bonuses.  The owner (there's only been 1 ) has all the records, has done ALL the maintenance and had no kids (the first cheerios I vacuumed out of that car, were my own child's (and Violets, but we'll get there).

**Take out my FIRST loan and buy the car!  Take it to college August of '00 and mostly let my friend Jenni drive it (who can drive a stick) because I'm still scared!  (I learned on a little bit newer manual transmission, so the clutch felt WAaaay different).  

**Drive the car for the next 3 years at college and 1  1/2 after college until I move to Honduras. (Car is PAID OFF the summer after I graduate, yea!  I still remember where I was sitting when I wrote the last check!)  My dad tries to the sell the car for the 4 months while I am gone, but it doesn't sell.  THANK GOD!  Because I come back in January and start using it again!  

**Drive the car back and forth from Harrisonburg, VA to Asheville NC while Matt and I are dating.  Love her.  She is so good to me.  

**In the Summer of '06 when Matt and I are married, our friends agree to take over ownership for the year we are in Chile.  We're hoping they'll use it some and we'll have a car to come home to.  They take such good care of it, and even let another friend of ours use it when she's visiting in town.   We are still so grateful to them!  

**Summer of '07 Matt and Jessie and I pick up the car on our epic cross country journey to CA, and trailer it here.  We use it here for the next 2 years without any trouble... haha (except getting it registered, but that's another story!).  

**Summer '09 Jessie drives out new car (generously given to us by Matt's parents who have gotten a new car)  and we start driving it.  

..... and the Present time.  A while ago, I washed and waxed the Honda, took a bunch of pictures and then put her on Craigslist.  I sold it the next day for $300 less than my Dad tried to sell it for 6 years ago, which is probably a sad sign of the times, or the economy in CA, either way....

Thanks for the walk down memory lane with me.  Thanks Dad for the great advice in buying my first car (and for not letting me "learn" by buying a hunk o' junk!).  Thanks Laura and Myers for keeping it for us and for taking such good care of it.  Thanks Kay and Tom for the new (and safer! and AUTOMATIC) car.  And bye Old Girl!  You were so so good to me!

And bring on the comments.  You know you loved her!   You know you remember her!  Let's send her off in style!!  Reminisce with me!!