Who's Gonna Drive You Home?

I would like to introduce you all to my new car, which does not actually have a name yet (we're waiting to get to know her first.) She is number 5 in the line of cars we have had, following such greats as Betty, Nellie, Bermudis, and the unnamed 1994 Mazda MPV that we were fortunate enough to inherit after I was in an accident that totaled Bermudis last November. (RIP Bermudis, we won't forget you.)

So here she is, a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan, and she is every bit as classy as any SUV, plus she gets better gas mileage. The Mazda we have been driving is well-worn (to put it mildly) and, being a '94, lacks pretty much all of the creature comforts to which most of us have become accustomed. We have a tape deck (thank you D.I. for supplying us with antiquated tapes to listen to!), and the air conditioner blows air that is slightly less warm than outside. The heater doesn't work (last winter was COLD) and the padding is coming out of the seats. (However I would like to state that the Mazda was a life-saver, gifted to us by my friend Roseanne and her husband Dennis, at a time when we had no car and no money to get one. All of those creature comforts are nice but really not necessary.)

Ok, so back to the new car. She has a CD player, very comfy seats, cold AC, and the very best thing - stow-and-go seating. To those of you without a family of six, this may not seem like such a big deal, but after you spend a few road trips with bags under people's legs and between them on the seats and piled so high in the back that you can't see out of the back window, and then having to remove half of said bags every time a kid has to go to the bathroom, you learn to appreciate the small things. (Even the great Bermudis didn't have more than a six-inch gap behind her back seat. It was like playing Tetris every time we packed the car for a road-trip.) We welcome the new car to our family, and if we pass you on the road sometime, make sure you say hello!

Day Tripper

A couple of weeks ago, Jon and I had to make the trek to Stanford for Jon to see the Marfan specialist there, and since we rarely get that far away without the kids (we try to leave in the middle of the night, but man are they light sleepers!) we thought that we would drive home via San Fran. Jon had never been to Chinatown, so that was our destination. We quickly found that there is basically nothing to see in Chinatown, but we took some pictures along the

way.

This is what we'd look like if we were models and we were way too cool to talk to you. Yeah, you know you're jealous.