Saying Goodbye to a Loyal, Old Friend

Well, I am back from Nice and finally settling in after having a delicious dinner last night at one of my favorite breweries with an old friend in Germany on business. Tonight, I get the joy of working and doing laundry for the week. Then, I have to head to bed early because tomorrow morning I set off on a great adventure to get a document notarized and sent back to the US in order to finalize the sale of our car. It has been eight years of service by this trusty vehicle. Though there were occasionally hard times and dollars spent in upkeep, it has served me well. All told it drove me across North America three and a half times, moved countless of my friends, collected a number of parking tickets during the rather stressful time of finishing my thesis, and took us anywhere we needed to go throughout the better part of our driving lives. Right now, I am mostly focused on completing the transaction, so the thought of losing the car is kind of deeply repressed. Plus, living without a car for the last two years makes it hard to feel the nostalgia I know will wash over me when I realize it is truly gone. So, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the Manimal for the many years of dedicated service to my small family, including the hours of joy spent driving on road trips, the memories obtained both on the way and at many destinations, surviving my wife speeding to school many times a day for two years and for teaching Mindy to love the open road.

A pit-stop while driving across the country.

Navigator Mindy.

Amber cruising down the road.