So long Squid. Hello Cumulo.

In 2003 I bought my first car from a family I knew for $1000. In 2005 the wheels almost fell off during a road trip to see my sister and her future in-laws at Thanksgiving and it was generally decided by everyone else that I was no longer allowed to go far from home in that car.

So during spring break in 2006 I traded that car in for $700 (meaning I spent $100 a year on that car, not bad) and went into debt for the first time and bought Squid, a 2004 Ford Taurus. Ah. What a car. We had a lot of memories together. The first road trip was a month later and was my first trip to Tucson. That was the car I drove back-and-forth from Orem to Salt Lake for my Masters degree. It was the car my mom drove behind my moving truck when I moved to Arizona. It was the car I drove back to Utah as a single woman and then one week later sat in the passenger seat as Brett drove it back to Arizona after our wedding. It was the car we installed a car seat in on a Friday afternoon and then drove to a hotel in town for a one night vacation to celebrate my Doctorate degree and then on Tuesday drove it home with our daughter snuggly secured in that car seat. Lots of good memories in that car.

On February 28th I vacuumed out Squid and took everything out of him. We all stood in front of him for one last photo. And then we traded him in.

We came home with Cumulo as Brett and I are calling him, or New Car as Iddo refers to him. A silver (get it? silver lining, cloud, cumulo) 2012 Honda Odyssey.

There are so many buttons! I just wanted to drive around pushing them all for a week or so after we got it. Squid had a tape deck. Cumulo not only has a CD player, but I can copy 18 CDs to the car’s computer and plug in a USB drive with music on it. We both love opening the sliding doors or rolling down the windows with the remote on the key.

We’ve already made some good memories with him, the first of many more to come.