My Little Car is GONE!

(Avon Park, FL) Hi  83 Lo 63 -- No, nothing bad has happened... my little car was traded today for a new (to us) car. After the movie yesterday we stopped by the local Toyota dealer - which happened to be just across the street from the movie theater. I wanted to see how much the Toyota RAV4 has changed since we bought ours in 1998. I drove a 2012 RAV4 and loved it. It's grown over the years! It felt so much roomier and more luxurious. The new one was a little out our price range, but there was a "certified" pre-owned 2010 RAV4 on the lot that was just as nice as a new one. The dealer is having a big weekend sale starting this morning, so after breakfast we went back to the dealer. The saleslady, Pat, met us in the parking lot. Jim was a car salesman at one point in his prior (working) life, so I left the negotiating up to him. It didn't take long; once Pat found out that Jim knew all the car sales lingo everything was pretty straightforward. They offered us enough for my treasured '98 and came down enough on the price of the 2010 car to get the "out the door" number within our budget range. So we all shook hands, I wrote a check, and within about two hour total we were on our way.

I loved my old RAV. There's nothing mechanically wrong with it. But is is 14 years old, the paint is shot on it, and the body is starting to fall apart. Also, it's terribly under-powered for mountain driving. I had a hard time keeping up with Jim in the Smokies, and it'll be worse when we get to the Rockies. I hope this one turns out to be as reliable as the old one. It drives so nice, it's much quieter and smoother... and faster! We're still trying to figure out what color it is. The official name is Pyrite Mica. It's kind of a brownish gray and matches the trim on our RV. What do you think?

The dealer removed the amateur (ham) and XM radios for us, and we're going back tomorrow to have them installed in the new car.

We got back home just in time for the Gatoraid Duel races from Daytona. (Jim was glad we made it home in time, but he had the races set to record just in case.)
I made some brownies, and it was so hot that we had to turn on the air conditioner.

The races were great, and they were a great prelude on what's coming up on Sunday in the Daytona 500. We'll both be in our chairs watching for sure.

It was a wonderful day!