200,000 Actual Miles

It was a big week for the Bekah-Mobile!

Yep! We hit 200,000 actual miles on that little thing. What. In. The. World!!

I actually missed the milestone. Ryan was driving it at the time, but he was a dear and paid attention to the odometer and pulled over to take a picture of the momentous occasion! {What a good husband!!}

This little car has been through a lot with me. I bought it back in March of 2003, after trading in a little Neon I'd owned for two years.

I'd purchased the Neon straight out of college, using the title to a little silvery Ford Escort as a down payment. My parents had purchased that Escort when I was in elementary school and it became "my" car when I got my license. It carried me to college - with a quarter of my stuff. The rest was distributed to other cars and all of it was entirely too much for one person to need in a dorm room. By the time I was done with college, little Lloyd {that's what I named it} had developed a leaky radiator, causing me to haul around an old Gatorade bottle filled with radiator fluid. Every time I drove it, I had to pop the hood and fill the radiator. I was the coolest kid on campus every Sunday morning, popping that hood in my dress and heels before I could go to church.

So my parents gave me the title and let me use it to buy the Neon. I didn't particularly care what kind of car I got. My requirements were a steering wheel, a cup holder, and air conditioning. The Neon had all those things. But I'd read that they tended to start falling apart around 60,000 miles, so before we reached that ominous milestone, I wanted to trade it in.

My requirements on the second car were a CD player, TWO cup holders, a steering wheel, air conditioning, and please oh please do not let it be white. I was so over driving a white car.

And that's how the little white car came to be mine.

I got my CD player. I got two cup holders - three, in fact. Of course I got the steering wheel and the air conditioning. And shiny white paint.

Sigh.

I would have waited, but the price was right, the mileage was low, the history was good, and it was available that very night. So I signed the papers and drove the new Bekahmobile off the lot. Had no idea it would end up becoming my car for over a decade. It's almost a teenager to me now. And for the most part, it's been good to me.

We've gone on road trips, we commuted for four years, and we hauled a lot of people, groceries, and potted plants. That car drove over many miles during my personal wilderness five years ago, and it was a safe little haven for me to park in while I journaled and sobbed over life. It's heard a lot of phone calls, had its wheel squeezed thin during snow and ice driving, and received more than a few glares when it broke down upon occasion.

I never dreamed I'd get 200,000 out of this car. And now it's like a game to see how many MORE we can get from it.

It may have been the dreaded white paint I didn't want, but it certainly has been a blessing of a vehicle for the past almost thirteen years. I have demanded much from it, and while it's protested upon occasion, it has served me well.

Good work, little Bekahmobile. Good work.