Not my actual car, but close.

Yes, I’ve talked cars before, but this post goes into a little more depth about some of the vehicles in my life. My grandmother drove a sensible blue four-door Ford sedan, complete with a big pillow to elevate her on its bench seat. My other grandmother drove a kick-ass Pontiac GT with sweet bucket seats and a hideous olive green coat of paint. They both traded their cars in for more sensible brown cars in the later year. Too bad.

My father loved Fords, until the T-Bird. He had Fords for years, up until he bought a 1973 Thunderbird for my mother, complete with a Landau roof. It was the palest green color imaginable, and it was a lemon. It seemed like that car was constantly in the shop, and not just because our dog chewed up one of the armrests when my mother ran an errand with him one day. That car was just trouble, I could tell the first time my mother closed the door on my leg. Besides, who gets a two-door when they have kids?

After my father’s love affair with Ford subsided, he became an Oldsmobile man. At one time he owned three Toronados, blue, maroon, and my favorite, dark gray. I loved that car. My dad even put vanity plates on it with my name on them.

Several Oldsmobiles later, my father moved up to Cadillac. I’m not sure if that was his idea or my mother’s, but not long after he splurged and bought a Mercedes. It was shocking. My father had ranted and railed against Mercedes for years, however, he presented one to my mother for her birthday.

Personally, I’m a Toyota girl. After three hand-me-down Oldsmobiles (including my beloved dark gray Toronado), I finally got a car that was new just for me, a Toyota Camry.

Again, not my actual car, but close enough.

That was a great car. We put 206,000 miles on that car over the course of 13 years. That car visited the Atlantic and the Pacific, more than once. In its final days it could no longer provide air conditioning, a must in my desert Southwest home. I was sad to see that car go, however, its final gift was $6,000 on trade-in. That car paid for itself.

I’m on my second Camry now, and at 135,000ish miles it’s going strong. Sure, it’s from the middle of the last decade, but it’s paid for and I love it. This one hasn’t been to the Atlantic, but it’s seen the Pacific several times, and it knows the way to Vegas too. I have no plans to replace it anytime soon. True, I like some of the new features that cars have now, but this car is terrific, and until it’s time to put it out to pasture, I’ll be very content with it. It gets me and family where we need to go comfortably and safely, what more could I really need?