A Sweet Ride

I have mentioned that my 1998 Mazda Protege's brakes went the week before last. Since then, it's been a day-by-day thing, figuring out how I will get to work and back. Some days I ride the bus, once or twice, I borrowed my husband's Chevy Impala. And on this day, I finally (for the first time ever) drove my new car to work.

This is a shot of my Chevy Sonic (the color: Arctic blue!) sitting in the parking lot by the building where I work at Penn State. I bought the car in June of 2017 because we thought my Mazda might be down for the count. I went away on a trip to the beach with my oldest sister, and returned on the train, not knowing whether I'd still have a car or not.

The Mazda somehow made it through that crisis, and several others since then. It has been my daily go-to car for the past 15 years. I've helped with engine work on it, and done most of the body work myself. It still looks good. A lot of the photos in this journal, I took while tooling around in that car. I don't worry about it. I just get in it and DRIVE.

The Mazda has a kickin' stereo system that features great sound, and picking a CD to listen to is one of my morning joys. The car has a moon roof, which I don't open a lot, but I adore the extra light it provides. Dexter and I still enjoy going out and sitting in it after supper each day. We're not sure its days of service are over yet, but things are not looking too positive.

Now about the Sonic. We bought it as a "Plan B" car, in case the Mazda went down. But then the Mazda was saved, and so my husband and I have been using the Sonic as a "leisure car," which is to say taking it out on only the nicest days, and driving it to fun places, where we can park it far from the madding crowds.

My husband is usually the driver when we go together (he's happiest in the driver's seat and pretty much miserable anywhere else), so I have not driven it often myself and I have never driven it in the rain or bad weather. In fact, this was only my second time ever driving it all by myself, and my first time taking it to work. I parked it in a corner spot. And how did I feel? LIKE A PRINCESS!!!

Now, this is not to say that I plan to start driving it every day. I admit I feel a little bit intimidated driving the only new car I've ever owned and leaving it in a public parking lot unattended. But I hear that people do such things all the time, with vehicles costing much more than this one did. So perhaps I'll get used to it in time; but for now, it feels very new and exciting to me! So hop in, and let's go for a sweet ride!

My soundtrack song is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, with Runnin' Down a Dream.