Goodbye Gwennie

Who is Gwennie?

My Ford Escape.

Or, my ex-Ford Escape.  I traded her in today for a Subaru Outback.

Gwennie (named after Gwen Stefani because of her song Sweet ESCAPE) has given me some trouble of late.  Nothing horrible - like last year's engine mishap above, but more along the lines of being in need of some upgrades.  And, her warranty is up in July. After said engine blow-up last year where the only thing that saved my butt was my warranty, I just won't own a car without one.

I was sad to see her go though.  I really did love her. 

She's carried a lot of things: Todd, Rigby, family, friends, in the above photo - a backend full of rocks for Molly's landscaping, and all of my possessions as I headed back West.

We've driven all around D.C., 'cross country with a U-Haul, around Vail, Colo., into Nebraska to visit Stacey and family and pick-up Rigby, into the mountains...she and I are kind of like that Johnny Cash song about being everywhere, man.

But to make our relationship work, I would have had to pump more into it in the form of tires, a windshield (cracked on a trip to Nebraska), and somehow figure out a way to cover her if she gets mad at me and blows a gasket - literally.

So, after months of research and weighing the pros and cons and expenses of keeping Gwennie as opposed to owning a different car, we decided to go the new route.

It wasn't what we set out to do yesterday, though.  We were on our way to test drive a totally different vehicle when we decided to pull into the Subaru dealership for just a peep.  After driving a few cars, comparing the Outback to the cars we thought we were interested in, and working a few numbers we ended up driving a Subaru home.

As Todd and I cleaned out ol' Gwen I was sad.  I just kept looking at her remembering all our good times, like...

...the feeling of being free after I dropped off the U-Haul...
...or, when Gwennie got her Colorado tags and then her Wyoming ones...
...or, how we rocked out to Poison's Unskinny Bop as we made our way up the mountain to the Eisenhower Tunnel when I moved from Vail to Laramie, Wyo.,...

She was a good lil' SUV.

Au revoir, Gwennie!  It's been fun!  I know you'll have a good new owner in no time!

(This photo is being super weird and won't upload in the horizontal direction.  You get the sentiment...)