Goodbye Clifford. Hello Shadow!

After (almost) 10 years of marriage and 6 new-to-us vehicles, we have absolutely determined that we are NOT “car buying” people.  Neither one of us really enjoys anything about the process, especially since up to this point we’ve had to purchase under near emergency purposes every single time.

We had planned to drive our minivan, affectionately named Clifford, until the wheels fell off.  Clifford had other plans… the wheels are not falling off, but the transmission (and possibly the engine?) is failing, thus making our once reliable big red van an incredibly expensive and unreliable divestment. Clifford officially let us know that he would like to retire from full-time traveling after serving us well for 150k miles. 115k of those miles were driven by us since purchasing Clifford at the end of June 2014!

Last week, after we decided to go ahead with purchasing the new vehicle and I explained to our older kids what was going on there were a few tears about saying goodbye. He’s been a pretty big part of their childhood.

It hasn’t always been smooth sailing with Clifford…

Yes, that is Clifford flooding. At the carwash. Less than 24 hours after purchase.

Overall, he’s had very few instances where he let us down over the last few years. As I reflect further, he was a pretty big part of the next latest chapter in our life which allowed us the freedom to do so many things…

Just a few of the memories we’ve made with Clifford include – vacations/trips with grandparents, transporting puppies from a shelter to be rescued into forever homes, taken cousins and friends on adventures with us, traveled to over 35 different states and 4 provinces of Canada!

We will miss you, Clifford!!

 

And with that…  we introduce, Shadow!! He has spent his whole life in New Mexico as a company car. Cat and Archer made one final roadtrip to go pick him up in Albuquerque this weekend. We hope that he will enjoy exploring the US and Canada with us for many miles to come!