to buy a used car

So Dave and I have been searching for a new car for him for about the last month or so.  Ok, ok, Dave has really been heading up this search, but, you know, I helped him out here and there.  Mostly I just said yes that's a good one, no that one's ugly.  Really helpful, I know.

Well, we've been combing through Hyundai's, Toyota's, and Ford's, but this past week we finally found a triple threat.  Right price.  Right year.  Right mileage.  We were stoked.  Unfortunately it was at a little local dealership down in San Diego.  Now, that's not super far, but it's far enough, about two and halfish hours each way.  Luckily my parents are at the halfway point for us in Orange County, but still.

We set up an appointment with the guy on Tuesday afternoon so that we could go down, see it, get it checked out by a mechanic, and get back up to Santa Clarita by that night for a meeting I had in the morning.

Well, we got down there, (after hitting our fair share of traffic) we saw the car, and we thought it was great.  The only problem was that by that time it was 5:00 in the PM and ever mechanic in the area closed in half an hour (we called all 15 of them)!  So we were out of luck.  And we weren't going to buy this thing without getting a third party opinion so were kind of...stuck. 

Best case scenario seemed to be to hop back on the road, bunk with my parents for then night, and then come back down the next day to get the car (opting out of my morning meeting in the process - oops!).  So we showed up on my parents doorstep without even a toothbrush or a change of clothes.  Good thing they like us, cause they took us in regardless.  And the next morning we went car hunting all over again.

Long story short?  We got the car, got the mechanic's ok, and drove our little blue car home.  Not after doing a little San Diego site seeing of course (it took the auto shop almost 3 hours to inspect the car - we had a bit of time to kill).  We took a stroll around the San Diego temple, which Dave had never been to before, and made friends with the most darling little elderly lady.  She guessed we were newlyweds (at 2 years can we still claim that status?), and told us to have a happy life.  She was darling.  We also made our way down to Torrey Pines State Beach and listened to our book on tape with the sound of waves crashing in the background.  Not too shabby.

And then by the time we got back to my parents house for dinner and to show off our new little blue boy that night, well, it was kind of late.  So we bunked over one more time.

So we set out Tuesday afternoon planning to be home that evening - and didn't get back home again til Thursday afternoon.  The best laid plans of mice and men you know...