Happy 100K Miles!

My one and only car, the 2001 Toyota Echo I have had for now close to seven years (where has the time gone?!) has turned 100,000 miles old this weekend. It’s hard to believe, looking back, that I have had it for that long and that I have put about 68,000 of those miles on it myself.

March 7, 2010 - Greensboro, NC

I try hard not to get attached to things. People, sure. Pets, definitely. But “things”, I tell myself, are so elusive and so ephemeral! But for some odd reason, I get attached to cars! Sometimes I think I get more attached to them than I do to houses! I am not sure why: maybe because cars take me away and I have lots of memories going fun places in them, or maybe because the road is quite a lonely place to be, and you’re looking for comfort more so than in your house, where comfort just lives, and where it’s easier to take for granted. I don’t know! But I do develop these “relationships” with my cars.

I still mourn, some days, the death of my SAAB, my first car, which I totaled. I still miss my Camry, which was bullet proof, but had to be given away for being too old (about 192,000 miles old)… The Echo has been with me everywhere between Atlanta, GA and Cape Cod, Mass., anywhere from The Outer Banks of NC to West Virginia. Is it ready for the upcoming relocating trip to Utah?! – I wonder. I hope so, because I’ll expect it to be.

It’s been my vehicle, and my tent, when I was too lazy to put up one, my waiting room for doctors’ appointments, and my reading room for my lunch breaks. Boyfriends and bad dates came and went, but the Echo stayed. Houses did too, and it stayed also. It handled trips for my mom, my aunt, even my sister and her whole family, many a friends, with nothing but ease.

It’s been hit about four times, and it’s still running like a dream. And other than new tires, new breaks, and a new battery, it’s been asking for not much more than oil and gas. I would say that’s pretty good for a 9 year old car. And I don’t even want to start talking about how great it feels to fill up the tank once every three weeks, maybe, or forgetting that it does need to be filled at all! I would be here all day, if I did.

You never know what the future brings in anything, but life is that much more relative when it comes to cars. One thing I know, though: looking back at all these years, and judging alone by those, the Echo will remain one of the more reliable cars in my life.

Happy birthday, little car! And happy roads, too! And many, many more healthy birthdays to come. Hope to see The Rockies together, soon, and beyond …