No Pony for Me

My dreams of owning a Mustang convertible are over for now.  When faced with the reality of stuffing my children into a small car cavity, I lost my enthusiasm for that particular mode of transportation.
Since I would not buy any government motors vehicles, I had decided on Ford or Toyota, and ended up buying a 2009 Toyota Highlander. I had really good luck with my used Volvo wagon years ago (I ended up putting over 225K additional miles on it). Even as a single college kid, I loved the utility of wagons.  I don’t know what my problem with practicality is, but I needed to feed it this one last time. 
It’s been twelve days since we brought Rosalita-san MacIntosh home and so far, I love her! [She’s named in honor of her color, Salsa Red Pearl, with a nod to her country of origin and Scottish-sounding model name. Automatic transmission = girl. Dur.] She seats seven so I can drive around with my husband, all of my children (even though two of the three of them now have their own cars), and a set of grandparents as well! Now that makes for some good times! At least it does in my crazy, singing, fun, fun, fun, car-trip world.  
After owning a series of 4-cylinder cars, Stephen loves her pick-up and the power of her 3.5 L engine  (I have no idea what that really means, but since it seems to make him happy, it makes me happy).
We, and by we, here I mean he, drove her all the way down to Georgia and back and it worked out quite well. We actually averaged 26 mpg for the entire trip, which included some city miles (not to mention an accidental late-night, backwoods detour where we thought we heard the faint sound of banjoes playing) which is pretty good for such a beast. When configured with four comfy individual seats and plenty of room for all of our unnecessary shoes, Rosie really made our trip that much more enjoyable as our new lifestyle assistant.
Here she is, resting at home, after the successful completion of that journey. Oh yeah. Since we always back our cars into the garage, I've been letting Stephen do the parking while I get used to her increased dimensions. I'd hate to dent her or take out some structural member of the garage! Other than that, though, I'm an excellent driver.

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