Thankful 2

~This Blog is part of a series for November, adapted from the series Erin is currently running over on her blog. For this month in honor of Thanksgiving I will release a blog every other day about something/one/idea I am Thankful for. I've broken the criteria down into a guideline of sorts that I will follow, the month will contain 5 People - 5 Things - 5 Ideas . The order that I post things in has no particular significance or ranking behind it.~



My Car
Thing - 1

While in someplaces of the world having your own transportation isn't important... in rural Indiana it is a key to freedom that I have been lucky to have since I was 16.

Which is good considering I totalled my Dad's truck on my 13th birthday... I vowed I wouldn't drive again after that, but my parents were supportive and wanted me to have my licence as soon as possible. I took my drivers ed at Waldron and my Dad got me my first car... a 1986 Monte Carlo SS with T-Tops, I actually really liked this car, despite it being a gas guzzler and only a year younger than me.



My friends and I had a lot of fun driving around in it as I was basically the driver for everything we went to in high school. It also got me through all four years at Purdue before I retired it due to the cost of gas / basic age and needed repairs.

Next I drove my parents old mini-van for almost a year while I was looking for something else to drive. The Mini van was nice in that it got much better gas mileage than the Monte Carlo despite not being as cool. (22 mpg is a big improvement over 15 mpg)

Finally after a lot of looking around I made my choice.... a Kia Soul...



I bought it on my Birthday, in 2009. I originally wanted a white one but they didn't have one in the model I wanted and I knew if I waited it would take me even longer to make a move on a car.... Spending that much money was a big leap for me. So I pulled the trigger and bought my car on my birthday. I actually really like the care and haven't felt much buyers remorse on it (which is unusual, so I think it was a good choice).

I was telling Erin today it was cool having the only soul I knew around for a long time (they were a brand new model when I got mine) and it sort of sucks seeing more of them around nowdays. This may be the most expensive purchase I make in my life (other than a house hopefully) so it was a big leap for me and I'm thankful I've had the car and that so far I haven't had any real problem with it.