The Odyssey to nowhere.
Last night we picked up our new Honda Odyssey. Sey how Odd we are with a "minivan". We successfully made it through all of those minivan years that America went through without giving up our right to have a car that was fun to drive. We looked the other way when America started veering heavily into pickup trucks and we closed our eyes and covered our ears when the SUV's began lumbering around... We almost made it, but this trip requires a little more packing space than the MINI Cooper could offer us. Beth and I went car shopping. I was heading towards the Honda Element (the toaster) because we thought that the Odyssey was HUGE. We drove the Element and it was OK, but it just didn't grab me. Eventually we tried an Odyssey and found that it handled VERY well (for a large vehicle). The gas mileage is actually higher than the Element because the V6 in the Odyssey will shut down to a 3-cylinder when it can get away with it. The seat configuration is much more flexible for our uses. the third seat plunks down into the floor, while the Element folds the 2nd row seats up over the side windows which makes the large blind spots into a huge blindspot. The Odyssey has lots of bells and whistles to make our tour to knowhere easier and costs almost what we paid for the house we just sold. The paperwork was messed up a little when we picked it up last night. The title was supposed to be made out to the name of the trust that all of our worldly possessions are stored in. The typist had trouble fitting the name into the little space available in their automatic form software that they use and all of the paperwork ended up being labeled for "D Witherell Trust". Derek would have been proud. He was a big fan of traveling and he always wanted to buy a bus to drive all of his friends around in. We are having the paperwork updated, but at least we were reminded of why we are doing this.