RIP Mazda

The Mazda is kaput. For those of you who never had the pleasure of meeting "La Maz", as we used to call her, she was a 1986 Mazda 323 that we've driven for the last 5 years. Keri's dad found it in CA with only 76,000 miles on it (and no rust!) for a mere $1400. Even though most of the stories many of you have heard about it involve break downs of some sort (wheels falling off in Southern Indiana, not starting after it rained overnight, the battery dieing on us continually for a year), it really has been a great car. We drove it from CA to MI with semi trucks passing us through the Rockies, and we took it on several trips after that, but a 23 year old car can only last so long. Though it had only 105,000 miles on it, things were starting to go wrong more and more consistently--exhaust, tires, and the death knell...brakes. This was not a great time financially for us to get a new car, and it always is cheaper to fix a car then to buy a new one, but we really felt like this was it for the Mazda. La Maz has earned her rest, and we got the $199 processing fee on our new car waived to trade her in for wholesale.

After a long search, we got a 2004 Hyundai Santa Fe Monday night. We wanted something a bit bigger than our Honda Accord for hauling things like C.J.'s drums and a dog (we're planning on getting a big one!). We are hoping this will be a reliable car! We hope we're done with major expenses for a while!