I passed a major milestone yesterday. On my way home from the grocery store the odometer on my CRV turned 100,000 miles. I’ve never put that many miles on a car before. Even our late Nissan Sentra (RIP) which we also owned for eleven years had less than 50,000 on it and when it was hit. Such a long distance – four times around the earth – where had we been in my sporty little Honda?
Mostly, the miles were short trips, back and forth to work, church or the store. I remember the first time I drove it to work when it was bright and shiny red and had that “new car smell”. My office pals all came out to the parking lot to watch politely as I proudly opened all the doors. They oohed and aahed when I pulled out the back wheel well cover and pulled its legs revealing a card table in disguise! Practical and utilitarian, my CRV was all I wanted in a car with the added bonus of providing me with an elevated view of the road – something nature had denied me. Never again would rain flooded streets keep me from arriving at my destination.
Aside from the day to day commutes to and from work and the errands of life, the CRV has taken us on many road trips. The first was to take Maggie to Longwood for Freshman orientation. With its abundant cargo space, my little red car was ideal for carting kids back and forth to college. That fall, it was Maggie, the next fall was Andy’s turn. One Thanksgiving, when car pools fell through, we took a round trip with Maggie to Farmville and then headed south to drop Andy off in Durham. Sadly , we will remember that trip as “the time we hit the fox”. Fortunately that is the only one notch on our bumper.
I was rear-ended once on my way home from work. It was a rainy evening and the guy behind me just barely hit me, ripping my wheel cover and badly damaging his front grill. We both deemed it unnecessary of policy or insurance company involvement but exchanged business cards. He actually called me the next day to make sure I was OK.
The CRV is great for toting things. We proved this with our three local moved in Virginia Beach. It is truly amazing what can be crammed into that car. Over the years we have hauled furniture, shrubbery, mulch, loads to the Goodwill and did pick-ups from the Food Bank and BJ’s to the St. Mark’s Food Pantry – not mentioning the countless trips to and from college campuses. One time, while shopping at Sam’s Club, we saw an old woman and her son attempting to fit an oversized television box (not a flat screen) into the trunk of her car. No way was it going to fit. We offered our assistance and followed her home with the TV in the back of our car!
The CRV is also a great beach car, easily holding all the chairs, coolers, umbrellas and assorted beach stuff needed for a day or even week at the beach. Because of this, I’m ashamed to admit that my car has not been the tidiest vehicle on the road. Many times its carpets have been dirt and sand covered and the litter bags overflowing with tissues and candy wrappers, bearing witness to my season allergies and life long sweet tooth. Once I won a bet and a couple of my friends were supposed to have it detailed for me, but somehow that never happened.
I do love my CRV. Sometimes I see a newer model or even another kind of car and think it might be nice to have a new one but then I’ll come out of a store scanning the lot to see where I’ve parked and see the now faded cherry red paint of my car, with the cheery Jack In The Box clown ball on my antenea and fall in love all over again. God willing and the creek don’t rise over my wheel wells, I’ll be driving my CRV for another 100,000 miles!