After two weeks of looking and two days of anguishing, we finally pulled the trigger on a new(er) car purchase today - a 2012 Honda Oydssey. A bit newer than we were originally looking for but we had no idea how few of these there are on the used market. Either they are really used or barely used. We went the barely used route. Maddie will be 10 when it's paid off. Say wha??? The kids love the side doors and the fact that they can get to their seats without having to climb over one another. As soon as both cars were home tonight, the car seats were switched out. Each kid got a new seating position from what they were used to in the Pilot. I drove the Pilot sans car seats for the first time since I drove it home from Manhattan four years ago. It was eerily empty. Seriously, it felt as though the Boogie Man was going to jump up from the backseat at any moment! As for the Camry, he finally drove off into the sunset. It had been parked at Carmax since Monday, as that's where we had intended to do business. Carmax offered $500 for it. We ended up at the local Honda dealer and as soon as that transaction was complete, I drove over to take Carmax up on the offer. I pulled it into the service lane and as I was handing over the keys and title, someone handed me the plate. I looked up to see the car was already gone. There are a lot of good memories we shared together during the past 11 years. Here's what I wrote on Facebook in response to a friend a couple of weeks ago: "I've wanted a new car for quite some time so I wasn't too distraught when the mechanic said it was probably time. But, we were together 11 years. Drove all the way to Cincinnati to get it and drove it to every miserable newspaper assignment in Topeka. Spent many miles driving between Topeka and Manhattan when Angie and I were dating, many of those drives at 1 a.m. so I could make it back for an 8 a.m. shift at the paper. Drove it to Muskegon to attend a retirement party of one of my newspaper role models, who was quite surprised to see me, and on the way home made my longest solo drive - Chicago to Wichita in just under 11 hours, arriving just in time for Angie's company Christmas party. Later we drove it to Phoenix to see Angie's grandparents in their winter home. Brought all the kids home from the hospital in it, even Harley. Well, Harley came from the pound, of course. I think the Camry was just a little heartbroken because the tag office just last month finally replaced the statehouse license plate with an ad astra one and it just didn't feel the same. Corny, I know, but I think part of its soul died the day I switched out plates. In fact, one bolt was rusted in place and I had to cut the tag off. It didn't want to let go, and now it doesn't want to go on."