Who woulda thunk that I'd ever own an SUV? Not me, for sure...but here I am with a silver Saturn VUE in my driveway. Having a new vehicle requires some adjustments. I haven't spent much time figuring it out yet. I need to do that before the snow flies. One thing is for sure: the SUV actually does NOT have more room than the Impala did. The trunk in the Impala held far more than the storage behind the hatch of the SUV, but there is that folding seat function that helps a bit. No matter. The SUV is 130,000 miles newer, and that works for me!
Problem #1 with the new buggy: no place to mount a ham radio. Even if there were a place, I'd first have to order a power cable for the mobile radio that I have because the last one was sacrificed when I got rid of the car. My sister and I simply couldn't find a way to remove it, especially since it had been spliced with the mobile HF radio's power cable, and both were hard-wired to the battery. There must be a way. I'm just not ready to compromise the integrity of the car, yet!
Problem #2 that vexes me is that if the radio or CD player are in use, the clock doesn't display the time. Surely there is a way to fix that? I'll have to take out the manual and look it up. Wait...a radio operator that reads instructions? No way!
Problem #3 is that the rear view mirror is narrow in scope, and the back window has enough window posts, etc., that there are more blind spots. I am learning to be more cautious when pulling out of my driveway or changing lanes on the highway, just to make sure that there aren't any vehicles there that I didn't see. (This happened a time or two with the Impala, but the potential is greater with the Saturn.)
Problem #4, which really isn't much of a problem, is that getting into the Saturn requires a small hip-hike up, whereas my old Impala required only that I get my leg in and plop down. Thus, getting into the Saturn is harder than getting into the Impala, but getting out is easier. (My sister has a 2015 luxury Tahoe that is a major production to get into.)
My sister told me a few weeks ago that she spotted my old buggy in a Walgreen's parking lot in Springfield, IL (where I bought my new car), complete with crumpled fender and old bumper antenna mount, but that the broken rear door handle had been replaced. (I still have the broken piece of door handle here. Plastic. Door handle made of plastic? How does that get fixed??) I'm glad the Impala found a good home. It was a reliable car when I had it, but it was getting old. I feared that it was going to break down on me on my trips to Illinois.
I'm still trying to get used to seeing a silver buggy in my driveway. I try to be careful with it, not letting it get full of the trash that the old one did. But now, I need to find the ice scraper and the IPASS transponder and the garage door opener for my daughter's house, all needed before my next trip to Illinois...maybe in mid-November.
Life goes on. The character of my vehicles has never been part of my profile because I've never been able to choose a type or a color to suit me. I have always just been lucky to have what I have. I am hoping that the Saturn will fill the bill as my very last car. If that happens, I can get used to it!
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