The Return of Herb

Two summers ago Meg received some devastating news.  She had to give the CR-V to Cal.  She hadn't really planned on giving it up.  She loved the car and had even affectionately named it Herb.  It had gotten her back and forth to Bethany faithfully her senior year and had made multiple shopping trips and visited many of her friends.  It carried her soccer gear, basketball clothes and tennis racquets.  It had become an important part of her life and she was sad to see it go.

Cal needed the CR-V, however, as he had an internship in Indy for the summer.  He didn't mind driving the Silverado, but it just wasn't reliable for long distance trips anymore.  Meg reluctantly took possession of the truck so that she had a way to get to Camp Crosley and back.  As a camp counselor she didn't do a lot of driving anyway, so it worked out.  While Meg was at IU her freshmen year she had access to both Cal and Brett's cars, so we didn't look for her one.  We had planned getting her something this summer.  With Doug's cut in salary due to the health care crisis we just couldn't see putting money into a new vehicle. The truck died once the stay at home order was lifted,  therefore the only thing we could do was to let Meg drive the van when she needed it.  With the pandemic in full swing and social distancing required this past summer, she really didn't go a lot of places.  Thus, we all made the best of it and hoped to be able to get her something by the time she got back home at Thanksgiving.

That all changed in the past couple of weeks.  Doug had gotten 10% of his salary back in late August and we were able to come up with a nice sized down payment on a used vehicle.  I knew that she would really like one earlier than November if possible.  With her job at Bell Trace and Yatziri living so far off of campus, it would definitely come in handy.  Doug and I had talked about reliability and safety as the main features of an used car.  I asked Meg about it and she said that she would really prefer another CR-V.  We agreed that that would be a great idea.  It took a lot of research, but we finally found  a list of six acceptable front wheel drive 2013-2015 CR-Vs within a hundred mile radius of our home.  Doug called several yesterday and finally got the deal that he wanted with an extended  warranty and it just so happened to be in South Bend.  We were used to large auto dealers, so our experience today buying from a local used car dealer was a little different but we didn't mind.  Overall, we were pleased with the car that we found and were excited to finally reunite Meg with "Herb the Second."  She took one look at the picture and said, "Perfect!"