New ride

Well, it's not a Tesla but we bought a new car yesterday and it is sweeeeet. We had to go to Oregon to get it as there was only one dealer on the entire west coast who had what we wanted, and he only had one, a white 2011 Hyundai Elantra Touring SE with 5-speed manual transmission.

There's still a lot of life left in our little 2000 Hyundai. It's a great car, it's just that we are planning to drive to Florida in the spring so this seemed like a good time to reup. Monday we decided on the Touring. We drove to Oregon on Tuesday, bought it on Wednesday and drove home on Thursday but it wasn't an impulse buy. Naturally, M. Lee had already read and digested all the reviews and hot threads on all the vehicles on his list. I had my own short list, another Elantra, but these things must be thoroughly discussed. We had pondered the Subaru, contemplated the Audi, took the Sportage for a test drive etcetera. We weighed all the factors till our heads spun, but all roads led back to the Touring. Hyundais are great cars. End of story. And no, they did not pay me to say that.

Then, once we were certain that the Touring was the best of class, we were left with the most agonizing, most mind boggling decision of all... black or white.

Peter, the cool internet sales dude, took this photo
and posted it on the dealership's Facebook page.

We like black. Black is stealth and cool, mysterious, powerful, maybe even a little bit dangerous looking. Diplomats, royalty, heads of state and other shady characters are chauffeured around in fleets of shiny black cars. The thing is, they have people to keep their sleek black cars looking untouchable but once a black car is dirty, the magic is gone. We tried to convince ourselves that we would keep a black car menacingly clean, but we knew it was a lie. We're slobs, so we got white. Plus white is better in the desert. We'll tint the windows.

We're giving the silver Elantra to our daughter. Baby Thea and Owen the Dog need a new ride. Currently poor Owen has to hunker down on the floor in the Saturn's scrinchy backseat space which he must share with Baby Thea's wiggly feet. Now, he'll get a whole third of a car to himself. Who's yer gma?