The days of the old car are over.  I had had enough of it.  The doors don't open right, the front windows don't work, the windshield is cracked, the gauges don't work, the headliner is falling off, just a long list of things wrong with it. Not worth fixing. Decided that I would get a new (new to me, not brand new) vehicle.  I just spent a good 5 hours at a local dealership, shook hands after a lot of negotiating on a Cadillac Escalade, I'm very happy.  It's older but it's in excellent condition and is absolutely loaded with options.  It has a sun roof, automatic step bars that come out when stepping out of the vehicle, front and rear ac, heated seats and steering wheel - on and on and on the list.

I'm not really even sure all it has, but more than enough for me.  22 inch wheels, Chrome. Tires will be expensive, but it has good rubber on it.  My car insurance went up 600 dollars per 6 months, I'm going to be looking for a better deal. In fact, the salesman gave me the address of a local insurance agency that represents a bunch of insurers and tries to find a better deal for you. It is, to me anyway, a beautiful vehicle, lots of chrome, just very nice, IMO. 

Well whatever. I have a vehicle now I hope I can trust for road trips.  Not that I have that much time to do it, but I will eventually accumulate paid leave here, yes I'm trying to stick with this place, and then can take a week off here and there and have some time to go places.  That isn't really why i bought it tho.  I don't really want to take extended road trips, but the necessity has arisen in the past, such as the situation with dad on his death bed and then, dad dying.  5,000 miles of driving just for those 2 trips.  I'm more thinking about flying places now and using Uber or Lyft to get me around (versus renting expensive rental cars). 

Well, there it is. I'll take pics tomorrow and post on Facebook. Oh, wait, I'm not going anywhere tomorrow and I am letting my friend take the thing to work lol.  I'll take pics when she gets home.  If I can get in, I am getting my teeth finished tomorrow. But if not, there isn't much else I need to do.  I did the saliva swabs this morning, put them in the vials, went to the post office and sent them off to the lab.  This is the DNA thing that tells you what your heritage is. I would be shocked if there isn't Irish blood in there, considering what I've been told all my life. But hey, people are told a lot of stuff and then find out different.  I eagerly await the results, which admittedly could be weeks off. 

This thing has a trailer hitch on it. I'm ready to roll. Oh, yes, the road trips, well my friends are like, we know what vehicle we're taking if we all go on a trip somewhere! lol the thing has a DVD with a pop down screen to watch on - back rows only.  3 rows of seats!  I just didn't want a small version of an SUV.  They do not have the capacity for people hauling and they don't have 8 cylinder engines and they can't haul heavier loads.  I will probably invest in airbags for this thing to make a smoother ride for pulling the trailer.  I'm still on the path of getting a couple more 4 wheelers and going out on weekends that I'm home with the folks and having some fun.  Or taking off alone with the dogs and doing the same if during the week.

Ugh.  I should have known I would be at the dealer for hours and hours. I had gone to the grocery store before all of that, had 2 racks of ribs, 3 pound chub of ground beef and a lot of other stuff. It was hot and that stuff was sitting in my trunk.  I forgot all about it. For a couple of hours. When I remembered, the ribs were defrosted and stuff was getting warm. I ended up firing up the car and letting it idle with AC on max to cool it back down. I bought the ribs for future reference.  The ground beef was for a smoked meat loaf recipe I found today.  Now, I"m forced to cook all of that meat tomorrow or write it off.  More food than we are going to eat, but I'm cooking it anyway and have a lot of leftovers.

Note that both of them are working now and time to cook is limited. When I'm home, I have all day if I want to to smoke meats. Or make a less time consuming meal that is both good and satisfying.  Note also that both of them are excellent cooks. But getting home from work late and with 2 young kids, well, they skimp on meals to beat cooking. I understand it completely, just saying when I'm there during a weekday, I'll make dinner. Today was the exception since I was sitting in that dealer all day. I wanted to leave with a vehicle, I wasn't leaving with a bad deal lol.

I'm on an uncertain route at the moment. Taking steps to rectify old situations that I have done nothing about because I didn't have the resources to deal with it.  I'm really very pleased with this SUV.  It's better than a pickup in my view, though I couldn't say that if I didn't already have a trailer to use if I need to get things that would otherwise fit in the bed of a pickup. 

There are other things I want to get done.  Not anything I can do right now, but they are on the horizon.  The light is showing at the end of the tunnel.  Couldn't say that a year ago today. 

It's late. I need to get up fairly early and fire up the smoker.  Time to go to sleep.