Is what we call my car, a new hybrid SUV, it is a shade of blue called ‘Still Night Pearl’, a blue that edges into purple, with fine sparkles. It easily goes fast. Without me noticing sometimes. My nephew Greg came up with the name, and since I didn’t have one for it, I kept the moniker. We have always been a family that names its cars.

It is comfortable for all of these miles (around 6500 so far). It reads my texts for me. It holds just enough stuff. It has plenty of places to plug in. It has separate climate control for each front seat. It operates the brights automatically. It has seat warmers. It has a host of angels that sings when I use Reverse. These are all things that made me uncomfortable when I first bought it. I had a 2011 Ford minivan before this, that had no bells or whistles—I mean I was thrilled when I found it had fog lights—and could hold EVERYTHING. So useful. But it was getting quirky and tired, and even started to try to lock me out from time to time. I knew it was finally beyond road trips with mom, though we did go to Maine and back and forth to Florida a few times.

Now I’m getting used to the fanciness. And I like to see it in the parking space of wherever we are. People comment on the color all of the time. As I mentioned in a previous post, I found out it has a wine cellar. And an Air compressor. I guess they thought that would be a good substitute for a spare tire. Or that I would drive it on the beach a lot. I don’t know.

It does like to go fast, indeed. But since a little incident in Texas, I’ve been trying to keep closer to the speed limits.

I don’t like it, but I’m trying. But the roads are so nice, and wide, and the states are so big with a lot of land to cross! Easy, girl. That nice man only gave you a warning. Don’t tempt the highway gods.