Our journey began on April 9th 1993 ... we were picked up in our apartment in Kingston Ontario and driven to Expressway Ford in New Hamburg where we picked up our brand new 1993 Ford Aerostar XLT Extended length mini van ...
That weekend we drove to visit family, took my almost 90 year old Grandmother for a ride, and generally got to know a new vehicle before returning to Kingston where we handed the keys to my 1974 Plymouth Duster over to an over joyed young man who felt the car, which was 70 miles under 100 000 original miles, had gotten a bargain ... I was sorry to see the old gal go, but a new car - soon dubbed "The Piglet" took its place and for almost 14 years our Ford has served us well ... Like any relationship, we've had our moments and our issues - but it has been a good and reliable car ... it outlasted a Lumina van we bought a couple of years ago when we felt the Aerostar was getting a little long in the tooth ...
But, today our journey with the Aerostar came to an end when we turned in the keys and took a delivery of a new-to-us Toyota Corolla ... It was bittersweet saying farewell to an old friend, and a van that was very much part of the family ...
- all three kids sat in the car seat mounted behind the driver's seat ... the car seat was there soooooo long that even today the back of the seat is marked by the tether strap that held the seat down
- we've drive The Piglet back and forth across Canada several times and throughout most of BC ... many of its 340 000 kms were logged driving across the Chilcotin Plateau as we travelled in and out of Bella Coola from 1993 to 1997 (an interesting aside - in 1993, there were four 93 Aerostars in the Bella Coola Valley - when we left 4 years later, there was only one left on the road - OURS - the others had met harsh ends on valley roads ...)
- we've taken The Piglet to the top of mountains to look at glaciers - one drive stands: we wound our way higher and higher up a winding gravel logging road, we wondered if we were crazy only to arrive at the "end" of the road and to find our Aerostar parked beside another Aerostar ...
- when we left BC The Piglet even had moss growing on her - YES, moss - thick green moss ...
- then there was the day young Noahkila pumped pennies into the radio rendering it silent until many months later (in Manitoba) when we finally managed to get it replaced with a CD player ... the pennies were retrieved from the radio, and it was tucked in a drawer on the porch ...
- The Piglet drove through every imaginable weather condition ... it survived a trip into a mountain ditch - sliding sideways down a valley highway - clobbering a deer on a Manitoba road, and like the energizer bunny, it kept going and going and going ... for 340 000 kilometres - The Piglet served us well and carried us safely from destination to destination ... It was a good van, and was fairly dependable (as long as the temp was above minus 25) ... but the time had come to say good bye ...
So today, after almost 14 years, thousands upon thousands of kilometres, and with many memories of journeys taken with her ... we bid a fond farewell to an old friend who's time had come ... It will be different having only a van and a car - but we'll adapt ... and we'll continue to travel on ...
So to The Piglet - thanks ... it's been fun ... and adieu ...
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