License to drive...

I just got back at 12:30am this morning from a roadtrip... the last leg of which involved driving up from Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware to my home in NY--completed through torrential rain in seven hours time. Not bad.

But as I was driving up past Scranton (shout-out to The Office) and working to keep awake, I started thinking about everything my car and I have gone through together. I have now had my license for a year and a few days. That's it. I have technically owned my car for about 15 months, but I did not actually go get and drive it until a month after getting my license... So let's see... I haven't yet had my dear Goochie (name-of-my-car) for a whole year yet, really. And what have we done together?

9 States, plus Washington D.C. as well: New York, Pennyslvania, Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, NJ
I actually did 8 states and D.C. in just this last road-trip... (everything but NJ this last time around). By this weekend I'll have several more states to add to that list of my car and I.

I've also been through a set of brakes, a coil, several vaccuum thingers, a hose, and a transmission. And of course, lots and lots of gas and oil. My trunk got bent in by some annonymous person or thing, and I managed to scrape my side door all by myself this last trip around (on a pillar).

I've driven in torrential rain, a terrible blizzard, lots of snow, on ice, in 100 degree weather with a lousy air-co, up mountians, down mountains, and through flat flat flat land and marshes (sticking to the roads. and don't follow the lights, Frodo...) Hmm, what else? Backroads and detours, too.

I've used Google maps ten-billion times, gotten lost only a few (usually visiting the same friend!!), and did the last road-trip entirely by the old-fashioned Atlas except Maryland--Delaware.

I've now driven in Buffalo, Rochester, Philadephia, Cleveland, Columbus, Knoxville, D.C. (mostly belt-way, thank goodness), etc and feeling much more secure than my first venture into a city (at night, with minimum other cars around) where I was so scared my passengers had to keep telling me to breathe because I was holding my breath and going to pass out!!!

So I think my license, my car, and I have come a very long ways, not just in mileage. My first time driving at night was not even a year ago, and it was an 8 hour trip--from 8pm--4am with two other friends. Last week I drove from 8:30pm--9:30am, and now I'm afraid I don't give much thought to whether i drive by night or by day. Haha.

Anyways. Now that you know my car history, look out! I know this was a perfectly random post, but what can I say? It's what I was thinking about. :)