Dude, Where's My Minivan??

Short answer...moldering in a junkyard, waiting to be picked apart by scavenger mechanics for its various spare parts.

Long answer...well, I thought I should get back to our blog, and catch our readers up on our lives, seeing as I haven't written in over a month. Most of that is due to football, which has seriously cut into my Sunday blogging time. In addition to that, we had some automotive "issues" during the month of September that took up a lot of time and drained a lot of emotional energy. I'll elaborate below...

Last November, about 2 months before Aurora was born, we finally sprang for our family's first minivan and became, in Nate's words, "a REAL Mormon family." It was a blue-gray 2006 Toyota Sienna, and (in retrospect) we got it for a screamin' low price. It had only one previous owner and had been very well cared for when we got it. It had a power door (which came in handy when carpooling) and a 6-CD changer, which came in VERY handy on the long family vacation we took this last summer. In short, it was a nice car and we really loved it.

Fast forward now to Sept. 8, 2010:

 

(photo from The Sahuarita Sun; yay, I made it on their website!)

Here's what happened...

I had just dropped Lorelai off at school, and was heading back north on La Canada Drive, a 2-lane street that runs north-south on the west side of Sahuarita. On this morning, I found traffic slightly slowed down, as there was a school bus heading north on the road at the same time. Then, we approached a point where railroad tracks cross the road, and the school bus came to a complete stop...as did the 3 cars in front of me as well as myself.

I can't pinpoint what happened next, other than that I was dumb and inattentive. I noticed the school bus start to accelerate, and something caught my eye on the left side of the road briefly. Or maybe it was my kids in the car making noise...I don't know. The point is, I let myself get distracted, and started to accelerate too fast. By the time I finally faced forward, I realized that the F-150 in front of me wasn't accelerating as fast as I was, and then--BOOM. The nose of the van slid underneath the bumper of the truck, knocking it forward into the car in front of it, and so on....four cars in all took damage, mostly minor.

The truck's rear bumper was bent downward pretty badly, and the driver was yelling and calling 911 while complaining of neck pain. In the picture above, you can see the paramedics loading her on a stretcher and taking her to the hospital (I haven't heard anything more about this driver; I have to assume she was all right and therefore never pursued the matter further via my insurance company). However, the truck and the two cars in front of it all drove away from the accident. Not so with our poor van.

Even though I hadn't been going very fast (probably about 15 mph maximum), the angle of the nose and the truck's bumper caused a whole lotta damage. In addition, the driver's side airbag deployed in my face, and how come nobody ever told me how stinky and dusty airbags were? The whole inside of the car was dusty and smelled like burning metal, and Celeste was crying in the backseat, and I wasn't really scared so much as mortified. How could I have done something so stupid? Heck, even writing this right now is making me angry again. I can't believe I wrecked the car (and put my beautiful girls and other drivers in danger) because I wasn't paying enough attention. If it had been a fast-moving accident, it would have undoubtedly been scarier, but the embarrassed guilt probably wouldn't gnaw at me so much...

Well, luckily I have family living nearby and friends too, and they are awesome. Two other moms also carpooling their kids to school stopped their cars nearby when they saw the accident, checked to see if we were all right (nobody in our car was hurt), and then offered hugs, moral support, and dinners. Another passerby offered me her cell phone so I could call Nathan's parents, who came and picked us all up, loaded our belongings into the trunk, and drove us home. Then came the tearful calls to Nathan, other family members, the insurance company, etc. etc.

For about two weeks, we were a one-car family; that was tough. Fitting 5 people (including 3 kids and 2 car seats) into a teeny 2002 Toyota Echo is not an easy task; in addition, Nathan had to take the car to work most days, and so I was stranded at home. I really have more sympathy now for one-car families; I have taken it for granted most of my married life that I would have my own transportation. I am not the world's biggest homebody so staying at home all day with my kids was a little tough. I also really appreciate my carpooling partner (thanks Miranda!!) who graciously offered to drive both ways each day until our vehicle situation was sorted out.

As you can tell by these pictures, the car was pretty torn up. Nathan and I assumed the car would be totaled; our friend reinforced that opinion when she found out the airbag had deployed.  Apparently, when that happens, a vehicle's entire steering wheel column needs to be replaced. Sure enough, just over a week later, our insurance company called us with the news that the car had been totaled, since it had more than $7,000 worth of damage. Ouch. It was tough to bid farewell to the car; we hadn't owned it for long, but we'd really enjoyed it!

However, there was good news as well (warning: State Farm unpaid advertisement ahead). As it turned out, the settlement State Farm offered us was about $2,500 MORE than what we'd originally paid for the car in the first place! On top of that, it turned out our premiums wouldn't be going up, since we are allowed one at-fault accident every 10 years! Yay! Now, I just have to drive extra carefully for the next 10 years and not let our kids behind the wheel EVER... :). Hey, that's doable.

As a result of all this, we were able to go car-shopping about 10 days later, prepared to make a larger down-payment on a vehicle than the first time around. And here's the beauty we ended up with:

Does it look familiar? It should--it's another Toyota Sienna (hey, we liked the make/model and we wanted to stick to what works!). This car is a 2005 (one year older than our previous vehicle), but had about 20,000 fewer miles than did our previous car at the time of the accident. Plus, it has the all-important power door that I've become so attached to...

...plus a new option the last car didn't have; a rear audio system (I assume it's radio only, by the look of it, but we haven't really played with the device yet), complete with remote control in a handy foldaway slot!

Sadly, I find myself nit-picking this car and unfairly comparing it to the last one ("THIS minivan's power windows are too sticky!", "THIS minivan only has a single CD player!", "Why does THIS minivan make that little noise when I drive too fast??", "Why does the tire pressure gauge light KEEP TURNING ON, even though the tire-store guys say my tire pressure is fine?? WHAT'S WRONG with this dashboard?!?!"). Most of these nitpicks, as you can see, are very minor and silly; maybe it's my way of punishing myself for destroying our last minivan (I still miss it!!).

Truthfully, though, it has been a dependable car so far, with no real problems; I am confident it will take good care of us as long as we take good care of it. I have learned (the hard way!) to be more attentive on the road; in addition, I am very grateful that everything has worked out well. Firstly, of course, we were all safe and sound. Also, despite having a somewhat stressful September, we now have lower monthly car payments and will be able to get our credit a bit more under control. The "setback" has turned into a blessing in disguise...I hope we can fully appreciate and take advantage of it.

Not that I'd want to make wrecking my car a regular thing...