100,000 miles

I bought my Ford Focus Wagon (Bess) in August of 2003 - little did I know that I'd actually still be driving it 7 years, 1 month and 8 days later! This car is wonderful vehicle and has been on many adventures with me. As it turned to 100,000 miles I thought about all of the places I have driven this car to, some happy, some sad and some crazy.

Bess has been to Nebraska once, Texas twice, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. She's been to far too many hospitals in Buffalo, Utica and Boston. But she's also been on lots of seasonal roads, getting covered in mud and dust and pretending it was a four wheel vehicle. By far the camping trips - loaded up with all of my camping stuff and the bike rack on the back - heading out to Sampson State Park - were the best trips. Knowing that Bess was big enough in the back for me to sleep in was always in the back of my mind as showers and thunderstorms would roll through.

Bess also moved my mom to Texas. That poor car was filled to the gills - and silly me overinflated her tires a tad too much and black ice almost took us out. But we made it in one piece. I've lost her gas cap twice now - once I was able to retrieve it - somewhere in Illinois or Indiana - but this last time I was in Tennessee and didn't realize for hours that it was gone.

Bess was also involved in Mom's 'giveaways' - we'd drive through poorer sections of town on hot days with a couple of coolers of Italian ices, water and soda and give them to people sitting on their porches or walking on the sidewalks. This was my mom's favorite pastime - and I was her chauffeur.

There have also been times - more recently when RB and I sat in the back of Bess and played chess and had cheese and crackers while waiting for laundry to finish. And she's move clients from one office to another - I can fit a lot of computers and monitors and printers in her all at once. Yesterday was 7 pc's, 1 server, 5 printers, 1 iMac, 7 monitors, all of the keyboards, speakers, mice, surge protectors and UPS's. And I could still see out the back!

Bess is a great car and I hope to have lots more adventures with her for many years to come.