SOLSC '21 Day Thirteen: Ode to the Durango

 

I am participating in my ninth Slice of Life Story Challenge run by the team behind the Two Writing Teachers website.  We are challenged to write a blog post a day throughout the month of March.

Almost twenty-one years ago, this Dodge Durango was brand-new in our driveway.  The coupes and sedans of our "work cars" weren't suitable for hauling two young children and the baggage that accompanies them on road trips that always started and ended in Austin. With destinations like El Paso (a long, long one day trip), the Florida panhandle (another long day) and Cleveland, Ohio (we learned to stretch those out over two-and-a-half days), we needed comfortable seating for the driver and passengers, rear air conditioning, and that aforementioned baggage space.  The Durango checked off all those boxes.

Our youngest was two years old then, our firstborn just graduating from kindergarten.  Car seats and booster seats came and went from the middle.  As the kids grew older, if we were prudent with our luggage we could pop up the third row seat so they could have their own space on those travels.  The third row came in handy for hauling their friends around, too, for birthday parties and playdates, mini road trips to playgrounds and zoos.

There was the time I was taking a talkative gaggle of young Girl Scouts to a camping site, and the Durango fishtailed a bit on a slick curve.  My heart was in my throat; the girls just laughed and enjoyed the ride.

This was the Christmas tree car, sometimes fitting it in the back with half the middle seat down, one child sitting next to the point while the remaining three of us crowded the front seat for the short trip home.  As the car aged, my husband didn't care as much about the roof's finish, and took to tying the tree on top.

This was the learning-how-to-drive car, my husband as the instructor, our children both reluctant drivers who waited until just before their high school careers were over to get their licenses.  Their father's reasoning was that if they could handle the Durango, the confidence would make driving the used sedans he bought for them that much easier. I can still picture each of the children driving the streets of our neighborhood and nearby high school parking lots, their father sitting beside them.

This was the moving-into-college-dorms car, driving to Sherman, then Denton, in a caravan of two vehicles as the kids learned how to navigate the highways between their school and home.  The Durango, laden with bedding and clothes, torchiere lamps, rugs, and the all-important mini-fridge would sometimes lead, sometimes follow.  I am always amazed at my husband's packing skills during these moves.

The Durango has been without a working heater for years, the cost to replace the parts too prohibitive to fix.  It is still in service as the college moving car and brought home our Christmas tree this past year, but is most often used for grocery shopping, a weekly trip.  Most days, it sits out in the street, as pictured, since we are a household of only two local drivers but maintaining four cars (one is our daughter's, who is currently in Japan).

Four cars until yesterday, when my husband purchased a brand-new Toyota 4Runner.  It has air AND heat, and cargo space.  It doesn't have a third row, but he thinks the need for that is over.  He claims this is the SUV that will be used into his retirement years, that horizon coming ever closer.  I'm already picturing it laden with our daughter's household goods when she returns from Japan and moves into her next stateside home...and then, sometime in the future, car seats and booster seats once again.

We are a sentimental bunch, the four of us, and texts about the new purchase and the Durango soon leaving have been bittersweet.  In Texan terms, it's like putting a good horse out to pasture for its final days...only the Durango won't be in sight, as five cars are far too many to be parked in our suburban space.  As old as it is, dealers have laughed at the idea of trading it in; my husband has some potential buyers at work.  Perhaps it will become another driving-lessons car, experiencing the feel of teenaged sweaty palms on the steering wheel once more.

Farewell, Durango. You've served us well.