Wheels

You're pretty stuck in America without a car. Rob had already organized the purchase of his car when he was here in July but our lack of a US bank account has meant that getting the keys to the car is turning out to be a slow and laborious process. Rob currently has a hire car paid for by his company, which he needs to get to work. Buying me a car was therefore a top priority.

With three kids and a dog I'm after something pretty big with lots of seats, and I quite fancied something big and ugly with corners, i. e. American looking. Rob did a lot of research which led us to the Ford garage, for what ended up being an entire morning. We test drove an "Explorer" (nice), "Expedition" (ridiculously big, the front of the bonnet was the height of my chin and you needed a step to get into it) and a 5L V8 Chevrolet "Tahoe" (a bit of a machine), but none of them had three proper seats on the second row, and just wouldn't really work for us. Scrap the "American looking" part of the brief.

On to the Honda garage, to look at an "Odyssey". It's spot on and ticking all the boxes, a "minivan" it is then. After more hours sat in the dealership, going to a different Honda garage to look at their stock, back to the original garage, more hours of sitting though paperwork, we have a car. It's got all the usual stuff, plus 3 features I really like: sliding back doors, blind spot sensors (the drivers mirror isn't convex so the blind spot is huge) and you can program your driving seat and wing mirror position to your key. If Rob was the last driver, when I unlock the car with my key it moves the seat and wing mirrors back in to my position. Tidy.

A car, hurray!