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The Rumbler is gone. After 11 years (8 with us) and 127,000 miles (90,000 with us), we traded it in to a local Mazda dealer for a Mazda Tribute. I wish I could say it was a straight up even trade, but we did have to kick in a few dollars.

Suprisingly, we (maybe not Jodi) were sad to see that car go. When we bought it, Jodi had just been hired to teach in New Prague and I was heading for some place called Mound.

That car drove us to our apartments in New Prague and Spring Park, our townhouse in St. Boni, and our house in Waconia. More importantly, it brought Jodi to the hospital at 2:00 AM on October 9th, 2001 to deliver Jack.

So after a quick and acceptable appraisal by the Mazda dealer it's gone. The car that took us from a couple of DINKS (dual-income no kids) to parents of two boys is heading to a high school parking lot near you.

In it's place we now have a 2006 Mazda SUV with 11,000 miles on it. We like it. It has a zippy 4-cylinder engine, seats 5, and has the basic stuff you expect in a newer car. It's so new to us that I can't quite visualize it. Jodi drove it today despite the boys pleas to have me drive them to day care in it.

We had other business. With the heat wave, it was time to wash the van and put the January tabs on before the police catch me. I can't rely on my grandma down the road to put mud on the expired to tabs to foil the authorities.

Buying the car took quite awhile. We test drove, talked about pricing, got financing etc. In between we had time to walk around the show room. Mazda has some really interesting cars. Ours was actually owned by the dealer and was driven by a manager as a demo. The best perk of that job would be the chance to drive some of those cars around town (and the endless free coffee at the "M Cafe").

The Rumbler

Our Mazda Protoge with 126,000 miles has been an excellent car. It is dependable, easy to maintain, and great on gas mileage. The only problem is the exhaust line. It must be made of tin foil. I've had it repaired or patched 3 or 4 times plus a muffler since we've had it. The muffler was a little pricey, but the patches have run around $50. Not bad compared to the $300 it would cost to redo the exhaust line.

A broken exhaust line is a cosmetic problem. It doesn't affect transmission or handling. But it is loud-annoyingly loud. It's wake up the neighbors and draw stares from other motorists loud. This morning I drove it for the first time since last Wednesday when it broke open again (actually this time the line seperated from the engine). I started it up to warm before I took the kids to daycare. Backing it half-way out of the garage, I thought I had it far enough out to vent the exhaust. When I came out to load up the car the garage was like a Hennepin County bar before the smoking ban.

Worse is, again, the noise. As you accelerate you can feel the reverberation through your body. The sound is worse in the lower gears when the car is lathering up to a higher speed. The cabin of the car is like the inside of a rock tumbler for the JC Penney's Christmas catalog. I imagine it's something like the early astronauts as the re-entered Earth in their space capsules.

Once you hit 4th and 5th gear it's not bad. As you let off the gas the car quiets almost to normal. But if you hit an incline you slowly start to lose speed. The choice is this: hit the gas now and keep the pace or let inertia carry you over the hill at the risk of annoying following motorists- I choose the latter.

The car is fixed now. Eddie did a fine job for $49.57. Small, new piece of pipe added and welded together to make it sound, er fixed.

I will miss one thing though. When passing pedistrians I did enjoy hitting the gas as I passed them. It was a guilty pleasure to watch them startle like they were being woke up from a nap by the Landlady from Kingpin. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get a chance to do it again before too long.