The New Van

Here he is! Our new family member! We're trying to come up with a good name for him. He was last owned by Enterprise, and he is as big as a spaceship, so "USS Enterprise" has been discussed. Of course, that's not very catchy. I think of him as "Maximus", which seems like an appropriate Latin name for us. We'll have to see what other suggestions come out as we get used to him.

We drove back to the dealership this morning to pick up Bob's minivan, which was sitting there waiting for us. Then I drove the big guy back home with all the kids, and Bob went on to work. It's not hard at all to drive on the freeway, LOL. We stopped by the party store to pick up some pick plates for Grace's birthday tomorrow, and I about hyperventilated at the thought of parking. I told the kids we were going to park a mile away, but luckily we could pull through into a space much less than a mile away. Whew! The kids loved having more room, and being up higher than all the other vehicles, which now look like little bugs.

To revisit the issue of why we picked the 12 passenger van over the 15 passenger, we figured we would mainly be using it for long trips, as I am not planning on driving it regularly around town. The parking lots are just too small and cramped, and the kids and I all fit in the Sienna, which gets tons better gas milage. So for long trips, we will have several suitcases and pack-n-plays, and there is no room at all behind the last seat of the 15 passenger van. We would always have to have that last seat out, which means we would be storing it, and then we would only have 11 seats. We can fit suitcases in the back of the 12 passenger one, and we'll have 3 extra seats. I tell you what was frustrating is to realize that there have been NO improvements in big van technology over the past 10 years or so. A 1999 van looks the same inside as our 2008, except it might have a cassette player instead of a CD player. The seats don't fold over, and there is no split seat technology, which would be wonderfully useful when dealing with these enormous seats. They are definitely not wasting any money on this market! It is hard to go from our super-nice Sienna to this bare-bones van. But we all fit, and there is certainly something to be said for that!