The Big Red Bubble is our faithful 1991 Toyota van. We bought it as a demonstrator. I believe it had 13,000 miles on it. Along with our Dodge Caravan trade we paid about $16,000. The Caravan had become a huge problem. It would stall during left turns in the summer. The dealer said they could do nothing about it, so we got rid of it in early spring. It wasn't long before the Toyota got its first scratch on a strawberry picking expedition
We chose the Previa for a couple of reasons. First it was all wheel drive, which meant it could get up our hill. Next and most important, the middle row of seats was actually two captain's chairs instead of a bench seat. That meant that we could put two kids there without them actually rubbing shoulders. That was important because one of our first real trips in the Previa was to be across the country.
I had spent a couple of years getting Virginia Tech accepted into Apple's University Consortium which was going to meet in Monterrey, Ca. the year we got the Previa. In a flight of typical corporate wisdom, my Apple boss decided that there was no money for me to accompany my customers. I decided to book vacation time to drive to the meeting and take the family with me. At first I looked at using my airplane mileage points, but it came down to the realization that the only way to appreciate the size of the United States is to drive it, and I wanted our family to have that experience. Of course I didn't count on Michael getting a Gorilla stuffed animal which he would use as a near lethal weapons for many days.
We spent about three weeks on the trip and covered over 9,000 miles. In addition to a morning swing by the Grand Canyon, we managed to visit the San Diego Zoo, San Francisco, the Grand Tetons, and a number of lesser but no less unique places including the Catfish Roundup Restaurant at I-40 and Route 377-99 south in Oklahoma and Elko, Nevada. Since all of that was in 1992, I checked out a few sites and found the Catfish Roundup still listed as active. All in all it was a great trip, a time when the kids saw for themselves the scruffy buffaloes in the San Diego zoo compared the majestic ones battling it out on a frosty morning in the Grand Tetons. We nearly froze in San Francisco, saw our breath in the middle of July in Wyoming and were never let down by the Previa. The worst that happened was a flat tire in a parking garage in downtown San Francisco and the door almost being ripped off by winds in Oklahoma I believe.
It was the first of many trips for our family in the Previa. When our daughter Erin went off to school in Boston, the Previa went off packed to the gills. It took Michael and Katie to college also when the time came. It might not have been the fanciest vehicle on campus, but few could rival it for the amount of stuff that you could pack into it. You could actually fit a regular sized mattress and box spring in the Previa. It was very handy when the kids moved to apartments. When Michael's truck got hit and totaled by an inattentive young driver, the Previa went to college for a year. When I needed a reliable work vehicle and we couldn't afford a new one, the Previa took up the slack. It got our German exchange students down the hill during a late spring snow storm. It hauled mulch for our daughter Erin in North Virginia. It was a commuter vehicle for our son Michael's girl friend when her car needed lots of repairs.
Best of all we had a number of wonderful trips to the beach, several with Chester, our late Lab, who used to enjoy the bed we made for him on top of all the gear. He also used to claim shotgun in the middle row of captain's chairs. The Previa even drove on the beach on the Outer Banks up north of Corolla. It hauled computer equipment to countless shows and traveled I-81 many times. It was a great vehicle to take fly fishing since it was long enough just to lay my fully assembled trout rod between the seats.
The Previa now has nearly 185,000 miles on it, which if I understand correctly isn't a lot for a Previa. There are still no major problems, but we just don't need a van anymore.
We decided we couldn't just sell the Previa, we needed to put it out to pasture and certainly give it a better home than just being parked on the street in North Virginia. Our friend Steve at Airmont Florist in Mount Airy, NC expressed interest in the Previa as a backup floral delivery van.
After the Previa gets a few little things repaired, we'll head down I-81 to I-77 until we hit NC 89 East for the last trip in a great vehicle. If ever there was a vehicle that taught me that cars can be made to last and last, the Previa was it. The engine might have been under the driver's seat, but the car was all heart.
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