SOLD!

The Expedition is sold. And not for the $3,500 shown here, but for $4,000 big ones.

Michelle and Liam drove it all the way to Williston to sell it literally to Lexi's next-door neighbor, who moved to Williston three weeks ago and has a vehicle that's not doing well in the cold.

We did have a brief scare with it, though. Michelle went out to start it Monday in twenty below zero weather and it wouldn't turn over, would barely crank. That night, Keaton put his jump box on it and it started right up. When he took the box off, the positive cable on the batter came disconnected. He put it back on, clamped things down, and things appear to be working normally.

The deal is the lady buying it will give Michelle a $300 deposit this week, then the rest of the money as a cashier's check in a week and a half when she's able to get to her bank account. We're thrilled to have it sold.

So thrilled, I keep teasing Isaac that we need to find other such vehicles to buy here and sell up there. He spent $3,700 on it originally, so it's not like we got a ton of money out of it compared to his price, but it certainly beats the lowball offers we kept getting from the seekers here. And we had two other people in line to buy it, or at least look at it, if this sale fell through.

Car Shopping, So Help Us All

Because we are gluttons for punishment, we went car shopping today. I'd like to say we briefly went car shopping today, but that's an impossibility in this day and age. We went to one dealership and were there nearly three hours.

Isaac, however, was enchanted. He's our five-year-old auto maven, who wants to know the make and model of every vehicle we pass. He's especially captivated by two vehicles in particular: Chevy's Avalanche (pictured here) and Cadillac's Escalade. Yes, in his own odd, entertaining little way, Isaac loves monstrous SUVs. So it was to his extreme delight that we test drove an Avalanche today. When we got it back to the lot, the salesman told us it was sold to the previous couple. No loss. It handled like a pig and felt like it was made by Fisher-Price, not Chevy.

So we left wihtout a new vehicle, a fact that really confused Lexie, our seven-ear-old. She doesn't yet understand the concept of leaving a place of business without buying something.

We left, of course, because we couldn't find a vehicle that met our expectations -- room for the family and enough power to pull the camper but at a price we can afford. Getting that blend of qualifications may be difficult. Which is why we're now looking at a Honda Pilot. One in particular, this one owned by Michelle's Dad. He wants a new vehicle and offered to sell us his Pilot earlier this year, but we demurred. Now that we've actually seen car prices, the deal is looking better. One problem: It's not blue. Both of our current vehicles are blue, and of the four vehicles I've owned in my life, all were some shade of blue, though the Oldsmobile barely qualifies due to its home-spun tiger-striped paintjob. Oddly enough, I miss that car. It was ugly but had a heart.

So we're back to square one. We have to sell the van first. So I'll have to put it in the paper this week. Whee.