The Pedersen Pad: 100,000 miles!

I pulled out of our neighborhood this morning with Johnny Cash's "I've been everywhere, man" playing in my car. This song prompted me to look down at my dash board and see what my mileage was. To my surprise, 99,999.

This made me to not only get out my camera, but to also take a quick jog down memory lane. April 27,2002 is when I made (at that time) the biggest purchase of my life - my brand new nissian xterra. I had just graduated college 5 months earlier, had a good entry level job, my own apartment - you know livin' the life - except for the fact that I was driving my dad's old ford explorer which he wanted back (and just recently got rid of - seriously the car went for 7 more years!) that had no a/c, needed new tires, brakes, no radio and window's that would no longer would stay up. My dad said, "It is time to either take back your old volvo (which was far worse then the explorer) or get a new car, because come Monday, the explorer is mine again." My reality: I couldn't afford to get the explorer fixed and the volvo was on it's last legs, so a new car purchase it was.

I remember the day like it was yesterday. The car salesmen asked me what I was looking for in a car. I responded with, "For sure A/C and I will take a radio if you have one, but not totally necessary." He looked at me like I was from a different planet. "Fortunately for you," he said, "those things are standard on all cars now." So I got more picky. "Ok," I responded, "then black for the color inside and out." A test drive and that long back and forth of "let me got talk to my manager about this" and I drove out of there with all I ever wanted - a black on black xterra with a/c, a radio with a CD player and the windows even went up and came back down.

The girls were coming into Austin that night from San Marcos and for sure I was driving. We hit the town playing our classics: Dr. Dre & Snoop dog. I remember feeling like now I was really an "adult". Of course that was short lived, because when I got the first bill for my first payment I just felt broke all over again!