Voyager

This is the log of the Elliott ship "Voyager" and it's continuing mission to...wait, wrong show. So we bought a new used van less than a week after Christmas. Our old one was having serious mechanical trouble. Sometimes it wouldn't start. Mostly, it would start, but only creep forward in "drive". We had to shift it into the "2" position to make it actually get up and go.

We think God had it all planned out. We were meaning to buy a new van in February since Daniel's company was supposed to be giving him a "thanks for sticking it out through the merger" bonus of a few thousand dollars. Instead, the money showed up in our bank account 3 days after Christmas...exactly when our van was in it's worst death throes. We priced vans online and then went out to look around. Most of the 1999-2000 year vans were in the $7,000 range according to Kelly Blue Book and other online sites, and we simply didn't have that much money. But, thanks be to God, the first dealership we checked, around the corner from our house, had just gotten a 1999 Plymouth Voyager and they were willing to sell it to us for just under $5,000 with our trade-ins.

Seriously, I love this vehicle. It's not only beautiful, and newer than our last van, but it's got all kinds of fun extra features and the mileage was less than 100,000 miles which is rare for a 6 year old van. We were able to pay all but a few hundred dollars of it in cash, which is very important to us since we are working hard to become debt free. (Thank you, Dave Ramsey! http://www.daveramsey.com/) Now we also have a much safer vehicle to travel to Texas with next week to see Daniel's brother, Ben. Can you say, "relief"?