Labor day love

So, the summer is over. I mean OVER. I just about had a panic attack that we had not gone camping even once this summer. Kylee suggested I follow up on a conversation with Betty and Larry at the family reunion wherein they suggested we spend a weekend at Star Valley. So, I called them and sure enough it was open for Labor Day. I figured that would be close enough to camping to whet my appetite. Meanwhile this summer, our van had gotten worse and worse and worse. I got an estimate from a repair shop for 750 smackaroos. Hmm... I'll pass on that. We had been looking at vehicles and settled on the Honda Pilot. Autotrader.com found us a dealer that only sells Honda lease returns and is cheaper than any other place I can find a late model Honda. Cheap enough in fact that we could purchase one and still have budget to save for the next car we'll have to buy. So we were really interested in that too. Now, where was I? Oh yes Labor Day... Well, we doubted the van would get us to Star Valley at all so I took Friday off and we went and test drove a 2005 Pilot that had 47k miles and was priced at $12,900. Right on! I tried to talk him down but it was a very clean car with a clean title and was below NADA trade-in. He wouldn't come down in price but added a few upgrades (tow hitch & tranny cooler, roof rack, and DVD system all together for less than $1200) and offered $800 trade-in for the van. Well, that was all she wrote. We bought it. Let see, I was writing about something else... Oh yeah Labor Day... Ok, so they installed the DVD, we picked up the keys and packed up the Pilot and kissed the old van good bye. We were on the road for Star Valley by 5 pm in our handsome new vehicle. Did I mention we totally love that thing? Oh yeah, I can actually pass people that are driving slowly now. Even packed to the brim with stuff and all 6 of us in it, we still got 21.9 MPGs. And, no I wasn't driving slow... We arrived just after Midnight and quickly unpacked the essentials and fell asleep. Little did I know that that would be the only good nights rest I was to get over the weekend....