My New Baby!

With our 14 year old Explorer getting up there in years and miles, we decided to buy a new (to us) car.  After failing to convince John that we really should buy a vintage MG (I came close to convincing him on this one, I think), because he's convinced they are a death trap, we switched over to looking at more practical hatchbacks.  After stalling on actually looking at any cars for a few months, we decided to go back to an idea we had about a year ago, to get a Miata, in that it is the modern, safe version of my beloved MGs, etc.  We researched them on a Friday night, found one that matched exactly what we wanted (year, color, style, etc) on Craigslist on Saturday, test drove it on Sunday, and bought it on Tuesday, and here it is!

You may notice I am in a large empty parking lot, and that is because it is a manual.  I haven't driven a manual in 11 years, since I had a company car during my summer internship in Germany.  I learned how to drive a stick on a construction site with all the workers laughing at me, so I did learn pretty quickly, although I am probably one of the few people who has stalled on the autobahn.  I had my first re-learning lesson on Sunday, and it surprisingly came back pretty quickly, although I did freak out a bit when another car came into the lot.  I think one more parking lot lesson, and then I'm going to drive around my neighborhood for a while before I go on the open road, but soon!