Betsy

 Already a gap in my postings. Shame. Well, here's what's been happening.

Our granddaughter came for a weekend. Life is busy and fun when she's here. Doing a science experiment or two is typically on the agenda. This time we learned about oxygen. When oxygen is used up in an enclosed area, it creates a vacuum. 

To test this, we put water in a low-sided bowl and colored it with food coloring so it would be very visible. Then we lit a votive candle and put it in the center of the bowl of water. Finally we covered the lit candle with a drinking glass. It didn't really create a big vacuum, so we tried again using a larger container, a quart-size canning jar, to cover the candle. This meant more oxygen so hopefully more vacuum. See what happened as our granddaughter narrates:

Source:  https://youtu.be/Qo3JchNJbjM

After recovering from our fun-filled weekend, attention turned to another sweet "girl," our dear Betsy. Yes, we name our car. Betsy has been with us over eight years and taken us through 25 plus states. She's been very reliable until the last year, but at 105k old, that's understandable. We all need replacement parts as we age. 

It was one of those situations where we really wanted to keep her yet were starting to question when the time would come to make a change. We made a September appointment for her 100k check-up when we returned from our 8,500 mile road trip in August. (Yes, it was the soonest appointment we could get.) We decided that IF, when we had the car in, the sales department called with an awesome deal that we would listen. (Normally we quickly shut them down and ask them not to call again because we loved Betsy.)

Well, yes they called. After laying out our demands, we told them to email options if they found anything that matched. The first option was close, but the red color with white hood and roof was not quite our style. The second option seemed possible so we went for a test drive. 

Long story, short. We now have BetsyB, or Betsy II. She's slightly bigger so we can fit four sets of golf clubs in the back and enjoy golfing with friends. She has all the gizmos we loved in Betsy but updated with the newer versions. We loved Betsy SO much that I'm having a bit of trouble falling in love with BetsyB to that degree, but it's coming. 

Bottomline is, we have freedom. I no longer am checking for issues or worrying about planning a trip. There is 100% confidence that we can travel-at-will. That is priceless. We will remember sweet Betsy with the best memories.