Goodbye Winnie!

On July 8, 2012, we left our "temporary" living situation with John's parents in Syracuse, UT, to drive to our new home in Limon. The van made it about an hour before it started "chugging". I'm sure there's a technical word for it, but John knew what I was talking about when I called his cell and told him about the chugging. We decided to call John's parents and borrow their pickup to drive the rest of the way. We are very grateful that the van chose to chug only an hour from Syracuse instead of the middle of Wyoming. For about a year or two, the van has slowly been dying, one piece at a time... one of the automatic side doors stopped being automatic, the CD player didn't work, the windshield wiper fluid didn't work, the air conditioning finally broke all the way. Since it was paid for, our plan was to drive the van until it died or the wheels fell off.
We succeeded!   (We were hoping it would make it to Limon, though.)

We bought the van in Fargo, ND, about a year before Christopher was born, so we brought two babies home from the hospital in the van. The van moved us from North Dakota to Idaho to Kansas to North Platte and to Syracuse. The kids and I drove to Utah and California many times. We put so many miles on it and rarely had to put any money into it (maybe $1000 total in the seven years we owned it). It just kept running and running. JJ learned to drive in the van. We survived the deer hitting us.

We will miss our faithful "Winnie the Winstar"!

See where the deer hit - right above the front wheel and then bounced all the way down the side.

Waiting for Grandpa Layton and Aunt Jan to rescue us and let us borrow the pickup.