my good, (not that) old, trusty mazda has failed me. for about a week it had been acting funny, bucking around (only since i have been out west has this expression entered my vernacular). when we went down to denver on wednesday, and had to drive in traffic, it was particularly bad. eamon brought it in to the shop yesterday, where they told him that my transmission would need to be replaced.
knowing that my car has over 100,000 miles on it and was going to die on us anyway, we will be purchasing a new car. so this weekend we will head to the dealership to look for this:

a toyota prius. we had always said that when the mazda dies, we would get a hybrid. i was just hoping that the mazda would last until we drove it back to massachusetts. that way we wouldn't have to drive it cross country.
so, in addition to frontier week, packing the house, finishing up at work and searching for a new house/job, we have to go car shopping. but that's life. and we get a new car. and it happened before i repaired the cosmetic, got the oil changed and got it detailed. though it wasn't before i got 4 new tires put on it.
i'm kind of sad that i will not be driving it (mostly) till
september. the original plan was that i would drive the ranger to
boston, and
eamon would drive the
mazda (now
prius) to
california, and them from
california to
massachusetts. with the smaller size of the
prius, i don't see that as likely to change.
but we'll see!