Goodbye Roxy. Hello Bertha.

Last weekend Charlie went up the street to the auto salvage yard in our tiny town. While he was there he noticed a conversion van for sale out in front of the property. It still runs and it's super clean inside considering how old it is. (it's a '90 Chevy). We have a '91 GMC Suburban (affectionately known as 'Roxy') that Charlie rebuilt and painted for me and is big enough to fit all 5 of us very comfortably.

However. Roxy has been giving us some trouble over the past year and when Charlie fixes what he thinks is the problem or replaces something that's old something else starts going bad. So, we haven't driven Roxy in a year. She's just been sitting taking up driveway space and costing us a few bucks a month in insurance costs. We got 2 good years out of the ol' girl.

When Charlie got home from the salvage yard he told me about the van he'd seen but wasn't sure if it would be something I'd be interested in. The van has a sink, mini fridge, microwave, TV, VCR and CB in it. The bench seat in the back lays flat and has an extension piece to make it a full size bed. There is a bucket seat in the middle row behind the passenger seat, but the 'kitchenette' is behind the driver seat. When he finished telling me about it I asked how much they wanted for it and it the salvage yard owner was selling it for $2,000.

Jokingly I said "I wonder if he'll trade the van for our suburban." I think Charlie was kinda hoping I'd say that. We'd talked about trying to sell Roxy, just to get it off our hands.

Today, Charlie went back up to the salvage yard and asked the owner if he'd be willing to trade the van for our suburban and the man said "Sure". Charlie came home and took me up to see the van to make sure I actually liked it in person first before making the 'deal' official.

I loved it! It would work great for our family. Plenty of room for everyone to be comfortable and the kids would love being able to watch a movie in the van and if we take a day trip somewhere we have the mini fridge to keep drinks in and the microwave to heat up food and storage space under the sink for snacks.

The deal was made. The owner gave us the title and I drove the van home and Charlie got Roxy and took it up to the salvage yard. I brought the title up 2 days later when the owner's wife was home so she could give me the proper paperwork to go along with the van title for me to get the van tagged in my name and I signed over the title of the suburban for them.

I was a little sad to see Roxy go because of all the hard work Charlie put into it for me, but, I'm super excited about the van. It took me a week to figure a name for the van. (a silly 'tradition' my mom started when I was a kid) but, I think I've settled on a name for her.

Big Bertha.

I think it fits her nicely.