All because of gas prices....

Brian commutes into Phoenix for work. For several months now I've been trying to get him to sell his Suburban for something a little more economical. But he LOVES his Suburban and wants it for camping, so there was no budging him. One day he said we should get a third car for him to drive to work, saying we'd be saving enough in gas to make it worth it. I thought that was completely ridiculous. How is owning three cars going to be cheaper than owning two? So I told him to do some research on insurance costs, etc and run the numbers. I expected that would put an end to this crazy idea.

Guess what?

Owning three cars would be significantly cheaper than two (at least these two). So we decided to use settlement money from a fender bender Brian was in last fall, and a little bit of our economic stimulus money to go buy a car. Friday night and Saturday morning we scoured Craigslist and found a car that looked like a good match. In North Phoenix.

We loaded up the kids and drove to Cave Creek and Peoria to look at it. The outside was okay, but the inside was just too beat up. So we decided to pass. Meanwhile there was another car in north Phoenix somewhere, but we didn't know where exactly. We sent the guy an email and decided to find a place to wait for his response.

We drove down Central (don't you love Central??) and ended up at the Heard Museum. We didn't go in, but just hung around on the grounds. I really like it there. It's so peaceful and pretty and has interesting art to look at.

(They had two HUGE cotton plants in their garden; they were almost as tall as me. I've never seen them so big. I've also never seen flowers on a cotton plant before. Isn't it pretty? Above the flower you can see the busted open pods from the cotton.)

(Now why don't WE have a garden wall that looks like this? Course, we don't have a garden either...)

Even their benches are cool.

(My next words were: "Ben get down from there!")

One of the coolest things about the grounds here is this amphitheatre. The sidewalk goes around in a spiral to the center. My kids thought that was a blast. They must have ran up and down that spiral a dozen times.

Course, what's a hill for if not to roll down?

Brian and I took a more sensible route. The grass looked so soft and inviting that I had to take off my sandles and stand in it. Then I impulsively took this picture:

I sense a new blog tradition coming on. I've decided we need to take a trip to the beach so I can post a picture of my foot in the water. Don't you think that's a justifiable expense? Do you think I'll be able to persuade Brian? Hee hee.

We ended up lying in that soft grass looking up at a beautiful overcast sky. (This weather is a gift straight from heaven, isn't it?) We never heard from the guy though, so after maybe an hour we headed back home.

We drove around a few used car lots close to our house, but didn't see anything good. So we went home worn out and disappointed. This was around 4, I think. About an hour later Brian found another listing for a car right here in Mesa. So we loaded everyone up, again, and went to check it out.

This time, we have a winner! Check out Brian's new car.

It gets a sweet 33 MPG on the highway. Oh yeah baby...