sunshine0221's Diaryland Diary
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Road Trip, Part 1!
Road Trip To Iowa City and Cedar Rapids With Kelly, Part 1
Kelly is a very good friend, and she realized that I was getting quite twitchy being trapped in town due to the Car With Vapor Lock and Tempermental Cylinders situation, and bless her heart proposed a girls day out of town. Kelly came to pick me up at 10 Saturday morning, and here she is with her new car, Gracie:
On the way out of town, we stopped at Evil Sub Shop to take some pictures so you can see how sleazy it looks, and be amazed that I was dumb enough to eat there:
A Close Up - Note the very classy "2 Fer 1 Subs" painted on the window
Here I was able to capture an actual employee coming to work. There is also a Help Wanted sign in the window. Hey! When hell freezes over I could go work there!
We began our drive to Iowa City, and I made Kelly stop and turn around so I could get a picture of this:
I think the coon at the top of the sign adds a very classy touch
And this:
I think it is very convenient that that one can get rabbits AND bunnies as well as fryers, kohlrabi and R Board Insulation all at the same place.
This is pretty much what most of Iowa looks like. Note the cars way up ahead of us. Here in the boonies, we call this a traffic jam:
More pictures of countryside, featuring a row of round hay bales. Also note the rustic barn I accidentally captured in the rear view mirror. Couldn't do that if I tried!
We were very hungry, what from the exertion of sitting on our butts in the car, and because leaving so early prevented us from having breakfast or even coffee, so we stopped at our favorite sushi place:
Interior view:
After lunch, Kelly put hair mascara on to cover her roots:
And I was there to document it!
On to Cedar Rapids, to go to Kelly's favorite place in the whole world. On the way, we passed the Quaker Oats factory, which makes the whole city smell like burnt oatmeal:
Then we arrived at our destination. You can tell from the configuration of Kelly's hair that she was running to have a joyful reunion with her favorite monument to consumerism:
TJ Maxx!!
Things I did not buy even though I really wanted to while shopping at TJ Maxx:
I'm not sure you can tell from the picture, but this is a pink, beautiful, furry comforter
And this:
Pink comforter set that I fell in love with but it cost 80 bucks and so worth it but I am saving to buy a car
Speaking of buying a car, we stopped at a GM dealership to see if they had any used Pontiac Vibes. Note that I am being careful to always say "Pontiac Vibe", and not just "Vibe", although Kelly did dare me to go to a dealership and ask if they had any used Vibes. Anyway, this dealership had a nice silver 2003 Vibe out on the lot. We went over to the offices to find out how much it cost, and they were asking about the same as the cost for a new one. Now I know absolutely nothing about cars, but I have been wanting a Vibe for a long time. I know the retail price, the employee discount price, the exact cost of every option, and the Edmonds used car prices. No one was going to be pulling anything over on me re: the prices of Pontiac Vibes.
I have never purchased a vehicle off of a car lot, so this was all new to me. The best I can tell, car salespeople think that their customers are ignorant, unprepared morons who can be pressured into buying a car at an exorbitant price by using "sales" techniques. I think I would have been okay anyway, but I also had my secret weapon - Kelly. Kelly used to sell used cars. Kelly is a very good person to have with you when you are shopping for a car. Anyway, after two hours of ridiculous inefficient negotiation, they still wanted way too much for the car. I snapped a picture of the car on the way out of the lot:
Is this not a gorgeous car?
We then went across the street to another part of the same dealership. And they had another silver 2003 (Pontiac) Vibe. I liked this salesguy a lot better, and he was originally from the town where I live so we had some mutual friends and stuff. I got talked into a test drive, which I think everyone was regretting when we hit some heavy traffic, and I had to change lanes fast, and I think I kind of almost hit another car. We did the negotiation thing, and after playing hardball for a while, almost got down the the price I wanted. And then I realized that spending $3,000 less for a used Vibe with a 3 month warranty and 42K miles than I would for a new Vibe with 0 miles and a 3 year warranty just didn't make sense. So we headed out again, after taking a picture of Kelly posing with the 2nd Vibe:
To be continued....
3:50 p.m. - August 07, 2005
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