Saying goodbye to Zipcar

We love our car sharing service, Zipcar.
We can pick from several types of car, usually have no trouble getting the car we want, and it's reasonably priced.
But.
Lugging a car seat to and from each time we needed a car was getting to be a hassle. A car seat isn't something you can toss in- you really need to get all the parts into place properly. So even when E picked the car up and picked us up (rather than lugging the car seat), there was still the matter of installing the seat. Our block rarely has open spots for parking, so that meant double parking. Usually there is enough room for a car to pass by, but a pick-up? A van? Anything larger than a car can't get by, which meant honking horns while we installed the car seat. Or removed it. (I could write a whole post on how our residential street is used as a pass through and how people get all honked at for loading and unloading on the street they live on by people in too much of a hurry. Not bitter, no. Mostly.)

Any how, this weekend we took a ride out to Glen Cove (eastward from our location on Long Island) and test drove my dream car. We had engaged with a closer dealer, but I guess they didn't think we were serious, because they gave us some excuses as to why they didn't have a car available and never called us back. We had also gotten with our awesome bank, which has a car buying service but THAT would have required us to go to Hoboken, NJ. So Glen Cove Subaru let us have some fun driving an Outback (my dream car!) while my in laws watched Ranger.

Thanks to the lovely people at the dealer (they tacked on a discount for us as veterans) and to E's negotiation skills, we signed papers to buy a chocolate 2012 Outback at our price point.

It will take a few weeks to get the car (the dealers here don't have large lots, so if you want a unique color or feature combination they have to find a dealer that has it and transport it). In the mean time we've arranged for a parking spot in our building's lot.

Only a few more weeks of lugging that car seat. I love Zipcar, but I'm going to love even more our Outback.