Just another day in paradise.

We call our car Chuck. Next to Trent's guitar, he's the closest thing we have to a child.  Chuck is tired. He works hard and needs a lot of maintenance due to the amount of driving he does.

Bless his heart.

(Yes, I realize Chuck doesn't have a heart.)

(I also realize it's probably a little weird that we've named our car.)

Monday, he got new tires. Yesterday, we had to take him to get brakes and shocks and struts and alignment and a partridge in a pear tree.

Ahhh, the joys of being road warriors.

Chuck is our only car, so we planned the trip to Midas accordingly. Instead of sitting in the waiting room for hours on end reading Sports Illustrated and Auto magazines and drinking burnt coffee, we decided to kill two birds with one stone. We wore our workout gear and chose to get our heart rate up while Chuck got worked on.  We zipped up our jackets and headed out...

We passed by the Zoo and contemplated going.  We've heard it's a good one.  

The first stop was Gojo Ethiopian for lunch.  They have a fabulous buffet!

Then, the heavens opened and I'm pretty sure I heard the angels singing the Hallelujah Chorus as we stumbled upon this:

Not many bargains, although this was quite tempting:

We had to stop at a dollar store because my lips? They were getting chapped and I needed some gum.  I went old school and got some Big League Chew.

I really wanted to ask the workers, "Excuse me, do you know where I can find a Valentine's Day balloon?" 

Because seriously...

All in all it was a fun 5 mile outing.  And, I have to say, I felt so urban and like a city girl.  (Even though we all know I'm from the country and grew up saying things like "Are we going to town today?")

PS. We got to Midas at 12:30 and left at 6:00.  Lawd have mercy.  They were super nice, though.  And Chuck runs way more smoothly. And they gave us a free oil change!  Score.

(And for the rest of the day I was singing both "Nobody beats Midas" and "Trust the Midas Touch.")

Excellent marketing.