I purchased my first Toyota on a cold December day in 2001.  My other cars were GM cars.  The first was my true love, a 1975 Monte Carlo.

My first car, a 1975 blue Monte Carlo

Then I moved onto a Chevy Cavalier and a Saturn SL1. No car lasted me as long as my 2001 Toyota Camry.

I purchased the Camry when I worked at WorldCom in Richardson. I brought my Saturn from Hawaii when I moved to Texas. When I decided to ditch the Saturn it had 75K miles and a manual transmission. My friend Chris gave me so much hell over how I rode the clutch, I figured I should get another car before I had to replace a clutch.

The Camry had 10,713 miles when I bought it. The first year of ownership I put 15,000 miles on the car. Then I quit my job at WorldCom, one week before they declared bankruptcy. The job I took was with my friend Brad performing house inspections. At first I ran all over the Dallas ghetto. I found the best time to hit up Oak Cliff was dawn on Saturday. Adam’s tip for the day….if you need to repo a car, go on Saturday morning. Then we lost the Dallas business and I got to hit up all of West Texas. For the next year, I got to visit every town west of I-35 and North of I-20. If you ever want to know anything about Post, Breckenridge, Graham, Perryton, Dalhart, Denver City, Andrews, Mohans, or Chillicothe, let me know. My favorite panhandle town is Canadian, TX. It’s a cozy little hamlet on the Canadian River. This town actually has trees, a good restaurant, and oil money. It’s where I learned the beauty of capitalism. This business I inspected was an oil services business. The biggest part of their business was old-fashioned West Texas mud. They trucked mud from new wells being drilled. Then they stored the mud so they could fill abandoned wells being filled by the state of Texas. That’s right, they got paid twice for the same unit of mud! Genius. Communist won’t pay you twice for mud. They’d take it away for the good of the state or something silly. Canadian, Texas, the capital of capitalism.

Sabb 93 Convertible

That first year of inspecting I put at least 50,000 on the Camry. The car today had 191,887 miles when I signed the title. That means I drove it almost 180,000 miles in almost seven years. That’s a lot of driving. If I want a car payment, I may get the
Saab 93. I have a weird obsession for that car.  It’s real nice not having a car payment.  The Dave Ramsey way is to pay cash.  Maybe we’ll actually do it.

This is a very incomplete map of the places I’ve been with the Camry. I’ve seen more West Texas and Oklahoma than anyone ever should.

View Larger Map

Now a photo montage of the Camry….good bye old reliable.  Just another aspect of deployment I didn’t expect.

Gratuitous photo of the puppies…..

Can't you see I'm trying to sleep?

This post is tagged Bonnie, Brittany Spaniels, Good Bye debt-free, Toyota Camry