43000 miles!

 The GLI turned 43,000 miles on January 30, 2026!

I missed the 43K shot by 8 miles

I was hoping to roll 43K miles on the way to Chicago with Allison.  Looking at the week, that's how I thought it was going to happen.  However, I went to visit Mom in the memory care facility and wash the car, was was caught up in C4S-obsessed thoughts, that I totally missed the 43K milestone just driving around lost in thought.

It was a lovely, sunny, 16 degree day.  The snow was abundant, the main roads were clearing, and our neighborhood remains snow-packed.

Happy January!

233,000 miles

 The grey van hit 233,000 miles on Saturday, January 10!

233,000 miles!

We decided to have a final adventure day before Luca and Olivia went back to university, so we went up to Grand Rapids and check out the GRAM.  

The drive up started out dry, but precipitation started as he headed north into Michigan.  It was a drive that rewarded looking ahead and being super smooth behind the wheel.  The ran continued to pick up and the temperature continued to drop.  The right lane was ice-free and wet, while the left lane started to accumulate some ice and slush.  Pretty soon, the ditches started to accumulate our fellow road users as the conditions got increasingly dodgy.

Easing out to overtake was a function of looking ahead and seeking out a segment that looked pretty clear.  Very slowly, ease the car over, loose yet firm hand on the wheel.  Gently gently with the throttle!  Keep the wheels in the clear tracks in the lane ahead, ease past the car to be overtaken, and gently merge back to the right.  Leave plenty of room.  It was a drive the required a high degree of focus, and it was fun and rewarding.  Looking for grip, guiding the van to where the road was in the best shape, and making good progress.  Really, an intense and enjoyable drive.  We certainly made better progress during the daylight hours than when we rolled 100K in the blue van at night.  That drive was a bit more harrowing.

When we parked in Grand Rapids, I wasn't surprised to find the front of the van coated with ice.

Looking icy!

Being a 2008, this van doesn't have adaptive cruise control, so even though the front was totally iced over, the cruise control still functioned.

Icy H!

Even though it worked, cruise control is not the move on a drive like that!

Before heading to the museum, we enjoyed a quick coffee at Madcap:

We enjoyed exploring the museum. I particularly liked the staircases, bright, airy, wide, and enjoyable.  I think the cats would love running up and down those staircases!

Afterwards, we walked outside to find an ice sculpture in progress in front of the museum.  The folks were working on a dragon boat, and I thought the prow was very cool:

We had a pretty powerful hunger going.  Allison and I locked in on an Italian restaurant across the street from the museum.  Luca did a little searching and ended up finding Quartarino's, which specializes in Detroit-style deep dish.  We have fond memories of first encountering Detroit-style pizza in Telluride when we went camping out west, so we decided to give it a shot.

We were not disappointed!

Detroit-style Deep Dish

The pizzas were super tasty, though the Hunky Dory apparently replaced the sauce with hot Calabrese peppers.  Fire!  A bit hot for most of us, though Luca devoured the entire thing.

We even saw Éowyn's doppleganger presiding over a pepperoni:

After a lovely meal capped off with tiramisu and "bumpy cake," we headed back home.  I was super excited that we were going to roll 233,000 together, about 20 miles from home.  It was dark, about 30 degrees, and starting to sleet a bit.  Aside from my announcement, we uneventfully rolled right through 233K and kept on rolling.  I tried to get a picture of us, but it was pretty dark:

Dark and Blurry

So here's a better one from the drive up to Grand Rapids.

Grand Rapids Bound!

To get the picture of the odometer, since it was so dark, I turned up the brightness on the instrument cluster to full.  Way too bright for night driving, but perfect for snapping a picture!

At the end of the day, it takes love and care and effort to get a vehicle to the moon.  With less than 4,000 miles to the moon, the grey van is far from perfect.  It consumes a bit of oil, and consumes a bit of power steering fluid.  The return spring on the exterior tailgate handle is but a memory.  The right sliding door is no longer powered.  The left sliding door only really works under power, so we don't really use it.  The front seats have som rips around the interior shoulder.  The body has its share of bumps and bruises.

But, the engine pulls cleanly to the redline.  It has a great set of Blizzaks for the winter and Michelins for the summer.  While noticeably slower than its 2019 stablemate, it is comfortable and smooth and is still quite good at doing all of the things a van is supposed to do - transport a bunch of people and their things in comfort, wherever they need to go.

In some ways, I prefer it to the 2019.  Mostly the steering - I like the slender wheel and the connection to the front wheels.  The 2019 has much better cornering and much more power, but the steering feel is just not as connected.  I also like the seating position of the 2008 a bit more - it feels like the beltline glass is lower all the way around, providing occupants a better view.

Either way, both vans are great at their people-moving mission, and I feel lucky to have over 333,000 miles in them!  And I feel extra-lucky that we hit two milestones in two different vans within the span of a week, fully loaded as a family of 6, continuing on life's journey.

100,000 miles

 On New Year's Eve, amidst a blustery winter storm with the entire family aboard, the blue van rolled uneventfully through 100,000 miles.

I managed to grab a picture of us:

We had just crossed Ambassador Bridge from Windsor to Detroit, returning from a truly lovely trip to Toronto.

The weather conditions were pretty rough, mid-twenties with consistent sleet and snow.  Earlier in the drive, I received the notification I knew would come:

That's a surefire reminder that the front of the van was accumulating ice, and is one way of drawing heightened attention to potentially slippery surface conditions.  At the end of our journey, the van looked like a glazed doughnut:

As mentioned before, the radar sensor is behind the Honda badge on the front, and when that gets covered with ice, the radar gets knocked out.

The drive was an optically challenging one.  The sun went down as the drive progressed, and the weather conditions on I-94 west of Detroit were quite bad.  We saw numerous accidents and cars in the ditch.  I know that I-94 tends to be an accident magnet in the winter, so I decided to pick up I-69 south east of Battle Creek and head towards I-80.  My thinking was that I'd driven I-80 many many more times than I-94 - experience matters.  Also, I-80 is further south than I-94, so perhaps the surface conditions would be better.

Fortunately, that turned out to be the case.  While I-69 was pretty treacherous with snow squalls, the conditions improved as we approached I-80.  The conditions evolved from heavy snow to light snow to sleet, and as we started steaming west on I-80, the temperature improved to 33 and the road surface was just wet due to the diligence of the salt-spreading road crews.

We got home safe and sound, though our return trip was a little slower than the trip to Toronto.

Granger --> Toronto

Toronto --> Granger

The van did great on the trip, doing everything a van should do: hauling us in comfort, swallowing our luggage, and putting miles in the mirror.

Round trip Granger --> Toronto --> Granger

We had never been to the city before, and we had a great time exploring a new city, going to the top of the CN Tower, eating delicious food, and reveling in being together.  I was a bit melancholic as, in the back of my mind, this was the last time we would all have this much time off together.  Luca graduates in May, and who knows what the future will bring.

All of the kids will grow older and want to go off and live their lives.  And all of that is natural and good.  And I will miss the sounds of their laughter and squabbling and energy as we continue down life's path.

65,000 miles

 The CRV turned 65,000 miles in December.

While I have no idea exactly when it happened, I have in my mind's eye Madeline happily bopping along to music, enjoying the wonderous feeling of autonomy that only comes from piloting a vehicle.

99,000 miles

 The blue van turned 99,000 miles sometime in early December.

I'm not sure when or where it happened, I presume Allison was just driving around, doing her thing.  Being December, it could have been taking Enzo to school, or running Christmas errands, or getting groceries, or any of the myriad things she does to keep the household running!

231,000 miles

The grey van turned 231,000 miles in early November.

I am clearly late to this party, and I missed the milestone by 947 miles.  I wonder by how much I'll miss 232K?

Who was driving?  Luca?  Olivia?  I'm guessing Olivia, I get the sense she uses the van more than Luca does.  Maybe she was on her way to volunteer at St. Margaret's House or the hospital?

Maybe she was driving home for our Thanksgiving snow?

It's been a wildly snowy fall into winter.  We got absolutely dumped on, easily over a foot:

Both the grey van and the CRV are wintering outside, getting buried over and over again.  I like digging them out.

I also am very grateful that both vans and the GLI have winter tires, and the CRV has Goodyear's Assurance WeatherReady all-season tire with the three-peak mountain snowflake.  While the Goodyears are not as good as a dedicated winter tire, they get the job done with the CRV's AWD.  All good.

64,000 miles

 The CRV turned 64,000 miles in early November:

I haven't been in that vehicle for some time.  I presume Madeline was on her way somewhere, bopping along to her music, and enjoying the freedom of independently getting to where she needed to be.