Good Auto Hygiene

Our first big road trip in the Routan went absolutely swimmingly. The driving was the best you could ask for – completely uneventful for 400 miles there and 400 miles back; no traffic hang-ups, no construction zones, no speed traps. In the front seat, we spent some time surfing the satellite radio and found ourselves singing along to the power ballads on the all ’80s channel for a good 45 minutes. And for several hours we became enthralled in an audio book while the girls watched DVD after DVD (listening on the wireless headsets) and colored through several coloring books in the back.

We have a pretty efficient and established method of unpacking the car when our family returns home from a trip. Seemingly before he has even cut the engine in our driveway, Dan has hauled our luggage into the house and straight to the correct traveler’s bedroom. This is followed by the unloading of our backseat cooler’s remaining drinks and snacks. I collect and organize all our car trip “stuff” from inside the vehicle and assign items to our children with instructions for putting it away in the house and to “come right back for more.” Child car seats are pulled out and given a good shake. Any loose garbage is gathered into a plastic bag to toss right away, and then a once over the entire vehicle for any remaining miscellany. Lock the doors, close the garage, and say goodnight. As I drift to sleep, I smile thinking of the next morning when I will set about a thorough post-trip cleaning of the Routan, inside and out.

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By 10:00am I’ve got out my Shop-Vac. I’m attaching the crevice tool. Windex in hand and trigger finger itching to tackle the windows and mirrors. But first come the suds. I disappear briefly around the side of the house to drag out the garden hose, and the children materialize on the driveway (it’s as if they have hose radar). “Can we help wash the car?”

There’s something extra satisfying about cleaning a new car. All of us battling the dirt, road grime and flattened bugs smeared on the hood, and anticipating the Routan’s pre-trip polished blackness awaiting us underneath.

When the exterior is gleaming, I move inside to vacuum and wipe down the entire interior. It is gratifying work. Everything looks clean and fresh, but deep inside I know that with each swipe of my cloth, I am merely (vainly?) fighting the inevitability that one day my rockin’ Routan ride will no longer pass as brand new.

At what point does it start to lose that luster?

Perhaps you get caught up in life and you neglect to clean or vacuum the car for a few weeks. Maybe it happens to be during winter road salt season, or in early spring when the ground outside is soft and muddy. (I’m actually gritting my teeth at the thought of this slop invading my spotless Routan.) Maybe you just don’t have the chance to clean up a spilled drink or melted bit of chocolate right away and it goes forgotten for days until the stain is set. (I’m cringing, but we all know it happens.) You can’t say for sure when that day will come, or how long it will be before you realize for the first time that it just doesn’t have that new car glow any more.

Well, not in this car.

An illustration from our recent trip:

After a quick break at a rest stop for fuel, food, and facilities, I handed over driving duty to Dan and climbed into the “stewardess” seat. As we pulled out of the parking lot, the girls excitedly pulled open their Happy Meals back in the third row seat. We had just barely made it to the top of the entrance ramp from the rest stop back onto the interstate when a small voice from the rear piped up. “Mom, I spilled my drink and I can’t reach it.” Now I knew she ordered Sprite which, at least, is clear…but it is still sticky…and wet. Steam began pouring from my ears mere seconds before my head exploded. (Well, almost.) I smacked Dan on the thigh and yelled, “Pull over!” Knowing better than to argue or question what I have in mind, he immediately complied. (Wise man.) With a tractor-trailer chugging up the ramp behind us, I threw open my door, grabbed the roll of paper towels and box of wet wipes (conveniently stowed under the passenger seat) and raced to the rear lift gate which Dan had already opened automatically with a push of a button from the driver’s seat (can I say just one more time how cool that is?!). In less than 30 seconds, I blotted up the Sprite with a handful of paper towel, completed a quick wipe down of the side panel where some of the pop had splashed, replaced the cup in the hands of the child with swift admonishment, pressed the button to close the trunk, and dove back into the front seat. Dan re-entered highway traffic without a word. I breathed a long, satisfied breath.

Sticky, icky, dirty, grimy mess in the new Routan?

Oh, no. Not in this car.

Meg – 1, Spilled Drink – 0.

The moral of the story is....

To call my husband’s car an economy vehicle is an understatement. It gives a new meaning to the phrase “no frills”. But it does have cup holders. This is something I discovered by mistake.

When we purchased the car in 2004, we really weren’t looking for anything special…Our requirements were few; it had to run and it had to be relatively inexpensive. (Who am I kidding? It had to be cheap!) The idea was just to have something for him to drive to work and back. Right away, we found a car that fit the bill exactly; it was a nice enough car, but nothing terribly special. It wasn’t until we got it home that we realized it didn’t even have any cup holders. We both shrugged it off, “Oh well. You can’t have everything.” We were still pleased with our find.

For Father’s Day that year, my daughters and I gave Dan a cup holder accessory that I found in an auto parts store. It held two cups and had a flange on the bottom that was meant to be stuck down between the seat cushions to hold it in place. The only problem was that the car did not have any “between the seat cushions.” It had two seats in the front with the gear shift in between. With some creative engineering and duct tape, we made it work. It stayed this way for months.

I often drive this car when I go to my soccer games and I am in the habit of taking off my earrings, rings, or watch and stashing them in the change compartment when I go to play. One night I reached down to pull out the tray, and I felt it slide out much further than it ever had before. For a split second, I thought I had yanked it right out and broken it. With trepidation, I looked down, and wasn’t I surprised to see a collapsible dual cup holder in my hand?! I had accidentally reached down just a bit further than normal and discovered the cleverly hidden treasure. Happy accident!

The moral of the story is, read your automobile’s owner’s manual; your car is probably cooler than you think it is.

Now, I already think the Routan is pretty cool, but I know it still has many secrets to share. It is undoubtedly even cooler than I already think it is; time to dig out that owner’s manual!

So far, I’ve been playing along with discovering fun features by mistake or by trial and error. (Just last week I discovered that there are volume and tuner controls for the radio on the backside of the steering wheel so the driver can adjust the volume or change the station without ever taking her hands off the wheel.) However, as we are preparing for our first big road trip with the Routan, I think it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty and do a little research. The girls have already found the retractable sun screens for the rear windows (cleverly hidden in the sill trim panels), and they have carefully selected which stuffed animals and video games they will take on the trip, so as far as they are concerned we are ready to go! If only it were that simple.

Believe it or not, we have not yet used the video entertainment system or the navigation system in the vehicle. I have poked around at the navigation system a bit, but I don’t really have any idea what I am doing. Same goes for the satellite radio. (However, I know Dan has got the satellite radio under control, because there sure seem to be plenty of presets that I know I did not select. NHL radio, anyone? It’s not even hockey season!) Being the primary driver of this vehicle, I have found that it is not advisable to try to figure this stuff out while driving (somewhere my mother is ardently nodding her head), so my mission for tomorrow is to pull out the owner’s manual and bone up on all the fun stuff we will try out on our trip. I will need to be well-versed in the operation of the video system, wireless headsets, front and rear a/c controls, radio, navigation system and mini-trip computer. As anyone who has travelled eight hours in a car with children can tell you, when I am not driving I will be busy playing stewardess. In addition to changing DVD’s, passing out snacks, acting as the “20 Questions” moderator, and climbing over the cooler to retrieve dropped crayons, I will be called upon to be complete systems administrator and I don’t want to fall short of my crowd’s high expectations. We’ll see how it all works out!

See you on the road!

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A quick anecdote:
We took the kids to the pool on Saturday, and they each brought along a friend. There was a lot of chatter in the back of the Routan as the girls excitedly showed off their favorite features to their friends. Top of the list, of course, were the flip-down overhead video screens with remote control, but even the storage bins and cup holders seemed to impress. I overheard one of the friends exclaim, “The only thing that would make this car even better would be if it had a built-in popcorn machine and licorice stand!” I chuckled to myself at that.

I’m not sure that I would be entirely surprised to find that it were true – riding in the Routan does conjure some similarities to being a kid in a candy store. I guess I’ll have to consult the owner’s manual on that popcorn machine and let you know what I find out!