We woke up naturally at about 9:00.
Casson went to get a coffee from the
Lux, and I started getting ready for the day. We were planning on leaving shortly for Tucson. The Shapiro's had heard about a bicycle swap meet on Sunday morning in the old capital of Arizona Territory. At about 10:00, however, we hadn't yet heard from the Shapiro's, so
Casson decided to zip down to the Subaru dealer just down
Camelback. I decided to go even though I didn't feel too excited about buying a new car. I thought our
Montero was just fine, and who cared if we had to put a ton of money into fixing it, we'd probably still save money in the long run. But then there was the question of breaking down on the highway, which thankfully didn't happen, but just about did when I was driving my parents from the airport to our apartment last week. The car had barely made it home. So maybe a trade-in and a newer car wouldn't be a bad idea.
We went to get the
Montero washed. I ran into Cyndie ahead of us in the
car wash line. Cyndie, my wonderful and proud Greek coworker, who doesn't let a chance pass to give me ideas for little girl names. So as she and her car were about to be led into the octopus-like cleaning machine, and she was suggesting 'Mia', and I would have made some response, but she suddenly disappeared into a whirlwind of mist and soap. By the time we made it through, she was gone. The
Montero looked so good, I think
Casson almost changed his mind about the new car idea.
So we drove over to the Subaru dealer, where we were attended by several eager salespeople. The one who latched on and didn't let go was a small
blond woman from down under. I think that when we mentioned that we were looking for an Outback, the non-Aussies sort of withdrew, and let the accent do its work. But to no avail. They didn't have any used Outbacks older than '07, except for an extremely old one that looked like it was about to fall apart. We'd told her our price range, and she told us that THAT was all we could expect to find within our price range. We thanked her for her time, and a tall salesman tried to get us to stay a bit by pointing out some Suburbans we could get financed for $150 a month. Not Suburban, sir. Subaru.
So we did what no Phoenician who is not hunting for a good deal on a car would do. We drove to Mesa to see an Outback we'd seen online. We pulled into the Chrysler dealership. A woman came out of the sales office to greet us. She was wearing normal grocery shopping clothes, and we liked her right away. She said that the car we were interested in was at their Gilbert store, which made us gasp for oxygen. But she explained that the store was only three miles away, so we breathed easy. She
offered us a ride, and I opened my mouth to accept, but
Casson told her that we'd rather follow her there, if it was all the same to her. I don't think it was all the same to her, but she had no choice. When we got in the
Montero,
Casson said "it's all about control." I guess so, because I sure felt it.
At the other store, we saw the car we were looking for. It was in good shape, hadlow mileage, and had exactly what we thought would be good for space, comfort, and all that. Asking price was about $4,000 more than as advertised online, so Casson mentioned it, and she said no problem, the online price would stand. Casson also mentioned we'd like to do a trade-in. No problem, she said. So Casson and she drove it back to the other store and I followed in the Montero. We parked and inspected the new car, while she inspected our old one. Then we went inside and the NEGOTIATIONS began. Was I transported back to the souqs of Fes? I think the haggling went back and forth more times than in any marketplace in history. At one point, Casson said "Well, thanks for your time ma'am, that's more than we are prepared to spend" (and it was, he wasn't lying), and he began to get up out of his seat. I, on the other hand, began to sweat profusely, and my face turned red hot. There was a tenseness in the air that I could sense, but I didn't understand it. Finally, I began to snap out of it and started to stand up, when she said "Well, wait here, I'll go see what can be done." So we sat back down. I couldn't believe it. Is this how it worked? "Yes, this is how it works," Casson would tell me with a glance. I fidgeted through the manual, pretending to be really interested in how the seat belts buckled, not wanting to say anything because I was convinced that the office was tapped. Finally she returned with an offer no better than the first, so at that point we really did leave. It was a little bit calming to leave. You've got to make up your mind about the limit, and stick to it. Well, we drove to get something to eat, and on the way, Casson had an idea. If we payed that amount, but kept our Montero, it would be worth it. So he called her back and told her his offer. She'd call him back. So it wasn't over? This was all at about 1:00. We had lunch, with about four phone calls from her with different offers. Casson chewed his turkey sandwich and graciously declined all of them, even when it was brought down to only $200 more than our offer. He decided that we should probably be wise and look elsewhere in the meantime, confident that they would call back. We spent some time at the Mesa library, looking up dealerships, but mostly killing time hoping they'd call back. No phone calls. So we went to a Scottsdale dealership, and they had sold theirs. No phone calls. By this time it was 3:30, and we were heading back to Phoenix. We were both thinking, it's only $200! But we had decided not to do it, and we had to draw the line somewhere. Just as we were cresting the hill through Papago Park, and feeling a bit crestfallen, the phone rings. They came down to our offer, no strings attached. Woohoo! So we turned around and headed back. She came out to greet us, and we went in and bought the car. Our saleslady was great, and very happy for us, but the man behind the drawn curtain in the back office didn't appear so. We caught angry glimpses of him from time to time. And our saleslady had to go ask him some paperwork questions a few times, and we'd hear her voice, but not his, even though we were about 10 feet from him. So strange! So that's how we got our new car.
After camping, we drove over to the Sunset Crater National Monument. The San Francisco Peaks were surrounded by sunflowers and a big rainstorm was heading in. Thankfully we've got this sweet golf umbrella. We pulled it out as we were looking at the lovely Bonito Lava Flow. Who knew that the Peaks and all the surrounding "foothills" are really extinct volcanos. There are 600 in the area. So we learned about that. Then we drove through the rain and turned off on a side road that turned out to be so fun. The dirt was black, eroded lava rock. Casson drove like a wonder. After getting our weekly dose of concussion, we headed for the Wupatki National Monument, which is a series of ruins dating from 1000ish. They were beautiful, with the most outstanding views all around of the Peaks and Painted Desert, with not a sign of civilization in sight. The first was Wukoki "Big House." And then there was the really extensive ruin, Wupatki itself. This ruin overlooked a gorgeous valley and the Painted Desert. Here we met Marty, a very friendly man from Australia. He's an Australian film star in the upcoming film The Nothing Men, which will come out in the states in about six months. He was loving the southwest after having dealt with LA culture. We assumed that Australia had similar views, but he said that Australias wild country was not comparable to the American southwest. He hadn't even seen the Grand Canyon yet, I wonder how he reacted to that! And, finally we saw the Citadel Ruin, with Selah in her buggy.
Next day Casson rode his mountain bike in the hills surrounding Lynx Lake, and I took another walk with Selah around the lake. I met a young woman who had a six week old baby girl, out for a walk around the lake, whose husband was also out mountain biking. We talked for a while and she gave me her phone number to get together next time we are in Prescott. It was strange to have so much in common with a total stranger. She was even wearing the same Wal-Mart nursing tank top that I'd just recently bought. 
Then we tried out the new baby carrier, with a short hike to the Lynx Lake Indian Ruins. Selah loved it. We draped her with a wet blanket to keep her cool and in the shade.
By the way, Mike, from Mike's Place, fixed our Subaru. He had a new axle ready to replace ours, since we just didn't want to take any chances. When he took it all apart, he saw that someone had bolted the axle on with the wrong part, so it was tightening and untightening randomly. All he had to do was put the right bolt on (something like that) and it runs perfectly. In fact, now it doesn't make that other vibration noise that it has been making all along. 
They are now called the Hohokam, which was a name given to them by a later tribe, the O'odham, but might be the ancestors of those very same people. Hohokam just means "used up," which I think might be interpreted "the people that were here before and are gone now?" Whatever. We enjoyed seeing the ruins, but mostly we sat in the cool shade and thought about what the heck it means that these people were here and built this and now it's abandoned. We also saw a Northern Flicker Woodpecker who lives in a cactus, and a Round-Tailed Ground Squirrel, who liked to jump. Mom, I think you'll appreciate the bird picture.
