Big Smunch

Let me tell you a story.
A man sits at a red light in his big truck.
A man and woman coming home from Christmas shopping are driving along and cross through a green light.
The man in the truck at the red sees a green light at the next light further along (not his own, which is still red) and hits the gas. He makes it into the second lane of traffic where the man and woman driving through the green light (boxed in by oncoming traffic on their left and another car in the lane on their right) can't do anything but plow into the idiot truck.

My Mom and Dad are fine. Our car? Not so much.

That happened yesterday evening so I guess tomorrow's trip to La Fleur's Gym with my parents is out. We weren't going anywhere today anyway, it's baking day for our pre-Christmas Christmas dinner with my parents. Our insurance covers a rental, but they won't have it ready for us until later.

So now we're on the hunt for a new vehicle. Maybe, that means we'll be joining the ranks of owners of Mormon Assault Vehicles - the minivan. We knew with 3 kids jammed across the back seat of our Explorer we were probably headed that way anyhow shortly after moving back to Oregon in May. It was even the Malibu Travis figured we would get rid of. A big SUV just isn't economical for us right now with them costing more for the same features and the fuel economy being worse, so if we go the family vehicle route, it'll have to be the minivan.
But maybe a better idea will be to just find some economy car, something cheap, for Travis to drive and get us through for a while and worry about a new family car post move again. Unfortunately, although our insurance covers the rental for 30 days, once the claim is finalized and the check written then we only get the rental for a further 7 days. So we have to figure something out pretty quickly.