Miss Malibu

Our time has come to an end.
Miss Malibu has served us well.

At the end of her journey,she faces the fate of the skilled surgeon who will determine if she is to be patched up for a short while or will become a mechanical organ donor for others like her to live just a little longer.

She came to us in the cold spring of March 2010, in time for two months worth of Levi and Erika fighting over her for school, dating, work and escaping with friends. The battle ended with Levi’s move after graduation.

She courageously served Erika through the year of Wendy’s greasy shoes and a smashup of bumps after a minor collision at an intersection.

After only a year with us, she spent the next two years valiantly serving in greater responsibilities as our family vehicle, instead of simply the teen car, to replace our pricey, gas hog of a Yukon during our economic struggles of construction and back surgeries. We spent those years with her rythmic clicking ringing in our ears; grateful that she kept on going regardless of her imperfections: missing sun visor, broken door handle, temperamental air conditioning, peeling paint.

She overcame the smells of dirt, mud and moldy coffee after providing Levi a couple of months of reliable transportation to work at a local nursery.

She painstakingly recovered, as did Derek, from a moose attack and a cow mishap on the dark country roads heading home, only to be beaten yet again by a mailbox during an icy slide off.

School friends were so kind to decorate the missing mirror with a cow and to draw cow spots on her side, with a mooing caution written on the window.

The moose really did hit the Malibu, not the other around.

a - big dent where the moose had his legs knocked out from under him and his body rammed into the side of the car

b - shattered and bowing windshield ready to fall
c - fur (and more) that was ripped off the moose as he rolled off the opposite side of the car

A couple of times, she safely escorted our favorite Europeans, Vivien and Gabor, on their Idaho Falls adventures.

* Notice the missing sun visor and the broken door frame, which made it clumsy and awkward to close the door.

She reliably ran early mornings and late evenings with Justin for school, cheer and work, and eventually graduated right along with him to a new state for more school, cheer, and work.

A rainy, spring day of hydroplaning left her with a lovely new swatch of white on her front bumper, yet severely out of alignment and in need of more repair. After minimal adjustments, she survived a few months longer until a worthy replacement could be found.

Come rain, snow, sleet or hail, she was our dependable trooper.

She may not have always been able to give us the comfort of heat or air conditioning but she never failed to get us where we needed to go.

She hobbled back to Rexburg for her last Edwards hurrah, constantly fighting the urge to overheat until she could resist no longer. After a steamy rest, she held her parts together long enough to briefly land herself again in her rightful parking spot of eight years.

Thank you, Miss Malibu, for your years of safe service and seemingly self-healing abilities. You will live on in our memories and stories, still leaving us to wonder: purple or brown?