Roadtrip: Popping the Top!

Yes, we did it. We bought me my mid-life crisis car. Not a sporty little two seater. No, none of that for me.

I’ve wanted this car ever since I was a little girl. I’d like to claim that my first words were “PopTop”, but I don’t think my desire started quite that young. I *was* quite young when my parents bought a VW van. To this day, I still don’t know why they bought the plain jane one instead of a PopTop…

I had given up on my youthful dream years ago, especially once i swore to never buy another VW after owning a Passat with “electrical issues”. Until I read this post from Dim Sum, Bagels and Crawfish which planted a tiny seed without my realizing it.

Over Christmas, thinking about our summer plans, I had the idea that maybe this coming summer would be a good summer to travel out west and visit a lot of the wonderful parks that the kids haven’t yet been too. And visit Aunt Suze in California. And and and.

But the idea of setting up a tent every night was not appealing. What, what if we had a PopTop? Could we rent one? After a bit of research, the answer was “Not easily, at least not in Atlanta.” What if we bought one as a third car? Then we could take off for easy weekend trips to all the great state parks in the southeast.

The true “PopTop” campers which have a little kitchen are out of my price range for a third car. And I don’t want to drive around a camper as my every day car, even if it isn’t all that big.

So we’ve settled on a weekend model. It seats seven, sleeps four and has a built-in cooler and table. And, despite having had more than one family’s share of issues with Volkswagen — to the point where I swore I’d never, ever own another one — we have now “won” my dream car. We head to NC to pick it tomorrow. Fingers crossed that the transaction goes smoothly.

Now I’m off to order myself those cute plates (hope they can deliver to the US!). I did not buy the Pop Top just to have an excuse to buy the plates…honestly.