One spring day when I was about 14, my mom announced, "Okay, everyone, time to get in the car! We're going on a quick drive!" We piled in and she explained, "We are so close to hitting 200,000 on the van. We'll just drive around until we reach it." And so we did, up and down the streets of Providence, heading through the parts that I didn't even know existed. On our way back from the outskirts near the coyote research farms, my mom shouted, "Come quick everyone! Watch it change!" By the time I had unbuckled my seat belt to peer at the dashboard, it was too late. But at least I had been there for a momentous occasion in our family. Not too long after that, I was at the store with my dad talking about it, pointing out how weird it was to go on a drive dictated by the odometer. He smiled and told me that when he and my mom were fairly newly married, the old brown car was also about to reach 200,00 miles. And so they went for a drive until i