One stable element in our life through the past decade has been our 2003 MINI Cooper S. I placed the order for it in the closing months of 2002 and got it in March of 2003, exactly as I wanted it.

Although our life has undergone major changes in those years, and even though the MINI’s had more than its fair share of problems, we kept it. We even brought it over to Romania with us, and it sits in our courtyard right now, just waiting to be driven to some fun place, ready to eat up Transilvania’s twisty roads.

Our car’s seen a lot of ground during its almost 10-year existence. We plan to keep it around so it sees a lot more of this incredible blue world of ours. Even now, as we open its doors and get in, somehow the new car smell hasn’t gone away. The design (both exterior and interior) is still appealing to us. The engine still pulls like a fine horse and it still tears up the curves. And the fact that it’s been with us this long, through thick and thin, through incredible changes, has provided us with no small amount of comfort and it helped ease the transitions that took place in our lives. It’s a keeper.

I took these next few photos in the MINI, as we were driving around DC one winter day, a few years ago, with a 35mm film camera, an Exakta EXA Ia.