Fond Memories of Family Firsts in the Nissan Pathfinder

This is a post by Kayla Cates Brown, NFI's Project Specialist. As part of NFI and Nissan's Innovation for Fatherhood campaign, Kayla shares her memories of one of her family's favorite vehicles.

I am a native Texan by birth and have been a licensed driver for over 30 years and can easily state that in Texas trucks are a big deal!

Almost any native Texan will give their opinion on which truck is the best based on their experience with owning or driving one. However, when I think about the trucks that our family has owned and used to navigate the many road ways in Texas, I fondly remember our 1999 Nissan Pathfinder.

As a family with two young daughters, we celebrated lots of “firsts” and adventures with it. Our oldest daughter, who is also now a licensed driver, remembers telling the neighbors the story of how the SUV found its "path" to our garage on New Year’s Eve 1998. The path began with driving to the "parking lot with lots of cars and trucks;" she was miffed that there were no purple colored ones. Then came the process of correctly buckling both car seats into the SUV, which many parents can attest is much easier said than done. Our daughter remembers driving around in big circles while offering comments to the salesman on how her "sissy" was enjoying the ride. Eventually the path progressed to a purchase and we brought home our first truck.

Other "firsts" we celebrated with the Pathfinder were:

• It was the first and only car we have ever paid for fully in cash.
• It was the first car we owned to have a soccer sticker on it – which for our family is a big deal, as we have spent the last 12 years cheering and watching our daughters play soccer. I officially earned the title "soccer mom" due to all the driving associated with this dedication.
• It took us on our first trip to the hospital to get stitches for our younger daughter when she was 14 months old.
• It moved us from our first house to our second house.
• It brought our first adopted rescue dog, Daizy, home from the shelter.

We also shared lots of great family adventures in the Pathfinder while taking road trips to Angel Fire, New Mexico for skiing; many trips to Port Aransas Beach near Corpus Christi, Texas to enjoy some fun in the sun; camping at Inks Lake in the Central Texas Hill country; and lots of travel to Dallas - Fort Worth to visit our extended family.

I guess you could say the Pathfinder was the vehicle that assisted our travels, keep us safe and warmed our hearts. If only DVD players were an available feature in 1999, the Pathfinder might still be in our garage today...