Last week, both Susan and I hit major mileage milestones in our automobiles.

First up is my Chevy Avalanche, which rolled 100,000 miles.

I bought the Avalanche right after Christmas in 2005, so it’s been on the road for essentially six years and two months. In February of 2009 when I got tires, I had roughly 51,000 miles on the truck (approximately 1,342 miles/month). Today, the truck has been on the road for 74 months, and my average is 1,351 miles/month.

I’m not sure how many states my truck has been to, but I’ve driven it to Las Vegas, Chicago, and Greensboro (North Carolina), plus all the states between Oklahoma and those cities. In 2009 I drove up to New Jersey, adding another 13 states to the truck’s bedpost. All in all, I’d estimate that the truck has been in somewhere between 25 and 30 different states.

Oh, and Susan’s van? Yeah, it’s still going too.

Last week, Susan’s 2003 Honda Odyssey crossed the 200,000 mile marker. There was a time when 200,000 was an achievement, although on a Honda, it’s kind of expected.

The van is slightly worse for wear than the Avalanche; the past nine years have been rough on the van — or, more specifically, for the past nine years our kids have been rough on the van. The handles on the rear of the front seat were kicked off (I think each kid took one out), the rear windows no longer open and close, the outside of the van has some hail damage, and the DVD player no longer plays burned DVDs (and only “most” store bought ones). That being said, really, we have no complaints with the van. With the absolute modicum of maintenance, the van continues to run and drive essentially like new. I’d hate to put it up against my Avalanche in the quarter mile; I’m afraid the van would smoke it.

We paid each car off in a little over three years, meaning we’ve been driving the van payment free since ’06 and haven’t had a car payment at all since 2009. Eventually Susan would like to upgrade to something a little nicer, but right now the van’s still running great so it’s hard to justify the extra payment.

I have no qualms about hopping in either vehicle and driving across country at a moment’s notice — and, at some point, I’m sure we will. Three years from now, I’ll let you know how the next 50,000 miles went.