DEFEND YOUR RIDE: Christine At The American River

Q: Great Honda. What can you tell us about it?

A: It's a 2009 Honda Element, four-wheel drive. I bought it used over the summertime. I had my eye on this particular one for about five months, waiting for the sticker price to drop to where I wanted it. I was set to go down to Los Angeles to pick one up, but Folsom Lake Honda matched the price for me.

Q: Did you have a good experience there?

A: I did! They stayed with me until 1:30 in the morning! I went in after hours to do my auto deal and they were great. Loved them!

Q: What were you driving before?

A: I had an '07 Nissan Maxima. Before that I've always had an SUV, a four-wheel drive. We have dogs, lots of animals. I foster dogs. I volunteer for the American Brittany Rescue, so the features in the Honda Element are great. I can lift up the seats and fit multiple dog crates back there when I transport rescues and things like that.

Q: Tell me about your work with American Brittany Rescue.

A: I do home evaluations and screen potential adopters and I pull dogs from kill shelters. I'll do that within a two-hour radius, just different shelters. I also help with transporting dogs. We get dogs all the time from the Dakotas and Utah. They'll transport three or four dogs at a time. Then they'll get to California and we may have a foster in Southern California. We'll meet at a certain spot, pick up the dogs, drive a couple hours to the next leg, that sort of thing.

Q: What's the longest car trip you've taken with this vehicle?

A: Eureka! I started in Napa. I was doing a photo shoot for OMG Wine. My husband bought us this Living Social deal for a bed and breakfast up in Eureka and it was set to expire that weekend. He was out of town camping with our younger daughter. I took our oldest daughter for a romantic weekend in Eureka after a romantic dinner in Napa!

Q: Sounds like fun. What's OMG Wine?

A: OMG I So Need a Glass of Wine or I'm Gonna Sell My Kids! It started a couple years ago, inspired from a mommy moment. I was on Facebook and I didn't realize I made the page public because I was very new to social media. Within two weeks I had over 3,000 fans. I decided to create a community with more of a purpose and I just turned 117,000 fans on my Facebook page. I have about 75,000 members on my group page.

Q: Wow!

A: Yeah, it's great. When I'm going to Napa, I can lift the seats up and fill it with cases of wine or my OMG glasses. It also accommodates transporting the dogs, throwing the boards on top, luggage. It's all weather. You'll see there's still sand in here that I haven't vacuumed out. I literally can sweep it out and wipe it down with a sponge. The seats are all weather, so I just wipe them off. It makes it very kid-friendly, so if things spill, I don't have to freak out.