Anne wrote: > OK, so I do own what's technically an SUV. It's a 1993 > Geo Tracker. One of the smallest vehicles out there (in > length anyway.) The gas mileage is good (about 30 mpg). > And when I'm in Vermont, I go on roads where 4WD is a > necessity.
I would be remiss if I didn't set the record straight. Mary (and I, by extension) own (well, are paying for) a 2002 Mazda Tribute (almost identical to the Ford Escape). It replaced a 1998 Dodge Grand Caravan, which was impractical for a family of two people and three cats. Mary drives the Tribute about 46 miles round-trip each weekday; she would prefer to use public transportation but that doesn't work very well for her. We use the Tribute as a truck quite a lot of the time - mostly to pick up and haul discarded materials for the ongoing patio/walkway project (http://www.geocities.com/lrfye/patio.html; http://www.lrfye.lunarpages.com/littleton/020910-003.jpg) - and we've certainly used the 4-wheel drive feature this winter. My greatest regret about the Tribute is that it has an automatic transmission (this is another of my pet peeves - I truly believe everyone should drive a car with a manual transmission unless they are physcially incapable of doing so). Otherwise, I enjoy the Tribute a lot and have considering trying to convince Mary to let me drive it to JoniFest so I can use it as a camper. When I'm not using public transportation I drive a 1995 Chevy Cavalier 5-speed (69,800 miles on the odo) that gets 38 mpg on the highway and about 30 mpg in the city. My next car? Probably a Mazda Protege 5 (wagon), with a manual tranny of course! Lori ~
