January 15, 2013
to stop without a farmhouse near
1/15/13
I totaled the car.
To be fair, it happened a few days before New Year's Eve, en route to picking up the ladies at the Albany airport back in New York, but we just got the news that it was a total loss.
It makes me sad because it was a steadfast and true car, one that Lucy had given special meaning when I said we were getting a car that had all-wheel drive for the ice. She replied, "Yes. It can also drive on ocean waves, over mountains, and even on HOT LAVA. It's called Strongtaneous."
Strongtaneous (a hybrid Ford Escape) did everything asked of her until a guy swerved into my lane, and I reacted with that slight twitch of the wheel - completely fine during normal circumstances, but in this snowstorm, it sent me into the guard rail, where I spun once, and managed to hit it again.
I've always prided myself on being able to drive in the snow, always having great reaction time and instincts, but this confluence of events put me into the highway barrier regardless. Thank god there was nobody else around on that godforsaken night, an hour into the blizzard.
And so now we look for what Tessa's calling Strongtaneous Deuxième. The insurance company is giving us almost full value for the car, so if any of you want to make us a little less blue, tell us of an SUV with great gas mileage, ready for winter, with room enough for both people and harebrained schemes.
Did you have a good set of snow tires on there? If not then it doesn't matter if you have 4WD or not, you're going to end up a ditch when you hit ice. The culverts along Vermont's I-89 are littered with flatlanders coming up in storms with 4WD and then being shocked when they went off the road going too fast for conditions.
As to vehicles, my wife has a Honda CR-V, which with the stick and their as-needed 4WD gets almost 30mpg. However that is getting older and we're looking at new used cars that have AWD or 4WD.
Way at the top of the list is the Acura MDX and RDX - they have AWD, so not the greatest milage, but very nicely engineered cars.Also on the list for us (all feature AWD or 4WD):
Mitsubishi Outlander $29k 26MPG
Hyundai Tucson
Honda CR-V $29k 30mpg
Acura RDX $35k 23MPG
Volvo XC60 $34-40k 24MPG
Hyundai Santa Fe
Lexus RX 350
Volvo Xc60 or 90. Love em.
Have you looked at the new Escape? You can open the back gate with your foot. We got a Hybrid Highlander and it's too big. I was toying with the idea of looking at an Escape. Haven't gotten around to it yet.
SO GLAD Y'ALL ARE OK!!!!!!
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