Monday, August 4, 2008

In my little car

There have been two pictures of sorts of my little Honda Fit, but it deserves a longer mention.  First off, I do have fond feelings towards the car--it is practical, it holds a lot of "stuff" and it is one of the in cars for us hip and cool 20-somethings.  But I have to say that I really do feel sorry for it right now.  First, I have loaded it to the max, and probably well above the recommended load capacity.  And that is after I thoughtfully mailed out most of my books!  I don't know what it is complaining about.

It is full, from floor to ceiling and from side to side--even the front seat is full.  I see these mournful hitchhikers on the side of the road, and for right now, the main reason I don't pick them up is because there is not any room.  It frees me from worrying about picking up an ax murderer.  I just don't have room for the ax.

Then, I no doubt insulted its beauty and grace by putting on a car rack, and then putting on a bike and a huge cargo bag.  I am sure that it doesn't care that it rack and all is the best that Yakima and Thule make--they make it look fat and they do ruin its lines.  The rack and all certainly change its slippery shape.  It now drives like it has a piece of plywood on top, and it cut about 35% off of its mileage, as it has to work harder just to push all that air.
It has made my top speed 62-63 MPH.  That might hurt the most--believe me when I say that ND has to look better at 78 miles per hour...

It is also dealing with all of this AND much more difficult terrain.  Think about this:  My Fit is two years old and has 63,000 miles on it as it made that roundtrip from Findlay to Toledo five or six times a week.  But that trip has all of the geographic diversity of an airport.  This trip has already caused my poor Fit to cross the Continental Divide at nearly 7,000 feet above sea level, and I have two mountain ranges left to cross.  As someone told me, the squirrels that power that thing did not sign up for that!

But it is all going well, and while I never thought that I would have to stop every 200 miles for gas, it is good to get out and walk around.  So far no problems, and I have less than 500 miles left to go.  

More tomorrow.

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