Did you recently take on (or consider) a loan of 84 months or longer on a car purchase?
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/25 for details.
A reporter would like to speak with you about your experience; please reach out to PR@Edmunds.com by 7/25 for details.
Options
Comments
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Other odd thing was that the far left lane was a toll lane. Separated by a double white line.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Lovely sunny day in Vancouver yesterday, and I am sure I had some good clips on bridges and in Stanley Park, but I forgot to retrieve them, now gone. I forgot how much of a pain it can be there, so few left turn lanes, what were they thinking? The honking and subdued rage comes out even in Canadians.
Then around the campfire you can talk about whether the poor slobs without meaningful work slaving away with a 40 minute commute are richer than the Gandhi types.
Every motel room pretty much looks like the last one, right down to the cooties and bedbugs.
Edmunds Price Checker
Edmunds Lease Calculator
Did you get a good deal? Be sure to come back and share!
Edmunds Moderator
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
But, you wouldn't want to go camping with me.
Edmunds Price Checker
Edmunds Lease Calculator
Did you get a good deal? Be sure to come back and share!
Edmunds Moderator
Traveling by RV is a great way to see America, and when money is no object, the experience can be more “glamping” than camping.
http://www.generalrv.com/blog/10-luxurious-rv-resorts-america/
Find your Glamorous Camping spot.
http://www.glamping.com/
Should I hold my breath?
I have not been a big fan of camping since I was about fifteen years old. My bushcraft is pretty good, schooled by my dad, a former soldier and Reservist Officer.
In August 1974, I found myself as part of an Advanced Party for a planned Cadet Camp in the Mount Pilot forest in North Eastern Victoria. A Quartermaster, I had pitched my own hoochie, dry and warm, the open ends closed with plastic sheeting, drains dug all around on a small rise, to let any rain run off drain away. Our campsite was at the junction of three roads, to offer multiple redundancy. We had the main stores tent up, stoves fixed and coffee organised. The first day was sunny and warm.
Then it started to rain. I am not talking mist, gentle showers or even continuing rainfall. This was Great Flood, Noah's Ark launching downpours. It started in the evening and kept on, and on, and on, and on. On the following day, an Army Semi Trailer with two 20' containers with all the serious gear for the camp, slipped off one of the access roads. In quick succession, five other trucks became bogged , each (with the semi trailer) creating two separate blockages about a mile apart on each of the three access tracks.
We had army ration packs sufficient for about three days for the thirty of us, including teachers (officers). All of us had little extra stores in our packs (I had a fruit-cake) which we pooled. Several kids even had illicit alcohol which was very welcome, even if we were underage.
I never want to see a KP pack again. Dad had found himself, during the New Guinea campaign, seconded to lead some US Army outfit, where proximity to Japanese snipers made cooking impossible. He retained a perpetual loathing of peanut butter and jelly; I sympathise and never want to see "Dog Biscuits" or processed cheese, again.
At some point, the army arranged the delivery to one of the blocked roads of a supply of hot dog buns and sausages which some wonderful blokes carried back to camp, past the two bogged trucks on that track. That is another culinary delight that I've scratched from my menu.
The main camp was cancelled but those of us already there were stranded. I have now happily forgotten how long, but it was about a week before the Army got a Mack 27.5 tonne (42 years later, I still recall its capacity, precisely) wrecker in from Bandianna to haul out the bogged trucks. The gouges in the road from the Semi Trailer were filled with water and looked like a long deed stock trough; it was past axle deep. After extricating the trucks from one track, the wrecker pulled into our camp, for an attempted three point turn. This did not go well.
The wrecker, once partially turned, attempted to move forward. Gravity, and the slick clay covered road, had other ideas. Inexorably, as the whole camp watched, it slid down the slope, off the road and into the creek. This process took some minutes, to the wondrous fascination of every watching teenage boy and the humiliation of the Regular Army guys who had, only minutes earlier, felt rightly proud of their manly skills. I have always regretted that none of us had a camera.
We quickly discovered that a heavy wrecker, bogged deep in a creek, cannot haul itself out on its own winch. It was a useful mechanical lesson to us all as the shear pin in the winch repeatedly sheared, protecting the winch from mechanical damage. After several self rescue attempts, the Regular Army guys were pretty upset.
It was about this stage that a much older teacher (this was a very posh school, the best in Australia, so we called them Masters) stepped forward. He was the Cadet Corp Adjutant and I had always assumed (from his florid face) an Alcoholic. He was, however a WW II veteran of note, and a Physics Teacher. He understood vectors and forces. Very coolly, he pulled rank (NCO's ultimately bend to old duffers when they have three bars of ribbons (some with little ornaments on the colours), even if they are in their sixties). He then attached a tiny 2.5 tonne International truck to offset the slewed force from the wrecker's winch and it popped back out of the creek, using its last sheer pin. The Wrecker's crew refused coffee, slinking off back to Bandianna and praying no-one mentioned their rescue.
A day or two later, we could break camp, although we still had to march out with our gear, about five miles to a bus, back to school.
The icing on the cake was getting back to the Boarding House, muddy, cold and unwashed, to find there was no water for a shower. My enthusiasm for camping ended about there.
Give me clean sheets, hot water and heating.
Cheers
Graham
Should I hold my breath?
Hey, if you get one, I get one too! Now children.
Reminds me of this little sedan made by Mazda and sold by Scion. Sort of.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
That takes me back to my USAF days, we were a tactical radar squadron and always ended up in pup tents. There are certain rations I could simply not eat, although fruitcake was OK. It was most of the meat dishes I couldn't stand. Our C-Ration meals were at least 10 years old at the time.
But anyway, these days, hot water and showers are exactly what camping is all about. Just shell out some serious cash, and take your hot water, food, and living comfort on the road. I had my experience with that in the early '70s with my dad. It was fun, but never fun enough for me to consider it as a "grown up".
Plus, those rigs take a LOT of gas, and it isn't 25 cents a gallon like it was back then.
That is one of my issues with the big RVs. That 6-9 MPG does not fit my agenda. Our MB Cruiser we had a little over a year did get decent mileage. As much as 25 MPG on the highway. Still never spent a night in it. So it was a waste of money. My simple math tells me I would have to spend more than 100 nights a year in a Hampton Inn to justify owning an RV again. And that does not include depreciation on the vehicle. If it was small enough to use as a daily driver like the VW California diesel, it would be an option.
For a long time, my wife wanted an RV(she grew up in a family that had truck/campers and RVs), but it never penciled out with the price of gas. I would tell her we can drive our car(roughly 30MPG), and stay in a pretty nice place for what the RV would cost.
Edmunds Price Checker
Edmunds Lease Calculator
Did you get a good deal? Be sure to come back and share!
Edmunds Moderator
My father is really into the RV life. I enjoyed it growing up, but my wife came to the same conclusion as @slorenzen above.... RVs don't pencil out if you're just using them for the occasional vacation! So, car camping it is (and, yes, some of the campgrounds can be pricey!).
Our five-week transcontinental trip three years ago worked out to about $5K total, which includes ~28 nights of lodging (including three in a little cottage on the Oregon coast), food, admissions to all venues, gasoline/maintenance for the 12.5K miles, etc. In other words, all expenses included. In an RV, just the fuel would have been close to that cost, and the lodging (campgrounds / RV parks) would still need to be paid!
You can still find a lot of that in most national forests.
Some of them would be a challenge to get an RV into the area.
Wednesday we looked the surrounding area over and then spent a most enjoyable evening at the Blazin' M Ranch. Big BBQ dinner and a fun show.
We returned this morning by way of Jerome and Prescott. Filled at Costco for $1.76 for diesel. Has not been even close to that cheap for decades. Return trip was much prettier drive. Winding roads but still an hour less time. Very little traffic.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
If you want to load video, you need to post it to a site like YouTube (it can be unlisted vs. public there), then post the embedded link into your post here.
The train has open air cars that all the passenger cars have access to. Several turns you can see the front of the train stretched around a curve.
We were there just as the trees were getting their leaves and the river is at its lowest. It is the beginning of their rainy period.
2021 Kia Soul LX 6-speed stick
Will be first time towing with the F 150, dropping the trailer off out there.
It's about 550 miles each way.
My daughter just bought a house, so we get to get rid of a bunch of stuff.
Also driving out the 2013 Escape which is going to my other daughter. She's flying in to Ohio from Wisconsin to pick it up.
My truck is rated @15/21 and has a 36 gallon tank, so theoretically I won't have to stop for fuel.
Rented a 5x8 single axle trailer, but my wife has me thinking about upgrading to a 5x10 double axle.
Kinda poor because I was just waving the iPod around blindly to shoot this, but Denali was gorgeous through Broad Pass on the way up that Friday.....
Next time I need a lower tow bar, but towing was easy(5x8 trailer).
Towing the trailer, 560 miles in 9 hours.
Averaged 13.7 through the first fill up. Still had 6 gallons remaining, but not enough to make the whole trip without needing fuel.