Blackie

We have finally dumped that old gas hog Avalanche. I can't believe we kept it as long as we did. Three years ago my Mom wanted to sell her Avalanche. We were in need of a new truck and I liked the backseat and upgrades it had, and convinced Art that it was still a work truck since it was a 2500. One big problem was that my Mom said it got 24 miles to the gallon. I must have asked her a hundred times if she was sure. She said she was. My Mom is a wonderful person, but I will probably not ask her a mathematical or numerical question again. It gets 12. Or 10 if you're in 4 wheel drive. That would be about half. My fault for believing it, but you believe what you want to believe sometimes. We had it for three years. It was great to have the heated seats, the memory seats, the big back seat, the ability to fold it all down and stuff sheetrock in the back, and it was awesome in the snow. It could go places the Bobcat would struggle with. But, it felt a little hypocritical to promote being green, and energy efficient when we were driving around in an American consumerism status symbol. Also, it had a cracked windshield (again), the brakes and tires needed replacing, and there was a "check engine" status light that Art's little car problem decoder box said there was incomplete combustion. That just sounds like an expensive problem. Plus gas prices are up to $2.99 a gallon.
So we took it down to the Honda place to look at Elements. Not sure why we needed to look since we bought an Element for a service vehicle for the shop two or three years ago and love it. Anyway, they gave us what we wanted (and didn't expect to get) for the Avalanche, and gave us the automatic for the invoice price of the manual. It is all black, no plastic panels on it. It is very fun to drive. Today I had to go down to the laundromat to do eight loads of laundry since our washing machine crapped out- mid-cycle-thankyouverymuch, and then I had to go to the grocery store, and pick up my dry cleaning. I folded up one seat and stuffed everything in easily. The back doors you can open with one finger! I still had room in the seat behind me and nothing was in the passenger seat. It also has an i-pod port :)
And it actually does get 24 miles to the gallon...