PAPA GOOSE CHECKS OUT HIS REFLECTION IN THIS MORNING’S POND
“Come on in Cowboy” she said as I sat patiently in the Maitland Medical Center this afternoon in Goderich Ontario. And I didn’t even have my big 10 gallon Cowboy hat on either, however I did have my Mojave Henschel Breezer hat perched atop my head. Guess maybe it could be taken for a Cowboy hat from a distance. Don’t know, never seen myself from a distance. Well not in person anyway. My Nurse Practitioner had told me way back in September I was to get myself into the medical center for blood work soon as we got back from Arizona so today was the day for that. Gave me a good excuse to go somewhere. Little ‘Bugsy’ didn’t come along because it wasn’t one of our leisurely morning photo excursions.
OUR PERIWINKLE EMERGES AFTER ANOTHER WINTER’S COLD ICE & SNOW JUST AS GREEN AS GREEN CAN BE
Couple more big pine needle loads into the utility trailer & off to our recycling area this morning. Anyone living in a pine forest will well understand the big pine needle clean up every spring. I look at all the raking & pitch forking as good upper body exercise & it’s nice for Pheebs & I to have something to do & somewhere to go even if it is only a quarter mile there & back.
SOME PINE LOGS BESIDE OUR HOUSE I WILL HAVE TO CLEAN UP SOMEHOW
More internet time today looking at vehicles interspersed with a few phone inquiries thrown in to various dealers. This has turned into a frustrating search because no matter what vehicle or model we look at the on-line reviews are generally bad. Of course more people with problems are prone to write nasty reviews than people who are happy with their vehicles. It’s just human nature. And the bad reviews always seem to outdo the good reviews. One might say, ‘this is the worst piece of crap I’ve ever had’ while the next review will say, ‘this is the best vehicle I have ever driven. And of course almost everyone complains about the gas mileage there vehicle is getting. That just seems to be a standard complaint with most people. With each & every vehicle we find that interests us we right away go on-line reading all the info on it we can find including consumer reviews. We were really interested in the Ford Explorer trucks until we found out they can’t be easily towed 4 wheels down. And that goes for many vehicles we have looked at with automatic transmissions so far. Even with the Jeep line a person has to be very careful to make sure it has the right kind of crankcase in it for towing.
NICE TO SEE OUR RED WING BLACKBIRDS BACK
In the morning we are going to go & have us & look at some actual hands on Jeeps. One in Elmira is a 2007 Jeep Liberty Limited Edition 4X4 with 48,000 miles & the other one in Cambridge is a 2004 Grand Cherokee Limited 4X4 with 68,000 miles. Of course these two vehicles along with every other type of vehicle we have looked at so far come with unfavourable reviews as well.
2007 JEEP LIBERTY LIMITED EDITION (PHOTOS TAKEN FROM DEALER’S SITES)
2004 GRAND CHEROKEE LIMITED…BOTH JEEPS INCIDENTALLY ARE THE COLOR WE PREFER
Well I did a rather silly thing Saturday morning & it wasn’t until today when I went to open a new jar of peanut butter that I began to get an inkling something was missing in my life. My peanut butter!!!! I buy natural peanut butter at a supermarket in Goderich called Zehrs & it’s the only place I can get their ‘President’s Choice’ brand. Saturday morning along with 2 jars of peanut butter I had purchased a dozen or so other items at the supermarket. I remember bringing 2 bags home & putting everything away. Well not everything as I was beginning to learn. Fact is once I missed my peanut butter I realized after looking around I was also missing a 500 gram tub of creamed honey, a plastic container of Mennen Speed Stick underarm deodorant, & a package of Bic Flex 4 razor blades. ‘Oh no’ had robbers broke into our house over the week-end & stole my stuff?? Well not likely. A hasty look around the kitchen, the carport, & in the Jeep further confirmed my items were indeed yes…….missing!! Kelly even looked & could not find the aforementioned items. And if Kelly can’t find something then it is definitely non-existent. A quick call to Zehr’s Supermarket & no they hadn’t found any abandoned, forlorn, or forgotten groceries wandering aimlessly around their store Saturday but said to just bring the receipt in & they would replace the missing items at no charge. Now how nice is that & I actually had a fleeting sense there might be some hope for this human race after all. When in Goderich this afternoon I did sheepishly drop in to Zehrs with my Saturday receipt & a nice friendly lady at Customer Service had me just go & gather up my missing items & that was that. No charge:)) So what could have happened to my third bag of groceries. Well, 3 possibilities. An Alien spaceship could have beamed my stuff up as I was walking across the parking lot, I could have forgot it at the checkout & the bag got mixed in with the customer behind me or I left it in the shopping cart out in the parking lot. One thing is certain though……..my faltering memory is definitely older than I am. Wished I could blame it on those darn rascally Aliens though…………………………
ASLEEP ON A CHAIR BEHIND ME TONIGHT AS I WRITE MY POST
GROANER’S CORNER:(( This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did. Somebody got angry about this, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anybody could have done!
When I get to the canyon I'll be raking up pine needles around the 5er for defensible space. The piles get large but thank goodness someone else hauls that away. It's such a nightmare shopping for a vehicle, even with all the research, which might make the decision harder. Nice folks at your grocery store to replace those mysteriously missing groceries. ;)
ReplyDeleteThe Grand Cherokee with such low mileage would be very interesting! Before we were RVing we drove one of those over several of the high passes in Colorado and just about anyplace we wanted to go on our vacation travels. We now tow a Jeep Commander '08 and have no issues with it except for the gas mileage you mention.
ReplyDeleteGood Sam Club publishes a dinghy guide every year that I think is available online too. Not sure about looking at it if you're not a member though. If you get access to it somehow, I also think you can check out previous years models of autos.
Good luck with your search!
You might want to go to a library and read Consumer Report's views on the cars you are interested.
ReplyDeleteIn the south, you could sell your pine needles for mulch.....Yep, people mulch their flower beds with pine needles. In Indiana, they import those needles and charge big $$$ for the mulch. To each his own.
I really like my Jeep wrangler 4 dr... I know they are pricey, but you should be able to get quite a bit out of Jeepers too... I like the fact that it doesn't have a column lock on the steering wheel and you can leave the transmission in Park and put the keys in your pocket... Just put the transfer case in neutral... I seriously think it would be worth getting financing if you had to to get one..... JMHO
ReplyDeleteMotorhome Magazine publishes the guide we used:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.motorhome.com/download-dinghy-guides/
Last time I researched the subject, all Jeep manual-transmission vehicles were towable 4-down, and no Jeep automatic-transmission vehicles were. Why we were buying our Jeep, I sent a question in to the company and got a young lady responding with news that all Jeep automatic vehicles were towable but no Jeep manual transmission vehicles were. I asked her to please clear my phone line for possible future intelligent communication.
Rod Ivers' idea that we don't need to put the keys in the ACC position to avoid steering-column lockup of our Jeep Wrangler is news to me, but we will look into it!
Aliens, yep I go with the alien plot for sure.
ReplyDeleteNice customer service at the Zehr's store.
Good luck with your vehicle research.
We had a 2006 Jeep Liberty that we really liked Al, We drove it over all kinds of rough trails with no problems...it at up dry river beds full of rocks even. The vehicle also had great utility, with a lot of room in the back with the rear seat folded forward. This Jeep can also pull 5,000 lbs of trailer behind it. The biggest complaint I had of course was gas mileage... only got around 17 to 20 miles per gallon, not real good. We did quite a bit of driving and at the old gas prices, we were putting in over $400 of gas a month into it. Ours had 230,000 klms on it when I kept getting the dreaded Check Engine light on. It was a problem with the catalytic converters, and would cost over $1,600.00 to replace, with no guarantees the problem was fixed, so we don't own it anymore. I loved to drive this vehicle though, it was a good one.
ReplyDeleteLaurie and Odel had a jeep grand cherokee which they LOVED--you might contact them for thoughts. That's a vehicle we've looked at from time to time--they are so comfortable! Any jeep is tow-able four down it has a manual shift transfer case, automatic or standard. We towed an automatic jeep Wrangler, the one Rollie purchased.
ReplyDeleteIf you like the vehicle, that's the most important thing. There are too many different driving styles for everyone to agree on the same vehicle. Not to mention human bodies styles that could make something perfect for you and not the next person.
ReplyDeleteCorrection: Not all JEEPS are tow-able 4 down. The JEEP Patriot is not tow-able. We had one and it was clearly stated in the manual. The Patriot is the only JEEP getting a good gas mileage. (35mpg)
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your search!
Though expensive, you could consider a Remco lube oil pump to enable towing certain vehicles. We had one installed on our RAV 4 & have been pleased with it. Also comes with great warranty.
ReplyDeleteI would stick with the alien theory, although if they've now had the good peanut butter they might come back for more :-) We tow our Cherokee four down, in Park, keys out (automatic trans). You've got some time before the heat of summer and the need for A/C :-)
ReplyDeleteI did that in Alabama..forgot one entire bag...and my Moscato wine was in it....Beloved McGuyver went back to the store and no one had seen it, so he re-purchase the items..and paid for them yet again..Now I know why I keep him around...
ReplyDeleteAs I think I've commented before, my 1996 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited was my all time favorite car/SUV to drive. I loved that vehicle. My other favorite was the 2006 Ford F-350, but that's a truck and you are looking for a car. But those are my favorites and neither one got great mileage.
ReplyDelete