The View from Here

So - where have I been since Tuesday? Putting over 400 miles on my new ride, and getting sunburned from its freakishly large sunroof(s). Said ride (2007 Ford Edge) was lovingly delivered by The Man Tuesday evening. Since he's officially given notice that November 30 is his last day working at the crazy-making place (yippee!!) and I'm about to go back to work (any day now, really!), and will be burning up the highways in a manner that will make Texaco proud, I needed to get out of my gas-sucking Tahoe and get into something more economical while we can still get employee pricing.
Of course, although I've been researching them online and seen the commercials, I wasn't counting on the damn thing being so cute in person. Not to mention fun to drive, with great handling & road manners, no engine noise (seriously - my dad didn't think it was running when I showed it to him) and minimal road noise - even with the freakishly huge sunroof all the way open and barreling 80mph down the highway! No shit - and I am not making this up - in addition to holding conversations with The Girl using a normal tone of voice, I have been able to have actual cell phone conversations with the sunroof open - not just vented - but gaping all the way open - and it opens to double or more the size of a normal sunroof. It has the 3 things most important to me in a car-buying decision: leather seats, iPod jack and sunroof - and this one basically has TWO - one really fucking huge one in the front that slides over the smoked glass in the back so the folks in the back seat have a view, too. --Not that anyone ever really rides in my back seat, but if they did - wow would they be able to see stuff!

A few years ago I stepped down from an Eddie Bauer Expedition (I loved that truck!) to an Escape - again for fuel economy. While the little Escape was cute and all, it didn't always have the space I needed for hauling stuff and after the Expedition, it felt a lot like driving a roller skate, so I was wary of the Edge because even though it's waythehell cuter than the Escape, it didn't seem much bigger and I didn't want to be stuck driving a car I didn't really like again. Since The Man brought the Escape home in the dark, just like this car, and one 16-mile round trip in the dark to the little town of Fundietonfieldvilleview and back just isn't enough of a test drive for me to make an adequately informed decision, I told him I wasn't going to decide until I drove it in the daytime for a busy day of errand-running to Lowes, Linens & Things and the grocery store. I figured the best way to decide if I wanted to buy it was to put it through a typical day of hardcore shopping just to see if it could keep up. Groceries were no problem, considering that I used to keep the 3rd row seats folded up in the Tahoe, leaving about the same amount of room as in the back of the Edge. Later that day, the Edge had plenty of room for paint for 3 rooms and assorted supplies, the 2 banquet tables and an entire suite of new bedding - comforter, pillows, and all, with plenty of room to spare. The little button in the back hatch area that flips the back seats down was really cool, too.

Honestly, in driving this car and going down from a huge full-size SUV, this car doesn't feel smaller. Aside from the fact that The Man works in the automobile industry, so we can usually get some really awesome deals on cars, one big reason I've driven SUVs is because I am so impossibly tall (all of 5') that being up higher helps me see what's happening around me on the road. A smaller car typically leaves me feeling as if I'm dragging my ass on the ground and can't really see what's going on. I didn't get that "I wish I were up higher," feeling in the Edge. It felt airy and spacious and "up high enough" for me. Speaking of space, the center console is also freakishly huge - big enough for my 13" MacBook - and has a jack for my iPod and a power port (there are 4 of these total) for the charger with a little cutout on the side lip of the console for the iPod cable to slip through. The Man bought the Tahoe for me when I got my Master's (awwww) but so far the only things I'm going to miss about it are the heated seats (much loved on the dozen or so days when it's actually cold outside) and the temperature gauge on the rearview mirror, but I can buy a new rearview that has that so it's no big deal. I won't miss the parking difficulties I've encountered in the last 3 & 1/2 years or paying $60-75 to fill the beast.

In my travels over the last couple of days, I've had no less than 4 people stop me to ask about and look over the car. Of course I've been happy to show it off, even though it's taken me on a little trip in the Wayback Machine to the days when I sold cars. The Girl even likes it. She said the Tahoe was too much of a "Soccer Mom" car and was not cool enough to be a "Band Mom" car. This car, on the other hand, in her humble and considerate nearly 16 year old opinion, is entirely cool enough to be a Band Mom car - or it will be once we get the front windows tinted ;o) Yep - nothin' quite like having a car that the teenager thinks is "pimpable."