On Thursday I take delivery of my very first brand-spankin' new vehicle -- a VW Golf, 4-door diesel with all the goodies. Except for automatic transmission. That would be sacreligious. Real environmentalists row their own gears ;-) Of course, if I were a real environmentalist, I'd just stay home and not burn any fossil fuels, but that wouldn't be any fun.

It gets 49mpg on the highway and has a cruising range of 700 miles. I will be able to go 4 hours north to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore (on the eastern side of Lake Michigan) and back on a tankful. Another plus is that Thule worked with VW to weld on a few pegs under the rain gutter's rubber weatherstripping, so my new rack will lock directly to the roof, not clamp in the door openings. Wasn't there a post a few weeks ago about people who make roof-rack adaptation a major criteria in buying a new car?

My brother won a $10,000 first-class, five-star trip to Hawaii and offered to take me if I gave him my old Mazda Protege (worth ~$1500), so this is why I finally took the plunge on buying a new car. I deliver the Mazda to him this weekend, then we take off for sunny, 80-degree Kaua'i on Sunday for a week. We will probably be renting a double kayak to check out a nature preserve. Just had to rub it in. Enjoy the ice!-)

Dean