ROAD TRIP

So, one puppy, a rental upgrade, and 7 and a half hours of driving later, there I was in the deep southeastern corner of South Carolina. I was within spittin' distance (with a good tailwind) of Hilton Head, and a short stone's throw from Savannah, Georgia. If you've been here before, then you know why. If not, well - I was there to go to Parris Island, the Marine Recruit Training Base, to watch 2 young men graduate from "maggots" into Marines.

It all started back in Richmond, Virginia. To make a long story short, something mostly impossible for me to do, the vehicle that was supposed to be available for us to use to get to Parris Island and back again, with boys in tow, was suddenly of questionable running condition. It seems that the transmission had decided to start leaking sometime within the past, oh, 360 hours or so. But, as luck would have it, I was not informed of this fact until, oh, less than 24 hours before we were going to actually hit the road. Lovely.

SO... I was down to just a few options:

1. drive my Del Sol back and pack the boys and their large quantity of gear up into the trunk. I'm sure they would have loved riding back in the trunk, right?
2. Drive my Camaro, of questionable long-distance durability, down to South Carolina and hope for the best. Cargo? Who needs cargo? Hell, the Camaro has a back seat that was an afterthought. Have you ever ridden in the back of a 3rd gen Camaro? Then you know as well as I do that the seat is actually nothing more than AN INSURANCE PREMIUM REDUCTION. No one over the age of 5 is actually small enough to fit comfortably in the back seat of such a car. Putting anyone over 4' 8" in height in the back is a violation of their Constitutional rights against Cruel and Unusual Punishment.
3. Rent a car

Therefore, I went online Tuesday night and rented a car. I knew some other people from in town were going to be travelling there with enough cargo space for their extra gear... and with Christmas spending yet to do, and bills yet to pay - I opted for an econo-box. Yeah, I know. They are small too, right Wop? Well, sure, but even the backseat of a Kia Rio is twice as large as the backseat of a Camaro... and certainly a bit more comfortable than the trunk of a Del Sol. This actually turned out to be a good thing....

How, Wop, how? Well, there is a little known thing about rental car agencies. If you rent a car of a particular class - in this case an economy car - and they do not have a car of that class size, well, they have to upgrade you for free. Yep, that's right. Free upgrade. They cannot just downgrade you either. In this particular instance, not only did they have no econoboxes to rent me, they had NO cars at all. In fact, all they had was one full size passenger van and a Jeep Liberty. So I got a Jeep Liberty for an econobox price.

Sweet.

Well, not entirely. I have to say that the Jeep Liberty, now that it has successfully returned us to Richmond, is not the most impressive vehicle in the world. It has little to no power for a vehicle of its girth. The front seats are NOT comfortable. You have no place to put your legs and stretch out, even if you were driving in cruise control mode. The back seats aren't that large, nor are they very comfortable either. And cargo space? Well, let's just say that you think there would be more. Steering was more twitchy than a crystal meth junkie and gas mileage? Atrocious. 20mpg highway. That's it. I get better in my Camaro, which has much more power. Sad. Just sad.

Of course, I'm not entirely certain that my Camaro would have gotten me there... and then there's that little issue with that back seat torture chamber. I mean, the boys are just finishing boot camp for the Marines - I think that they deserve a little better ride home, right? Would you want two annoyed, grumpy Marines fresh out of boot camp and full of "oo-rah" and testosterone riding right behind you? Me neither.

Anyway, it got us there and back again without too much incident, and the exceedingly bright headlights, when they weren't blinding everyone else on the road, did give great vision for night driving. Would I take one for free? Sure. Why not? But would I buy one? Hell no. I could sell a free one and buy something better, I'm sure.

Next stop - The Ceremonies, JP's, and yet another incident caused by my singing...