Saving the environment.

Jeremy is completely stymied by the fact that we may be buying a minivan in the near future. For 5 years now, it has not be unusual for us to drive 8 to 12 hours (usually to Upstate NY) in our trusty Honda Accord with the four of us and the dog. Ruby is a patient dog and usually spends the trip in the footwell being kicked by a child. OK, this makes it sound like we’re going to buy a minivan so the dog will be more comfortable, but I swear that’s not the case.

Edda is getting heavier all the time, Jeremy and I are pretty strong and can still lift her, but there is no way either of our mothers can lift Edda and I can feel the little twinge in my back when I lift Edda in and out of the car. We spent part of the weekend looking a turnout seating for Edda (which I have to say is fantastically cool) and thinking about what vehicle to put it into.

The turnout seat salesman said that 90% of the seats go into minivans, and I’m like, OK, let’s get the Toyota Sienna or the Honda Odyssey and be done with it. Jeremy looks at the 19 mpg on the highway that the minivans gets and gets all concerned. Remember, he is a professional environmentalist. All day he thinks about how to convince Americans to use less fuel, he talks to the EPA, he does his cute little gas calculations and comes home and talks to me about it all the time. So, I think we are going to go to a bunch of different car dealers and looking at some other, smaller, more fuel efficient cars. This is going to take some time. I hope Edda isn’t 75 pounds by the time we decide, but whatever, maybe by then the minivans will all be hybrid and get 47 mpg on the highway and it will all be moot.

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6 thoughts on “Saving the environment.”

  1. Wow that looks like the Cadillac of turn out seats! What kind is it? Where did you go to look at it? And I guess we’re going to be on Jeremy’s poo-poo list because we will be the owners of a mini van by years end – but it will just take the place of driving Jeff’s Explorer so the net effect might still be a plus, right?

  2. I think we will most likely get a minivan, we just have to work through all the possibilities first, make sure no stone is unturned…

    The one you are looking at is called the Freedom. It has sensors and automatically does minor adjustments as it pivots out, the other is the Bruno (we didn’t see this one in a car), we were quoted $7400 for the seat and installation. Are you suppose to bargain on the price?

  3. That Cadillac Freedom seat is the original seat from the car, they just mounted it on a turny thingy so it matches the others in the car. By the way the trading a explorer for a minivan is a big improvement. But what about one of these these instead?

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