Prius Love.

I guess, if the writers of South Park are right; we will be having to contend with 'Smug-Emissions' up here at the Hungarican Hut from now on. For you see we have broken the Jeep trend and gone out and bought ourselves a mileage-positive vehicle at last. Our Jeeps have racked up the miles.. and it has come time to start thinking about replacement. To replace them with something that gets only 17-19 mpg would be unconscionable for both our wallets and our Carbon footprint considering our daily commute.

Hubby was also getting worried that I'd end up with a broken-down car and he wouldn't be around to help me with it when he's traveling. So this morning, while we were enjoying breakfast at the cozy cabin in Welches, we decided today was the day we'd go down and 'look' at Priuses (Prii?) and possibly the Insight if there was a dealership nearby. Of course we never go to the Honda dealership. We stepped on the lot at the Toyota dealership, looked briefly at the very pricey 'pre-owned' ones, and then were duly assaulted by a hungry car salesman.

We figured that the 'basic' package Prius was almost the same price as the used ones; so what the hell, if we're going to go for payments, we might as well get the one with 52 miles on it, as opposed to the one with 21,000. It was touch and go there; when we were sort of waffling on whether we should just jump in for the whole hog, or play it pragmatic and do all the requisite research and dilly-dallying at other dealerships, and possibly miss our $1,000 discount and possibly the car we had pretty much picked. It only took doing some basic math to figure out we'd be stupid not to choose this model for a new vehicle. Just parking one of our Jeeps and using the other and the Prius would pretty much pay for two thirds of our monthly payment in fuel savings.

We were sold after we did our comparison. We made a salesman at a cricket-quiet dealership very happy I'll wager. So our impulse buy came home with us, and we just got back from a pleasure-ride to Hood River (which we averaged 52.6 mpg for the trip btw), where we walked the shore and watched the kite-boarders on the river and then had dinner at a lovely restaurant in town, where we sat in tables on the sidewalk with our dogs under our chairs.

We just got home. I'm pooped but exhilarated. It's my first new car, and it's jet black and I adore it already. I found this little blurb on Wikipedia that amused me:

Former CIA chief R. James Woolsey, Jr. drives a Prius because of its low fuel consumption. Woolsey noted the volatility of the Middle East, coupled with anti-US sentiment in much of the region. Noting that the high percentage of oil drilled in the Middle East gives vast profits to Middle Eastern regimes, Woolsey believes that it is a patriotic obligation to drive more efficient vehicles. In a Motor Trend magazine article, Woolsey claimed that those oil profits find their way to terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, meaning that Americans who buy inefficient vehicles would, in effect, be indirectly funding terrorism. "We're paying for both sides in this war, and that's not a good long-term strategy," said Woolsey. "I have a bumper sticker on the back of my Prius that reads, 'Bin Laden hates this car.'"

Call me smug, or a tree-hugger or whatever else you like. As you make your admonishing remarks, I will be quietly smirking as I recall the display in the car showing me my average of 48 mpg city. ::smug:: Laugh it up fuzzball. ::heh:: Isn't he cute tho? Looks precious in the driveway, all glossy and reflecting my leafy oasis. ::swoons::