Our First Outing in Our New, Used Yukon

I already told you that for Lily's 13th birthday she wanted a new truck and things happily went her way with Paul's car dying and his needing to replace it. It's a burgundy 2005 GMC Yukon that is really not a wise purchase with the price of gas, but Paul and I are switching off with my Prius. Whoever is driving the most that day gets the Prius. Paul is not crazy about the Yukon -- he said he loved his Passat, which he could have continued to love while sitting in it while on the side of the road waiting for help. I haven't figured out how to get into the Yukon gracefully because I'm 5'3" and there's some climbing involved. I think it's kind of fun. Paul says that all he sees when he looks at it is how much he loves his daughter. This will probably be her car when she is old enough to drive and Paul will get to go back to a sedan.

 

This Yukon is great but it really does puzzle me why there are so many on the road. Unless you're pulling a trailer, what are all those non-horse-people doing driving all those Suburbans, Expeditions, Yukons, etc.? A rant for another day.

Lily and I took the Yukon out yesterday to her riding lesson -- our first official trailer-pulling outing. It was amazing.

• Lily was delighted that the passenger door shut on the first try. The door catch on Ben is worn out on all but one cog tooth, so you had to slam Ben's door five or six times for the thingie to rotate around to the one good tooth in order for the door to shut. All doors but the driver's door were just as bad. Ben took a lot of slamming, and sometimes we just gave up and rattled on down the road.
• The left blinker on the trailer worked! Nobody flipped me the bird when I changed lanes.
• When I put on brakes, the trailer didn't go into a skid. Everything just stopped in a reasonable fashion.
• When I saw a friend on a country road, I could roll down the window and say, "Hey! How's your Mama and dem?" and have a conversation. When I was driving Ben, people thought I was unfriendly, but the truth was that the window wouldn't roll down. Or, if it did, it wouldn't roll back up.
• I didn't keep the fire extinguisher in my lap just in case we suddenly burst into flame.

What luxury! Life is good, even at $3.11/gallon.

Other than the button to push that puts it in trailer pulling mode and the radio, I have absolutely no idea how to work this vehicle. I feel sure that I'll be learning how to fill it with gas. Heavens. We really may be eating cat food.

Comments

[steve]

It never ceases to amaze me the people that drive these big thirsty beasts to and from work , we get our old truck out to pull horses , collect hay or collect big stuff from home improvement shops and even then it is a shocker how quick the gas tank goes down,
but whenever we do use it Callie sits there driving her big red truck beaming from ear to ear she loves it

steve

[steve]

It never ceases to amaze me the people that drive these big thirsty beasts to and from work , we get our old truck out to pull horses , collect hay or collect big stuff from home improvement shops and even then it is a shocker how quick the gas tank goes down,
but whenever we do use it Callie sits there driving her big red truck beaming from ear to ear she loves it

steve

[risingrainbow]

Right now $3.11 a gallon sounds pretty good. We filled up this morning and it was $3.89.

[kathyc]

We have an expedition but it sits unless it's full of kids and the farm truck that sits unless it's being used to haul something. So, I'm with you about the beasts on the road.

[jules]

I am SO with you on SUVs [or 4WDs as they're called Down Undah]; I think they should be banned for city driving, & the owner can only get one registered if s/he proves a real need [eg, towing, living in a rural area]. But that's for another rant for me, too!

So what's the new vee-hickle called?