Sunday, May 16, 2004
High Gas
Yesterday I was cruising through town and had some guy in one of those huge Chevy 4x4 Avalance things wave at me through the window and ask what kind of mileage I get. BTW, I drive a VW New Beetle. It was nice to tell him I was getting close to 30 mpg. I see the Avalanche has mileage ranges from 10-15mpg.
A couple things about this. First, yes I do realize that he can carry a lot more stuff than I do and go through places I can't How often does the average person really need the load hauling capability of a full size 4x4 pickup truck? I still think it's a lot more reasonable to either rent something for that occasional hauling or even buy an old junker that you drive once in a blue moon.
I will admit there's times when having a 4x4 would be nice, however, I've been here in Michigan for about 8 years. The first 5 with a little Saturn wagon and the last 3 with my Beetle and haven't gotten stuck or been late work because of weather yet. Granted, now that I've mentioned it, tomorrow we'll probably have a freak snowstorm and I'll get snowed in.
The last thing is gas prices. Yep, going over $2 per gallon makes one take notice. My bug uses premium, so I'm forking out about $2.25 or so a gallon. It's been a week since I put some in so I'm guessing it well over $2.35 right now. Anyway, instead of griping about the price of gas, why not gripe about the price of water?! Yes water. The same you get out of the tap for a few bucks a month costs around a dollar for a small bottle (this is the cheap stuff too). Those prices put plain water somewhere over $3 a gallon and no one seems to mind that too much.
2fers: Michigan Gas Prices and Bottled Water Prices
