Just Another Writer

I got this great idea! I had to visit LA and decided to drive across country in three days, as opposed to flying into LAX in four short hours. I just bought an H2 Hummer and wanted to break her in. So, we get into the car and began our cross-country tour. The price of gas kept climbing, as we headed north toward Atlanta, however, started to come down (dramatically) as we headed West and into Texas (go figure). In fact, gas prices in Texas were $0.50 a gallon cheaper. No doubt, I spent a good chuck of change on gas and would have spent less had I flown into LAX and rented a car.

A month goes by and I have to go back out LA and this time I decided to fly into LAX and rent a Prius. I figured I would think “green” and try to fit in with all the other “green” conscious California types who drive Hybrid cars, adorn their homes with solar panels and collect rain water in colorful buckets. When I was last in LA, I got some dirty looks from those driving Hybrid cars (it seems there’s an abundance of Hybrid’s dominating the highways of California these days).

At traffic lights, drivers to my left or right (or both) would send over a look of scorn or, simply shake their head in disbelief that someone had the nerve to actually drive a Hummer in this day and age of global warming and high gas prices. However, drive a Prius and all the other little Prius people will wave at you (as they go by) and even toot their horn in approval.

I drove 1500 miles up the California coast (in four days). I drove through national parks, up an 8,000 foot mountain and into Nevada. I made it to Reno and then came south back to LA. It was a beautiful ride and I don’t regret one minute my trip. However, I’ve got to say that while the Prius is great on fuel, it lacks the comfort features that we have all come to enjoy in our big, beautiful (sometimes tricked out) land yachts.

It cost more to rent a Prius than a comfortable convertible and any savings in gas was eaten up by the rental car company. When I returned home, I actually thought  about replacing my Hummer with a Prius. I spent a few days searching on line and visited all of my local Toyota dealership’s in search of the little “green machine”. Considering I’ve seen Prius’s all over the roads in the California (and in even Tampa, Florida where I live), I figured there has to be plenty of them to go around, especially in the secondary market.

To my dismay, I could not find ONE Prius available (or even on display at three Toyota dealerships). I went online and every listing I found seeks to add a high premium (in the thousands) to the price of the car. In other words, it cost plenty of “green” to go “green”.

The Prius is NOT a comfortable car. It rides low to the ground, has no optional comforts, no leather seats and looks like any other compact car on the road. It’s basically a golf cart with doors. In addition, it lacks personality, which may be one reason why my first car was an H3 (loved it) and my follow-up to the H3 was an H2 (love it even more). Yes, I get crappy gas mileage but, the H2 can go “green” when off roading and the gas mileage is no worse than other trucks - if you don’t pump her down the highway at 80 mph.

One of my friends got his hands on a new Prius. He paid a $7K premium and then spent another $1000.00 on leather seats and a few thousand more adding some extra stuff like a cd player radio, new speakers, new rims and interesting paint job. It seems as though he spent enough to build a brand new car. Why go through all of this trouble to go green?

It seems that anything “green” is sold at a premium. My buddy, who has his tricked out Prius, is paying $300.00 more on his monthly car payment then on the SUV he traded in toward his Prius…huh? He already figured out that what he would have spent on gas during the next five years (if gas prices stay the same) comes out to be about the same if he kept his two-year old SUV.

No doubt, the next few years will be all about going “green”, however, at what cost?

I just learned that Hummer is considering halting production of the H2. OK, that makes sense and I hope they do stop production, as once they do, my H2 will be worth that much more, as you won’t be able to get them except on the secondary market.

When I went to Toyota to look at a Prius (they didn’t have), I looked at other Toyota’s and tried them ALL out. The experience was akin to that of the three bears story. One was too small, another too uncomfortable and there just wasn’t one Toyota (that I could find) that was just right.

Here’s what I’m going to do to go “green”. I’m no longer using my dishwasher (just two people in the household). We’re washing our dishes after dinner and have found we actually enjoy the chore and get to talk about the days events and have a few laughs.

We’re turing off all the lights in the house we don’t use (ambient lighting I call it). We bought two bicycles to do short runs to the local store for eggs and milk. We’re taking shorter showers (together). We’re more conscious at the grocery market and bring our own cloth bags to tote groceries home (no more plastic bags). We even set our air conditioning to a comfortable/hot temperature, as opposed to the comfortable/cool we’ve become to be used to in hot, muggy Florida.

In other words, we’re not wasting water, electric or filling up the garbage dumps with plastic. However, one luxury that we will keep is the H2. We drive to the office (8 miles round trip per day) and enjoy that eight mile ride. Gas prices will more than likely go up (maybe down, who knows) but, we won’t be buying a tricked-out golf cart to make a statement of being green:-)