Best Purchases

After nearly 8 years of ownership and having spent only $10,000 plus tax and registration for the car new in November of 2017, I consider the Mitsubishi Mirage to have been one of the two best transportation purchases I have made in my life. The other was a Moped I bought at a yard sale for $125 that I used to commute to work for 10 years and 10,000 miles, averaging 100mpg. The Mirage has averaged 47.5 mpg and has been totally reliable for over 105,000 miles. Besides normal maintenance items like brakes, tires, and fluid changes, the only items that have broken or worn have been the driver side window motor and the passenger side sway bar. The car still has the original battery, and all electronics and powertrain components are working normally. I am considering purchasing an all wheel drive Subaru Crosstrek which will enable me to sleep in the back occasionally when travelling, but I am tempted to keep the Mirage because it has been so economical to drive… As I consider a new car, Toyota refuses to negotiate when selling its hybrid SUVs, and other hybrid makers do not have the same experience, efficiency and reliability. The difference in gas costs between a 30mpg car and a 45mpg car over 100,000 miles at $4 per gallon is some $4,500-hardly worth the exaggerated prices charged for hybrid vehicles. As for carbon emissions, I am quite sure that after a life of driving motorcycles, driving small gas efficient cars, using bicycles and walking thousands of miles,I have emitted less than half the average American. More carbon than many in the world no doubt, but I have earned my old age.

A June Walk

....(click on pics to enlarge)...This is an oil/gas/logging access road near Marienville, one of thousands in the Allegheny forest and one of hundreds that I have walked or explored on bicycle over the years. The National forest abuts with state game lands in places to create one seamless forest delineated by signs and gates. The second picture is the road about a mile in from the gate, showing the dense vegetation of a Pennsyvania woods, where multiflora rose is blooming abundantly along the road, as are daisies, a few buttercups and other small flowers. The fallen leaves indicate that, although most leaves drop in autumn, they in fact are dropping continously all summer, dropped by wind and knocked free by animals and rain...This was an uneventful walk as walks go, humid and necessitating insect repellent for gnats and a few deer flies. I always hope to see animals while walking, but it has been several years since I have seen a bear on a walk. Ironically, friends who live in the woods a mile from town cannot maintain a birdfeeder because of bears raiding them. They also have had to put spikes on their porch steps to deter bears from trying to enter the house. Black bears are not particularly dangerous, but can be a persistent nuisance.