Tuesday, August 22
Over the weekend, we sold our Mazda CX-5, which was very sad. But….it went to a nice young woman named Jennifer, who was looking to replace her current 2002 Mazda that had over 200,000 miles on it. We think she’ll take care of our old one.
Thus fortified by a modest infusion of cash, we went to Salem to shop for an electric car. We had already test driven a Hyundai Ioniq 5 once before, but we needed to look at one again to refresh our memories.
Wednesday, August 23
More car shopping in Salem. We test drove a Kia EV6, which has the same EV powertrain as the Ioniq 5. Otherwise, the EV6 is quite different. It’s wonderful and we immediately wanted one. But we got a bad vibe from the Kia dealership. Plus, the Ioniq is a bit more practical. So back we went to the Hyundai dealer, whose softer sales approach made us more comfortable. After looking at the Ioniq one more time, we decided to go for it. We were thinking of buying but found that leasing was cheaper. (As it happens, purchased Hyundais do not qualify for the $7,500 federal rebate, but leased ones do.) They didn’t have our color on the lot but said they could get us one from somewhere up north.
Thursday, August 24
In the early afternoon the dealer called and said our car was ready. So we went back up to Salem to get it. The color is called Digital Teal. It’s mostly just blue but occasionally looks green.
Friday, August 25
Our electrician came and installed a new 240V outlet in the garage.
Sunday, August 27
M mounted the Level 2 charger. We are in business.
Wednesday, August 30
We took a long walk in the OSU Dunn Forest north of town. We’d been there a several times before, but we took a wrong turn anyway. Sigh. Should have been carrying a map. Still, we ended up in a new place and that was interesting. Fortunately we had our lunch with us: tuna sandwiches, celery, two Dove chocolates and two very wee drams of Jack Daniels. We also got to see a recently fallen tree. Many big firs succumb to windstorms and fall while still living, in which case the root ball remains attached. This tree looks like it died in place and did not fall until its core rotted away.
Friday, September 1
Today E took her friend Asher for a walk, as she does on Fridays. They took a good long trek in the OSU MacDonald forest. M went along this time and took their picture.
After ensuring that both Asher and M were sufficiently worn out, E took Asher back to his owners’ house and then somehow convinced M to take her to the Oregon State Fair. E hadn’t been to the state fair for a few years, but she knew exactly what to do. She wanted some onion rings, she wanted to see horses, and she wanted to look over the prize winning cakes. Since the whole fair seemed to revolve around unhealthy food–there must have been fifty food booths–her first goal was pretty easy to accomplish. The last two were harder to find, but we managed.
Saturday, September 2
We didn’t do much today, just a short walk and some tasks around the house. We were both tired from Friday! We did figure out exactly where we needed to park the new car in the garage and made a system to help us find that spot. The new car is very high tech. Fortunately, we will be able to use a very low tech solution to the problem of in-garage navigation. This will help create more balance and harmony in our universe. We call it the blue tape, white string, and ball system.
Sunday, September 3
Chocolate croissants for breakfast. Splendid. During the day, E did some sewing, shopped at the Co-op, and–after consultation with a cohort–began searching through old photo archives. This proved to be a hazardous endeavor as she was stung by a yellow jacket while at her work station in the garage. E survived; the yellow jacket did not.
M went for a short drive in the Ioniq 5 and a long drive in the F-Type. It is hard to imagine two more dissimilar cars, but of course he likes them both.
Kudos on kar and kake from brudda at lake. Good parking system. May you have no range anxiety on trips; Google maps has a pretty good locator for chargers. ( Here, Stewart’s stores are installing them! Old man Dake is reported to say, “EV Customers spend more time -and money- in my stores!”)
On the subject of kakes, it was L’s bday here, so I’ll show her your State Fair editions. J the younger made one here – choc on choc – and the frosting was smooooth. (But maybe not as thick as E would wish.)
Chocolate on chocolate seems sensible to me. I never understood why people bother with all that other stuff. –M
nice looking car!! with my luck i’d forget to charge it, or not be able to find a charger. but i do admire it!!
Fun at the fair!! thats what fairs are all about…fair food. while we dont have a lot of the stuff other fairs do, we have our fair share of maple everything, fried dough…and poutine…some authentic and wonderful, some with chicken gravy and mozzarella. Avoid them like the plague…haha.
the cakes were pretty…especially the farm stand, but….pretty to look at, but not to eat if its fondant like that. Buttercream rules!!!