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OK, one more post starring my new ride and then things’ll get back to normal around here. Yesterday it had 42 miles on the odometer when I drove it off the dealer’s lot. Sunday evening it had 696. Nothing like getting those break-in miles outa the way. Got about 22 miles per gallon on the first tankful, and 24.5 on the second, which is not too shabby considering I had climbed three mountain passes and ran the air conditioner most of the way.

We got up early Sunday and were out of the house by 8. The plan was to head out to the Sierra, check out some scenery and drive back all in the same day. It’s a nice all-day haul with only a bit of drudgery on the last couple hours back to the Bay Area.

Along about here, Melissa saw her first marmot — a large, high-country critter that looks like a ground hog’s third cousin. It ran off into the rocks before I could get a picture. This is on State Highway 108 near Sonora Pass.

Sonora Pass is just a tad over 9600 feet. Gorgeous country out this way.

Abundant snow on the high peaks.

Not far from here I tripped over a rock, lost my balance and dropped my camera hard. It froze up good and I figured I had killed it dead, but I managed to get it going again after I got home. That was the only consolation after driving cameraless through some of the most stunning mountain terrain I’ve ever seen. Scenery’s gets better once you get off the road, which tells me I’m gonna have to do some hiking up here soon.

Overall the Element did fine. Handled the mountain roads well, didn’t heat up despite a few wicked climbs. Road noise gets a bit obnoxious on the Interstate above 70 mph, but tooling down an empty two-lane at 60 or so is quiet and comfy.

Another thought: If you’re on the fence about whether to try satellite radio, I advise going ahead and getting it. XM has like 200 channels that stay tuned in for hundreds of miles. The only caveat is that you can lose the signal in deep canyons or tree cover. We drove over some of the most rugged paved-road terrain out this way and carried a signal almost the the whole way. It really takes the drudgery factor out of long drives. I can’t speak for Sirius, the other satellite radio provider but my hunch is it’s probably pretty good too.

I wasn’t sure how many more trips down nasty national forest roads my ol’ 2000 Focus could stand. At six years old and 95,000 miles it had served me honorably and efficiently. No breakdowns, only one trip to the shop to fix some gaskets and replace some hoses, but I could sense fatigue in its automatic transmission and I didn’t want to have it die on me in the middle of a mountain range.

I’m a complete coward about buying somebody else’s car so I inevitably end up buying a new one every half-dozen years or so. It’s true that a car’s value falls by a couple grand the minute you drive it off the lot, but that’s the price of the unvarnished thrill of taking possession of a brand spanking new automobile with 42 miles on the odometer. Worth it to me, anyway.

These days cars are like digital cameras: there’s a zillion to choose from and each one requires you to give up a few things you want to get everything else. I wanted a vehicle to take camping in the woods, that’d get good traction on bad roads and in snowy mountain weather, that would have plenty room for all my car-camping gear, and would get good gas mileage to boot.

I could’ve gotten a pickup truck but they’re gas hogs. Could’ve gotten a full-size SUV but they’re cash hogs. Didn’t want to break the bank and didn’t want the car to break. That meant either a Honda or a Toyota. Toyota makes a really cool small SUV called the RAV4 while Honda makes its closest competitor, the CRV. I looked hard at both of them but couldn’t help thinking the car I really wanted was a marketing mistake on steel-belted radials: the Element.

Honda brought the Element to market in 2003 after doing intensive market research mong young white guys under age 25 with active outdoor lifestyles. Surfers, snowboarders, mountain-bikers, rock climbers — you know, the ones in the Mountain Dew commercials– were the Element’s target market. A strange thing happened, though: None of these guys wanted the car that Honda built so studiously on their behalf.

The new Elements were boxy and butt ugly to some people. They didn’t fly off the lots and the ones that did get sold ended up in the Mountain Dew guys’ parents’ garages. It’s a great choice for car-camping empty nesters: mega spacious, easy on gas (25 mpg on the highway), available all-wheel drive, mild sticker shock. And trusty Honda reliability.

I was sold. Especially after I went to carsdirect.com and noticed it was promising I could buy one at $2,000 below the sticker price. This savings allowed me to get the deluxe model (the Element EX) with all-wheel drive, automatic transmission and deluxe sound system with XM satellite radio (which is way, way cool). I picked out the car I wanted and sent some basic info to Carsdirect, which assigned a rep to me who called around and found a dealer where I could test-drive it. That dealer honored the Carsdirect price to the penny and the whole transaction went down with almost zero pressure.

One thing to keep in mind: Carsdirect is subject to the laws of supply and demand — the cars in abundant supply can be had far more cheaply than the ones in abundant demand. Forget about deals on the sporty new Honda Fit — they’re going like hotcakes so dealers have no motivation to sell at a discount.

OK, enough blabbering, let’s take a look at my new ride.

The blue panels are molded plastic: unpainted, so no worries about gravel chipping it. Of course it will fade in the sun a bit over the years but it’s a worthwhile tradeoff. Honda’s most ultra-delux trim option on the Element is the EX-P, which has painted fenders that look a little slicker but detract from the Element’s funky factor. (It’s an extra $500, a lot to pay for a few coats of paint.)

The back seats fold all the way down…

And can be strapped up to the side to make room for bikes or big dogs. The seats can be removed completely, which is nice if you’ve got someplace to put a couple car seats.

The 2.4-liter four-banger is reasonably zippy but it won’t bring many checkered flags your way (unless you’re racing grannies with walkers).

It has these double doors that make it fairly easy to climb into the back. Check out the space behind the front seats: that’s the rear-seat legroom.

We took it out for a little road trip Saturday afternoon; I took a picture in a suitably outdoorish-looking locale. (We actually drove by the ocean but it was all fogged in; alas.)

Note the element is no longer than my Focus coupe — but it’s quite a bit taller.
Also rides a bit smoother but the handling is more boat-like.

Getting toward sunset, and you know what that means: Self-indulgent attempts to get all artsy with the camera.

Sunset through the cabin: I may have to come back and try this again from a better angle.

One last pic of the sunset casting its reddish glow on everything.

The Element is a fine little ride — and amazingly spacious once you take a seat and close the doors. It’s like the designers fashioned a bizarre optical illusion that makes it seem much bigger on the inside than it actually is. It’s an uncanny effect — all big and boxy when you might expect to be more intimately encapsulated in a car this size.

After Day One, I’m happy.

I put these words in today’s paper:

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

I get a little teary-eyed reading such words. It reminds me of the time I visited the Jefferson Memorial. This is one of the inscriptions:

I am certainly not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

Thomas Jefferson wrote that in 1816, 40 years after he penned the Declaration of Independence. Can’t help wondering where the leaders of his caliber are today. Probably running software companies. Interesting that he imagines his ancestors as barbarians and his own age civilized. Back then it was thought that women needn’t sully themselves in the muck of power and politics. But as long as they went along with that idea, their fates were hostage to the political and the powerful.

Back then the holders of slaves imagined they were doing their bonded people a favor by plucking them from the savage jungles and plains of Africa and chaining them to civilized Southern cotton fields. Jefferson knew this but he had only so many Revolutions in him. From another inscription:

God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these people are to be free. Establish the law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state to effect and on a general plan.

Jefferson saw the future, he just couldn’t live long enough to see it happen. This is my favorite inscription from the memorial:

I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Democracy may be an idea, but tyranny is real. Just ask anybody living in a dictatorship.

Jefferson helped create the idea of a free country but America was never truly free till it granted women the right to vote and broke down the Jim Crow edifice that guaranteed second-class citizenship for blacks in the South.

My grandparents were born before America’s Constitution was amended to guarantee women the right to vote. In the year I was born, 1961, blacks in the South were still living without the freedoms whites enjoyed everywhere. That makes tyranny real for me, especially knowing that it happened in my own country.

Thomas Jefferson personified the contradictions of the United States of America. He was all about liberty for rich white guys and he helped perpetuate the monstrous crime of slavery. And yet he helped create a society that would one day free the slaves.

Winston Churhcill once said Americans can be trusted to do the right thing only after all other options have been tried first. That’s the thing about us. We keep trying.