it was an easy move to check out the Honda offerings and bingo, there was my hatchback!
Yep I always loved hatchbacks ever since I had driven a 1980 Datsun B210 into the ground... and so I was starting to look around at Hondas as my trusty 2000 Prizm sedan (the closest thing I could find the previous time it was time for a new new-to-me car) started pulling jokers out of the deck.
I too had figured hybrids and eventually all-electric would be the way to go. Initially though I was quite put off by not only the early-adopter sticker prices, but the dearth of charging stations, the limited radius of travel between charges and so forth. After all at that point I thought nothing of ripping up to Ithaca to go shopping, drop in on some kin for lunch and head back. That sort of run was easily 200 miles all told, by time I got done tacking on miles just running around up there.
All those concerns would wane away over time, I knew that, but also figured that would probably not happen in time for me to be plunking down the dough for any car. I'm finding now I don't miss not driving as much as I had sometimes thought I might do.
Heh, maybe I had put enough miles on my mind and body commuting three hours one way from the city up to here a couple times a week for so long, before I talked them into letting me telecommute for most of the job... the trips were scenic but of course it's not the same as just lazing around on a Sunday drive in the boondocks. I don't regret my choice to work on converting a seasonal residence into a year-round home during that time, but I don't miss some of those adventurous trips up here either, at least not the ones where unexpected snowfall or encounters with deer bounding up out of gullies were features of the last 60 miles or so in the wee hours of a fresh weekend.
I like looking back on all the technological developments that have expanded our options for almost everything since I was a kid. It's mind blowing really, and not just in the miniaturization of things like "portable music" or the advent of practically instantaneous electronic communications.
Only disappointing that the USA never really got into high speed rail the way other countries have done. There's something about Americans being wedded to their cars (and the oilpatch crowd being wedded to the idea of extracting the last barrel of oil) that seems to have put the brakes on that for so long.
I wouldn't have minded hopping onto a fast commuter train from the city to the Catskills. The bus option remains a four-hour affair
so while I was working and after I bought this place in the sticks, I used to keep two rat cars, figuring my trusty mechanic could keep at least one of them roadworthy for my commutes, because no way was I going to sit in a bus for four hours (one way) when I was often making two round trips per week. That extra hour each time was just unthinkable... just too much tacked on to the need to meet a public transit schedule. I don't mind a round trip by bus now and then for a day of shopping and schmoozing in the city, but as a regular thing, no way.
Oh well. Today I'm content to be a homebody, working on converting some one-off quilt blocks into potholders or hotmats for the holidays. The blocks were made over the years to use up scraps from other projects, and they come in handy for giftmaking now.
Meanwhile I have a fresh cuppa tea in a mug that insists "Quilting Forever Housework Whenever". Later for another round of dispatching dust bunnies to the next level.