skunkworks

A photo from an early morning hike in Colorado's high country. It was great to escape the heat of the Denver area.

Lainey

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Beautiful country, beautiful photo. How long was the hike? We got a kick out of our tow truck driver last night. We mentioned we could walk home from the garage, it was just over three miles. He was certainly younger than us (not in great shape) and seemed surprised that we'd walk three miles.....yes, old people do stuff like walking for the heck of it.

skunkworks

Thanks, Lainey. Don’t know the exact distance, but approximately 8 miles. During a hike/photo-outing I’ll walk about 2 mi/hr - my total tine was 4 1/2 hrs. The constant photo stops, weight of the camera/backpack, gradients, and altitude (about 11,000 ft) keep your pace down. On my return leg I passed a couple in their early eighties!

Lainey

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That's a good amount of exercise. We don't walk for that long a distance or for that much time.

dlq04

Gary, that looks more like a classic oil painting than a photo - well done!

skunkworks

Thanks, Dave!

Morris

Lainey

Actually it was tow truck(S). Two. The check engine light was flashing on the S last night when we were about 45 minutes away from home headed to a car show at a Bass Pro Shop. Not a good thing to have a flashing check engine light. Called the tow truck, got it loaded and then the tow truck broke down about 20 minutes into the ride home. Pulled into a mall parking lot, antifreeze was pouring out..had to wait for another tow truck for the S. Interesting evening. The four hour tour to go nowhere. The S will be fine. It appears to be coils. We've never kept a vehicle this long..Rick has maintained it well, but at 100K+ stuff is going to happen. I hate it when "stuff" happens. IF it were not an S2000 and so much fun, we would have moved on from this vehicle by now.

dlq04

These things happen with older vehicles. We are down to just three vehicles but all have over 100k. Very often the repair is less than a couple monthly payments on a new one and new doesn't always mean better. My wife is ready, willing and able to replace her's; so we will likely do so come fall - but in my mind there is no reason to except a happy wife is a happy life.

Lainey

You are absolutely correct about the repair cost vs car payments. I'm one who always fears a breakdown that will not only be inconvenient, but ruin a road trip, vacation or whatever. That said, we no longer replace cars every 50 thousand miles...we did a lot of that in our younger days. Financially speaking, in hindsight, it wasn't the brightest decision. We did keep my Jeep Liberty until it had 92K. I expect to keep my current Jeep for quite some time. I've got around 42K on it now.