Hot mouths, cold blizzards, and long hikes

I took my Zipcar to a new shopping center over the weekend. I always pass by it, but for whatever reason, I never find the time to stop in. But it was Saturday night and my girlfriend and I found ourselves with a few hours on our hands so we decided to check it out. We parked and saw a supermarket that we stopped in to pick up our once-a-year favorite cereal: Count Chocula. But surprisingly the store did not carry it, so we bought some extra-spicy potato chips instead. As we ate the chips walking back to the car, our mouths were on fire so we stopped in a Dairy Queen to kill the heat. (Can you tell we're candy addicts?) We had actually never been to a DQ before but all our friends are big fans so I'm glad we checked it out. We ate our Blizzards, went back to the Zipcar and went home.

Lest you think that the Low-Car Diet has only encouraged us to do unhealthy things, I'd also like to point out that I went on a 2-hour hike earlier this week and saw a caterpillar that I snapped a picture of. Cute little guy, isn't he?

Something I Like About Zipcar

I bought my car from a sleazy used car dealer, and it's been one headache after another with that car. I don't have a lot of money right now, so I've only been paying to have the major problems repaired. That still leaves the minor problems, such as the stereo system. Sometimes the radio will randomly refuse to turn on, refuse to change the station, or refuse to let me change the volume. Really, it's up to fate whether I can listen to NPR on the way to work or not. With ZipCar, however, I can reliably listen to Kojo, Diane, Ira and the rest.

My First Week on the Low-Car Diet

I admit that I'm usually pretty cautious when trying something new, like, say, a car sharing service. So I waited until the end of the first week until finally my old car decided for me: my tire had a nail in it and had went flat. Taking this as a sign, I went online and reserved a Zipcar to take me to the grocery store. I arrived at the parking spot and found my Zipcar with no problem. It looked good but there was a tiny ding by the gas cap, so I called to report it. Then I used my card to get in, found the key, checked the gas (it was full!) and off I went. The ride was much smoother than my old car, and I had actually reserved the cheapest Zipcar option, so that was a good sign. I couldn't figure out how to play music from my iPod so I listened to the radio. The acoustics were pretty amazing, and since my old car's radio is finicky (gets stuck on certain stations, refuses to turn on, etc) it was nice having such a great sound system. I had to try a few times to get the car in the spot straight when I arrived at the store, because my old car is smaller. I got my groceries and drove back, but realized I had over-reserved by a lot; I still had an hour and a half remaining. I considered driving around some more but not much else was open at that time, so I parked in the spot and that was that. Easy!