Archive for May, 2008

Maybe I should feel guilty; the original plan was to buy motorcycles. On an unseasonably warm January day I was stopped at a traffic light next to a topless Jeep. From that moment I became obsessed with having another one.

I ran the idea past my husband of buying an older Jeep so we could get out more as a family and buy one motorcycle for us. As much as it pained me I was willing to be his b*tch for one summer. Ah the things we do for a Jeep. We talked about it a lot and one day my husband calls me up and says “there’s an Impact Orange Jeep at a lot on the corner of 14^th and J”. I love Impact Orange Jeeps. I called was excited it was still available and we crossed our fingers and hoped it was still there the next day. It wasn’t, they never are, but I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. After finding out it was sold we went to the Jeep dealership to see what was on their used lot. Everything they had was automatic except for one that had come in that day that wasn’t even priced. It was a 2004, red and a dual top. We both took it for a drive, it seemed OK but since it was close to dinner time, we had babies that required feeding we decided to go away and think about it. On Saturday morning we got up, had breakfast, got the kiddies dressed and headed to the dealership to make an offer. It was sold that morning so obviously not meant to be.

We had a look at the new JK’s and decided on a manual four door Sahara. Of course they had no manuals on the lot and none of the Jeep dealers within a 200 mile radius had them either, just our luck. We decided once again to think about it, I wasn’t happy with the price they wanted for having one shipped in.

Sunday morning we got up and went for a drive looking at used lots. Car lots in Bentonville are closed on Sundays so it was mostly my husband pulling in, me hoping out to look in the window and jumping back in the car. Do Americans not drive manuals? We were driving over an interstate overpass a block from home and I looked back and noticed two sitting on a lot and said “we have to remember to go back and have a look”. Two hours later we pulled up, saw the Rubicon on the side and automatically thought too much when we read it was a 2006. There was no price but still it was worth a look. I called a friend and asked her to look after the kids for a couple of hours on Monday morning.

At 10am Monday morning when the lot opened I pulled up and started walking around the car, having a good look and waiting for a salesman to come over. There were two male salesman standing there watching me and neither made a move in my direction. If my husband had been there they would have been crawling over each other to get to us. I had to walk into the building and find a sales person to help me. I took the Rubicon for a test drive, fell in love and came back honestly expecting to get laughed at with my first offer. In the end I got it for $500 over my first offer and 3,500 below the initial asking price. I don’t think my husband and father have ever been so proud. What they forget is I used to have one of them corporate jobs and negotiating was a large part of it.

That afternoon we went to sign a million papers and I took great satisfaction in walking past one of the salesmen that didn’t want to help me with keys in hand. Chicks drive Jeeps dude!

We spent more than double what we were originally looking to spend on a Jeep and my husband is not getting his motorcycle this summer. The motorcycle will wait to this winter when we can get a better deal on it. I don’t think he minds, we got a 2006 Rubicon with a year and a half left on the factory warranty. Just to prove I can be nice I let him drive it sometimes.

The kids Banz sunglasses came in the mail on Friday and I have to say I love them. My daughter Georgie will wear sunglasses for about an hour before she pulls them off, pretty impressive for a now 20 month old. The Banz are fantastic because she can pull them down but not pull them off and throw them out of the Jeep. With top down weather here things that can’t be thrown out of the Jeep are good. I expected my son Ethan would get cranky at having sunglasses on but he could have cared less. The Banz are a bit big on them but they still do the job. Here they are, two cool kids in the back of the Jeep.

If anyone is looking for toddler hat with chin straps Gymboree carries them, that’s where I bought my daughters from.

On Wednesday I received what was to be the last of my Jeep accessories via UPS and I have to say it was anti-climatic. We ordered a bikini top with the idea that we could just throw the Mopar cab cover over the top at night. Given that the cover is a dud the bikini top is pretty much a waste for us. It’s now destined to go into storage and collect dust until next summer when we’re home and the Jeep can be garaged. I’ve just ordered a SpiderWeb Shade Top. I have high hopes for this, it looks really promising seeing that you can put the soft top up and leave the SpiderWeb Top on.

My next purchase was two BestTop saddle bags. We are going to use one as a catch all for kids stuff and the other is going to be an emergency kit. They are really thick and good quality, I’m looking forward to the sun coming out so I can drop the top and strap them on.

The third item received was a Cloverpatch Window roll. This is going to come in handy for us, we use every bit of available space we have and being able to put the window roll on and always have them with us will be great, much better than the current means of storage in the back of the Yukon. The weather in the Ozarks changes so quickly it’s only a matter of time before we start out on a sunny day and end up in a downpour.

See, a Jeep can easily fit a family of four as long as you spend a fortune on accessories

I know someone is going to call me out on this, no the picture in the banner is not an 06 Rubicon. The Jeep in the photo is mine and my husband’s first that we owned together; a 1997 TJ. I’m about to put up a new page on our old TJ and the travels and breakdowns we had with it. The photo was taken in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney Australia. We sold our old Jeep just days before we moved to the US in October 2006.