Where is everybody?

There has not been any new activity in forever. No monthly sales stats, no reviews of cars, no new news articles at all. Where is Wayne?

 

Wayne pops in from time to time. There is activity every day in the Daily Grind.

Sometimes in Honda , too.

 

Wayne's probably busy putting miles on his Prius Prime. I think he may still be gathering stats on Uber and Lyft while making a living.

 

Interest in this web site tends to be proportional to the square of the prevailing price of petroleum products.

 

Too much OT at work for the last few months. Enrolled in college classes last fall. Finally got some days off and have it filled with projects around the house and yard. Doing U-joints, belts and pulleys on the truck today. 3 belts on this truck - WTH.
Over the past few years have spent a lot less time on forums and social media even deleted facebook. I did make a fake account just to buy and sell stuff.
Still read most every thread in here

 

James , how many miles are on this truck now ?

 

130,000.
Maintenance went fine except I noticed some damage on the yoke. Don't know how or how long it had been there.

Not taking any chances and ordered a new driveshaft. On the last truck I hit a small brick in the road, flung it up into the driveshaft and took out the shaft, tail of the trans, fuel cooler, $8000 total damage. One in a million accident, I know. Just didn't want a weak front yoke letting go.

They said 2 weeks to get it.
I'll be in the Sonata until then.

 

Don't you need to escape the wife and kids once in a while ?

 

That explains the 1/4 tank use.

 

My wife went up north for the weekend. 3 days of just me, the dogs, playing with the truck, to do list, and smoking meat. It was great. Got a lot done around the house. Gutters on the pole barn. New fence for the dogs. Put in a horseshoe pit out back. Took the 83 cutlass for a drive. And smoked some meat.
11 pounds of pork belly, cured and smoke for bacon using these recipes:
6 pounds of https://www.thespruceeats.com/smoked-maple-bacon-recipe-4128928 made with maple syrup from trees in my back yard.
and
5 pounds of https://bacontoday.com/2014/11/26/black-pepper-bacon/
smoked a big ham for about 5 hours using this: https://www.sidechef.com/recipes/7630/maple_glazed_whole_smoked_ham/ and maple syrup from my trees. smoked it with maple wood from a tree I had cut down last year. 2 days later and even the dog still smells like smoked meat.
Took some of the maple wood and made my sister a Michigan shaped cutting board for a birthday present.

Geez, I should take more time of work!!!

 

Man , that sounds delicious.

 

I usually drop in at least once a day but don't post much. Getting 50+MPG on the past few tanks and not driving much because of the Corona virus I only update the thread about my Versa mileage about once a month. My last fill was 6/4/20. I think I've driven about 290-300 miles on this tank and the gauge is still showing about 5/8. I always top off the tank so it's not unusual to see 125-150 miles before the gauge starts to drop.

 

Dang, do you do anything besides drive? I thought I used to drive a lot when I was working and driving 35-40K a year. What's your average mpg for 28K miles? I know some people wouldn't know off the top of their head but I knew I wouldn't have to worry about that with you. Although I've checked mileage with nearly every tank since I started driving about 44 years ago the Versa is the first car that I've actually kept a complete record of with a running average. Thus far I'm at 47.551 with 11820.3 miles tracked and a fuel cost of $ .0454 per mile. This is probably less than $ .01 per mile more than I was spending 40+ years ago and less per mile than during most of the '80's, '90's, '00's and '10's. Several things factor in. I'm driving a car that gets 47.5 mpg instead of one that gets 10-16 mpg, it shows in my driving I'm more fuel economy conscious and fuel prices are less than they were during part of those years. There was a time in the '90's I was driving a Lincoln Mark IV and the only way to get more than 11mpg was very careful highway driving. Driving strictly open interstate with the c/c set at 55 I could squeeze out 14mpg. Local driving was usually somewhere in the 10-11mpg if I could keep out of the 4bbl. Only other car I've owned that would come close to the Versa in mpg was the '88 Escort that I used as my daily driver for about 20 years.

 

It was and is.

It's definitely not cheaper than buying bacon. But WOW we've been enjoying some awesome bacon and other smoked meats with just a $100 smoker from home Depot and a little bit of time.
I doubt I will ever order a steak at a restaurant again. Over the past few years that I have been buying decent meat at the butcher and cooking or smoking it myself it has been so disappointing spending double to eat a lesser quality and tasting steak at a restaurant

 

A Utube video showed a turbo prop airplane using 43 gallons per hour (not the highest). Bet you have a way higher “pleasure per gallon” rating than the pilot does, no matter how much “High in the sky grinning” he does. Oh, yeah... his required yearly inspection cost is $93,000. & he had front landing gear troubles AFTER the inspection, which cost an extra $2000 for some replacement lights & other small corrections.

 

There’s too many National, State, County, & City Parks to go see here in Washington state. Washington state Discover Pass lets you walk & see hundreds of places (thousands?). Got to go. I’m retired & time is running out to see my state (& other states).