Greetings from Inside the Porthole!

Today, it pretty much hit me like a sack of bricks. Standing in line to pick up my first rental car, I realized that I am leaving for my first trip in less than a week. There were so many questions at Enterprise - who's name is the car under, what about insurance, and pre-paying gas. Levels of car classes, purchase orders, signing forms and inspecting the car. It was so much to learn in just 30 minutes. I can only hope that I can do it all on my own in a few days.

Since I will have a lot of cars over the next few months, I thought I'd give you all a general idea of what the cars are like. The photos below aren't actually my photos (thanks, Google for finding images of the right years and colors though). In the future, I'll try to upload actual pictures of my car from my camera phone.

1. Today my supervisor let me drive the whole group to the airport in a rented 2011 Kia Sorento. It was much much bigger than I'm used to, though it had a spacious seating area for the five of us. Even though it's "better" than what I ended up with for the week, I honestly don't think I would ever pick one of these out. The ride was very smooth and the A/C worked great but the seat/steering wheel is a bit too far to the left, so you feel very far away from the other side of the car, and it's tough to know where the car ends and the roadside starts. I certainly don't want to be taken down any trees in my journeys. Overall, I give it 3 out of 5 stars.

2. At the Enterprise office, my co-workers and I got our first rentals. Because I was second in line, I got the second choice car - the HHR. For weeks people at work have been whining about the HHR. Making jokes that it's miserable to get. Of course that's what they give me! But I took it with a smile and said I was thrilled to try out such a hearse -like car. After all, I will only have it for a few days. I immediately programmed the radio stations, of course, and maxed out the radio. With the windows down on the highway, "We didn't start the fire" wasn't all that loud at top volume. The car itself drives well, very smooth and similar to my Focus, back when it was working properly. My only two gripes are the tiny windows (even the windshield is unnecessarily small) and the fact that the tiny porthole of a driver's window is high up, making it awkward to drive with your hand out the window as I always do. The lock is on top of the door as well, and when locked it doesnt lay flush, thus digging into your arm. For these reasons, I probably wouldn't buy an HHR, but so far it's not nearly as bad as everyone makes it seem! I'd give it 4 solid stars. I do miss my sunroof though! Today at the mall I had a hard time finding my car. Silver cars are much harder to spot in crowds!



Pedal to the Metal.
Let the adventures commence!