Pete buys a minivan.

Gullible clicker! I fart in your general direction!!1

With a weeklong road trip to the nearby Rocky Mountains coming up next week, I could’ve rented a minivan (or hell, bought one) for the 1`000 mile journey. Given that it’s both a personal and work trip combined, the amount of cargo would’ve completely justified it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to suffer that balls-in-a-chastity-belt fate. Not only would it be far too great a shame to leave both my faithful steeds parked, but why penalise ourselves inside some cheap, tinny shitbox Caravanⁱ  when there were far more creative and far more enjoyable solutions at our disposal ?

Having never tried a Thule system before, I found that Racks For Cars in Edmonton rented them for about $30 per day and had a kit available that could fit the unusual dimensions of the LS460L. Happy to try it out before dropping $2k on my own system, I had the rented Thule 628 Force L cargo box and Yakima roof rack installed in under an hour on a clear skied, reposeful Saturday morning. It seems pretty secure and surprisingly quietⁱⁱ so far and the weight limit is about 100 lbs., or about 9% of the car’s 1`100 lbs. difference between GWVR and curb weight. With only 350 lbs. of meat riding along, that still leaves more than enough capacity for product samples, car seats, strollers, and all the computer gear we’ll have in tow.

We’ll save the 6-door mega-sedans à la Mercedes 600 Pullman for when we convert to Orthodox Judaism and have four more children. Until then, more prosaic fare will do just fine.

But no minivans!

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1. After driving the Lexus for a few months, ~everything sounds and feels like a cheap, tinny shitbox, especially anything made by knuckle-dragging apes. Though to be fair to Dodge, they do also make Two-Buck Chuck. Though no word on a V10-powered minivan from them at this time.↩
2. Wind tunnel testing ftw.↩