It's 15° But The Hounds Walked

At least it was dry (frozen), no wind and actually really nice outside this morning. It will climb later to the mid 20's but Sadie wanted her morning walk NOW, not later.

We've walked in this kind of weather before plus they are a larger breed, tougher paws ... I still watched for any signs they were getting cold. I didn't see any signs, nor expected to.

Around 8am the hounds went outside for their immediate trip after they eat breakfast kibble. It was 12° then and they didn't stay out long before they came running to the house without me calling them.

You can see that Stella prefers the hot 80's and 90 degree weather compared to this ... I agree with her.

By 9:30am, Sadie wasn't going to wait any longer ... so off we went. Patagonia was my best friend today. I was warm underneath my jeans and down jacket. The hood over a ski cap and gloves worked fantastic. It's hard to take pictures though with the large padded glove fingers.

Stella took off fast but I knew she wouldn't be leading Sadie and I on this walk ... she is into the routine of not even completing the walk and spends most of her time in 2-3 different spots. I can't say I am happy with her new routine but I know it will eventually change ... when SHE decides to.

With frozen ground I have to watch and make sure they don't cut their nose from sniffing the ground. I can't say that has happened often but at least once over the past 8 years to where I am aware of the possibility.

As you can see Sadie is moving 'full steam ahead' while Stella is at Stop #1 on her path.

She isn't coming no matter what.

This helo picture is for a reader that flies helo's sometime. He would know what model this is. I am not sure where it is from or who it belongs too but it's the 2nd time I have seen it this fall/winter.

By the time I took the helo picture, Stella had snuck up on me and was at the 1st turn of the walk ... that is her Spot #2 where she likes to hang out.

Sadie and I continued on our walk leaving Stella at her own pace.

Even the picture has a feeling of 'freezing' to it ... much different than the same shot taken in July.

As Stella lifted her head and saw that Sadie and I were on the path back home .. she started trotting in the general direction of the far right corner. With temps so low we didn't have time for that this morning so when I yelled "hey" she made an abrupt left and started trotting towards us.

Sadie of coarse had to trot in her direction and touch noses with Stella to let her know it was time to get home ... it's freezing.

By this time I thought I might have to go out and get Stella if her paws were frozen. But she did not start limping if they were and she did her normal slow walk back to the house.

Not much is planned today with the weather the way it is outside. It makes those 28° days seem pretty nice and I look forward to seeing days in the 30's sometime this week.

I've finished reading the books I checked out from the library so I might sneak out sometime today and replenish the supply of reading material. With the roads being dry I have thought of pulling the car cover off the Z4 and taking it out for a spin. I will drive it a little during the winter as long as the roads are dry and there is no rain or snow in the forecast.

No regrets on making the FJ trade on Monday ... that's a good sign.

I've been watching a show on the National Geographic Channel called Continent #7, about research with a team of scientist from New Zealand. They are one of 11 countries doing this type of research. The NOAA released their Arctic Annual Report card this morning with some interesting news (bad) and some of it was discussed on the tv show I was watching.

You can click here to read the article. Their last show of the season is next Tuesday night.

I am not sure why but in some of the photos and at different times I see her here at home, it looks like Stella is losing weight and getting thinner than she should be. Other times she looks like she always has when I compare her to older photos. We may need to take a trip to the vet to check it out.

She also seems to be drinking a lot more water now that it is colder, than she did last summer ... at least I am filling up the large bowl of water for her and Sadie more frequently. She will also go into another room to steal some of Heidi's water at times.

No major news today in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

It Was Wet & Freezing Today

It was one of those afternoons that it didn't matter what you wore to stay warm, it wasn't enough. Even Sadie and Stella did not venture off into the field on their own like they normally do and once they saw me head for the door, the sprinted to get ahead of me. It was really wet, really freezing cold and the daily afternoon walk was cancelled.

So there are not any pictures of a walk. They slept, I read and replied to blog comments. There are a lot of 'bells and whistles' that come with this road eating monster and some that I will not bother to set up. A lot of nice standard features. 

I thought it was strange when the dealer didn't give me a temporary plate since I had a truck plate on the FJ and would need to change that to a car plate once I received their title in the mail and registere the car. But the car lot owner who has been in the biz for 45 years said no, this plate would be okay to drive with ... so the truck plate was switched from the FJ to the car.

I was curious enough to call the BMV today and ask if a Countryman was able to use a truck plate and it isn't because it's listed as a passenger car but not as a SUV. I guess I'll find out if I am ever stopped between now and my trip to the BMV.

It drives nice and lot different than the other two Mini Cooper's I have had. About 500-600 pounds heavier. The seats are very comfortable as the padding fits around each side of you, almost like a racing seat. These tires are Run Flat, so the ride is a little hard but once I buy new tires I will be going to the regular Radials, all weather. I still don't mind the hard ride.

Ed commented today about jacking my car up and putting on oversized wheels, so this next picture is for him, to see what the possibilities are. LOL

I've never liked the type of bike rack that connected to the trailer hitch. But here is a picture of one working with 3 mountain bikes.

I was asked today if I had a case of buyers remorse yet and I can say I haven't. In fact it's one of those cars that you just want to go out and drive around in, something I didn't feel in the last FJ but did when I bought the blue FJ and my Z4.

It is nice not to hear the whining of the rear axle that I had in the FJ. After another day of driving this car I can see it serving the same purpose as the Z4 even though they are two different kind of cars. I'll not make any decision on the Z4 until I can drive it again this spring with the top down and the sunshine is hot, not just shining.

I realized tonight it's a full moon ... no wonder I came up with this idea about trading vehicles and no wonder the bloodhounds have been a little more bizarre than they normally are.

'Movie night' tonight ... not sure what I'll find on tv or what I pull off the shelf.

A full moon tonight in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

I Love Making A Deal

Those skies that looked like snow a few days ago opened up this morning ... but nothing to brag about. It was something between rain and snow ... we had to go check it out.

Talking about trading the FJ has raised a lot of curiosity among readers. Very few post a comment that can be read by the public but my email inbox is over flowing with comments about it with a few attacks and opinions about my mental make up.  (hilarious)

That's all part of blogging publicly and one that I am willing to put up with. It would be a lot worse if I had talked about this on Facebook where I'm told causing controversy is brutal to read. I post this kind of personal stuff here for a few reasons ... it's part of life here in 'the tropics' and it's great entertainment for those readers that have a sense of humor.

So to give you some idea how 'back and forth' I went ... how about this timeline ... better go get something to drink, this post could get interesting. :)

Saturday Morning -- I want to trade for the All-Wheel Drive Mini Cooper
Saturday Night -- I want to keep the FJ
Sunday Morning -- I want to drive 4 hours one way to buy the Mini Cooper
Sunday Afternoon -- I want to buy the Mini Cooper Country that is local
Sunday Night -- "I'm crazy" I'll keep the FJ
Monday Morning -- "Let's see which dealership gives me the price I want, the trade in value I want ... let see which dealer wants to sell me their car but I get everything I want"

Monday Afternoon -- Deal done ... I bought local.

So after a lot of online research for car reviews, customer reviews, visiting the Mini Cooper forum for Countryman All4 owners to see what they were saying and if there were any maintenance problems ... I didn't have a firm answer.

I needed a spreadsheet to compare the three vehicles I was looking to buy. Of those three vehicles I even included my old Voodoo Blue FJ that is now fixed and up for sale. The spreadsheet was eye opening and kind of swayed my decision ... but first I had to make sure that the formulas I had inserted for cost analysis were accurate.

So I loaded my current FJ loan and confirmed my formulas were right on.

I guess I can admit ... I had a huge amount of 'silent' buyers remorse these past 47 days. I never liked the color of the FJ. Even flipping the white letters on the tires inside didn't help. It was a great FJ but I didn't have close to the same 'vibe' I had with the old blue one with the blacked out windows, black wheels, dried hound drool and massive amounts of hound hair when it was in action. And the FACT was ... in the 2-1/2 years owning an FJ, I never had to put it in 4WD and I never towed anything ... why have it???

In case I really do get down to just one car in the carport, I wanted a car that had a sports car feel and at the same time was able to drive down a road off a secondary road to tent camp somewhere. I did not need a 'rock climber', nor were the hounds a factor since I decided a long time ago that Stella was not a boondocking hound.

The Countryman model did both of those things. With it being 500 pounds heavier than the two smaller Mini Hardtops I had ... that 'go kart' feeling was not there while driving it. With a 188hp, it is just as quick as my Z4 and reaction is just like a sports car, even without using the 'sport' options it has that are just pressing a button away.

Yes, it probably looks like a car your nephew or grandson would drive but that has never been a factor with me. I've never let age dictate what I buy or how I act or things I do. I am probably one of the few people close to 65 that do not have a lazyboy recliner in their living room and have never wanted one. (no offense to those that do)

So here is the new All-Wheel Drive, 6-speed manual, I6 engine and a speedo that goes up to 160mph, road eating monster ... a 2012 Mini Cooper S Countryman with only 57,000 miles on the odometer. Not many for a car built in September 2011.

After my 2nd cup of coffee on Monday morning, I made the call up north to see what they were wanting to give me for the FJ. They had the same model and year of Mini but 20K more miles on it but a better price. They had just had a major snow storm and were moving cars around their lot to they could plow their car lot. He said that even with the low ground clearance and high performance tires ... it was moving through 8 inches of snow with no problems.

That sounded good to me ... but right after the conversation went downhill quickly although I didn't tell him that. I started hearing the old story of "we have looked at all kinds of pricing on your FJ and about all we can do is blah blah blah ... wholesale pricing for a trade in value." I could hear the sounds of trumpets in the background as the 'bullshit' flag was being raised.

I had already received a trade in offer that was the same as my NADA sheet I had printed out from the dealer locally and on Saturday after my test drive. As I hung up the phone from that call I was down to just one possible deal.

When I looked at this car on Saturday and test drove it, it needed tires, it needed the striping on the hood replaced due to a scratch on the decal. What I thought were broken parts to a very strange designed "track" type console I found out later that night after doing some searching on google they were only missing two cup holders and what I saw were the brackets to hold them. And .... I needed a lower price.

Being black I knew that these pictures would be the cleanest it would ever be and that would most likely only last a day after I washed it in the summer ... in the winter, there is not a chance this black car will look clean ... it will look 'used' ... after all every car you own can't be silver and this one will show every speck of dirt or rain drops.

So after that first call and rechecking my spreadsheets by plugging in different sale prices or different trade in prices to see what this crazy deal was going to cost me ... I decided to give them a call. I thought I knew that they were wanting to sell it pretty quick. It wasn't their type of car to sell sitting amongst a lot of chevy, ford, cars, trucks ... you get the picture.

I told them I needed some allowance to buy new tires that it needed. I did not mention the that I'd like to have it detailed inside and out. During the test drive I it also had the "low tire" light on so I needed the tires checked out. I gave them my sale price offer ... and waited on the phone for my answer.

Check off that trade in value and sales price - I got just what I wanted for their and my car. They actually increased my trade in value from Saturday and still lowered their sale price. Later in the afternoon when I told him I wanted the car, the owner told me he would have them pull the car back inside and get it washed and detailed plus check all the tires. I thought it was nice I didn't even have to ask.

When I picked it up it looked like new inside and outside. Earlier I asked for and received a free CarFax to look at before any transaction was made. Those reports will not tell you everything but they tell you enough and whether you should sign the paperwork or take off sprinting to your car to leave.

The CarFax looked good, I was more than satisfied with it. The 2nd owner did all of the driving in the past 14 months. Being in home health care, she had put on the majority of miles. It had been serviced on a regular schedule since the first day it arrived from Germany. Plus Edmunds car review and KellyBlue Book reviews were telling me the mileage for that year of car was right where it was suppose to be.

Besides getting use to all the electronic 'bells and whistles', I wanted to measure the cargo area and found the 'sub' floor under the cargo floor was 8" deep and the cargo area itself is wide enough to carry my two 32gl trash cans to recycling ... one of trash and one of recyclables.

The hardest part of all of this was removing the dealership decal. Their decal was the largest I had ever seen but it was pretty simple to peel off with Goo Off and a plastic edger ... I never use it for removing calking around a bathtub but those plastic scrapers are great for taking off auto dealer decals.

Since I have not owned it for 24 hours the only way I can show you it's capabilities is from pictures off of google images. With the manual transmission and all-wheel drive I have no doubt it can handle the type of snow we get here in 'the tropics'.

For those times in the future that I am tent camping out west I will still be able to drive out and away to boondock. Rutty forest roads would be a problem but not the type of roads that we drove on in June 2015.

This next picture shows it's a pretty good climber over rough rocky roads.

At least it floats through mud.

With the sleek roof rails it opens up possibilities.

In an extreme situation where the hounds would end up doing a road trip ... there is room in back for both bloodhounds when the back seats are folded down with Heidi riding her normal 'shotgun' position. The carrier on top would provide ample space in the cargo area.

Along with a nice expensive hound accessory to keep all the stuff that comes with hounds under control in back.

I'm not a fan of the rail tracking system for a console but his iPhone rack while it charges is pretty nice. That rail system goes all the way back to the back seats. Included in my console is a case for sunglasses.

Well the hounds are howling for lunch ... Stella has tested the durability of the black exterior paint by leaving drool in places she needed to check out while I removed the dealer decal. That wet drool was frozen by the time I went to wipe it up ... we will call them a form of ice and leave it until warmer weather.

I have put a finger on where all of my car dealing comes from ... my dad. I remember growing up we had 2-3 cars all the time. As a teacher and coach he didn't have many weekends off but the times he did were when he would go out to look at cars. I can remember a times where he would come home after being gone on a Saturday morning telling us to get the keys and follow him. At times he would trade all or a couple of cars at one time.

Most times he would leave on a Saturday morning not telling us where was going but he had obviously seen a car somewhere that had peaked his interest. Later he would come home with a new car as a surprise. As far as I can remember, those trips took place about every 2 years, maybe less.

Did he ever trade a car in 47 days?  Maybe ... after that trip to the Smoky Mountains in a newly acquired Nash Rambler staion wagon ... he found out it didn't quite feel the same to those new Buick's he use to buy ... that Rambler was traded within days after our return home.

So there's that for my excuse ... but basically I love cars and making deals.

I'll be back later today with some hound pictures ... I need to put on those hiking boots or even the snow boots and head out for a walk so we can check out what little snow we have.

Stella has had it waiting around, lost her patience ... constant howling now ... she wants to eat.

It's never dull living in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.

What Is That Sound ???

What a difference an increase of 10° means to feeling comfortable. No, not inside, outside .. 35°

With the skies looking like snow was on the way from the west, it's not, it almost felt warm ... too warm.

While Sadie and Stella roamed, I had a cup of coffee while sitting outside. Following a recent trend, I decided to take the hounds for their first walk of the day between cups one and two. No need for the ski gloves and down jacket today .. the wool North Face jacket was perfect.

Once Sadie is outside she is always in the tracking mode. She rarely sits outside and is always on the move because there are too many scents for her natural heavy duty nose. Whereas Stella will sit for almost an hour outside depending on the sun, direction of the wind and if she needs a nap.

We were not 25' into the walk when I hear something hitting all the dead leaves on the ground but I don't see anything. I don't see anything hitting the gray shoulders of my coat nor the back of the camera. It was loud, almost like an 'electrical field'.

I figured as long as I did not see rain drops, I'd continue as I was pretty sure it was trying to snow. Stella had other ideas though ... she didn't move.

It does not matter if Stella is on the walk with Sadie or not ... Sadie doesn't care and will always follow the path of her nose. She is always active. Some of you may remember I have mentioned before that a bloodhound breeder I know gives her puppies a test at 45 days old and can tell if they are going to be 'trackers' or 'couch potatoes'  ... I answered 4/5 questions positive over the phone when Sadie was about 2 years old and a 'problem child', finding out she passed the test as "a very strong tracker".

She said the first sign would have been when Winston and I visited the litter of puppies when Sadie was 8 weeks old. Out of 7 littermates, Sadie was the only one that followed Winston everywhere he walked ... she wouldn't leave his side. A few weeks later I changed my mind on which pup to take and took Sadie home at 12 weeks old. The rest is history as they say.

No sign of Stella ... all to familiar isn't it?

That 'noise' had stopped until we got to the first turn. Once again the sound was loud but I didn't see anything bouncing off the leaves, if it was snow. I didn't see rain drops either. But when I held the palm of my hand up ... there it was ... the smallest ice crystals you could imagine were hitting my hand.

I continued walking while holding the camera so the lens was facing down to keep it dry, only raising it when taking these 200mm zoom pictures.

That shows just how far away the hounds were this morning.

Sadie never looked back for Stella ... and Stella never moved from that first corner ... never.

What's interesting, the times I have walked over and leaned over to see what is so interesting to her ... she has moved the thick grass back to ground level and nothing is there ... maybe the 'protein pellets' as Russ calls them, are gone by the time I look.

In the meantime Sadie checks deeper into the small wooded area that runs along the back of the field along an old fence line.

As Sadie and I make the final turn to head home ... Sadie has moved about 50' at the most at the first corner.

The closer Sadie and I got to the corner, I was sure that Stella would take off for the far right corner in back of the field ... but the shock of the day ... she slowly walked over to me and Sadie and then trotted along side me out of camera range.

She did her ultra slow walk all the way back to the yard ... up to the door to go back inside. She was walking so slow you would have thought she couldn't make another step. Maybe the walk was too early in her day for much energy.

With light rain falling by 10:30am and a forecast that looks like it will happen all day, I have three good NFL games, back to back, I want to watch and that will take me through Sunday night. So not much is planned for the rest of the day. We will get in a 2nd hound walk between games or at halftimes if it is not raining.

Before I go there are a few of you probably wondering about that car transaction??????

By late Saturday night I was starting to feel the thrill of the search leaving me. As I looked through my pictures of the Z4, I knew there was no way I was going to sell that car this spring, therefore me getting down to just one car isn't going to happen. I can't remember the last time I even had just one vehicle, as I have always had two or more.

I looked back at my FJ pictures of both that I had owned. I looked at more FJ pictures on Google. So by the time I called it a day ... I had decided I was not going to make the deal. When I woke up this morning I was almost certain I was not going to make the deal.

Then a strange thing happened and actually it happened last night around midnight. I realized around midnight while looking at the domain name of the car dealer's website ... that I may have sent my email full of pictures they needed to give me a trade in value estimate to the wrong email address that was given to me over the phone ... their website domain was not the domain I emailed those pictures to Saturday afternoon ... that is the reason I never received a call back from them.

So I resent that email of pictures to what I thought was the correct domain and then I went to their contact page and sent an email through their system explaining what happened.

So here I am Sunday morning drinking my first cup of coffee, I've deleted all of the pictures I had downloaded of the 2012 Mini Cooper Countryman (for a bigger view) and was 99.9% sure I was not going to pursue the transaction any further.

We return from our walk and there is a new email in my inbox, from the buyer at the car dealership confirming that yes I had sent my first email to the wrong address and he did not get the pictures of my FJ until I sent that second email around midnight.

The 'interest' shot back through my veins like a Christmas morning and a stack of presents. Would the first NFL game at 1pm be able to distract me and possibly rescue me from this mind changing catastrophe???

We will see ... I have another three hours to think about it before football takes over my focus. They lowered the price again for a quick sell on Saturday morning, it has been detailed looking like a new car as are all their other cars and trucks on the lot ... along with 40 years of good customer feedback. The four hour drive would be almost all freeway driving ... with possible snow.

I've wondered why the Black Cherry FJ hasn't grown on me these past 46 days ... where as the Voodoo Blue was a hit with me the very first day. Maybe I am just tired of having a FJ. I do know the test drive I took in a different one than I am buying but the same year ... was very good. I liked that car even more after the test drive.

There is only 2" difference in ground clearance compared to the FJ ... but I'd have to go off road to make that any kind of factor.

Yet it's warmer temps here in 'the tropics' in southern Indiana ... so it's all good.