Image Source:
The Dalles Home Depot Hours
Image Source:
If you anticipation I got absent about in southern Alaska, you anticipation wrong.
We are now hitting Seattle, WA for the absolute allotment of this U.S. Arctic to South series. I accept the advantage of driving a 2015 Ram 2500 Tradesman Crew Cab 4×4 Turbo Diesel.
I baptised aftermost year’s Ram 1500 as Albert. This year, I will follow the belletrist of the alphabet as they do for hurricanes. Say accost to Bob. Bob, say accost to TTAC.
My aboriginal impressions are beneath forth with an account on Ford Seattle authorization plates 2,000 afar up arctic in Barrow, Alaska…
But first, you may ask, “Why a macho appellation for the truck?”
Here’s the thing: in France, breadth I’m originally from, aggregate is sexualised (nothing new here) and aggregate has a gender. Trucks, including pickups, are male, while commuter cars are female. So alike admitting I’ve alleged Australia home for thirteen years now, allotment my barter Barbara would be wrong — absolute amiss — to me. So Bob it is.
This Ram 2500 Tradesman Crew Cab 4×4 with 8-foot bed and Cummins turbodiesel beneath its gargantuan awning retails for $48,565.
A little bit over a year ago aback I took the caster of Albert, the added Ram, I was afraid at how car-like active it was. Bob is a accomplished altered story. Alike admitting it is allotment of the aforementioned ancestors of pickups and counted calm in the account sales charts, dispatch up from a Ram 1500 to a Ram 2500 is absolutely like activity from a car to a truck. Aftermost year, I would accept admired Albert to complete added manly. As astoundingly frugal as it was (I achieved 30 mpg with him), the 3-liter Ecodiesel did not sound like an absolute truck. Bob, with its 6.7-liter Cummins I-6, is every bit of barter that Albert wasn’t. I had consistently dreamt of active beyond the United States in a able truck. Bob sounds like a truck, and feels like a barter to drive, too.
Image Source:
Being European, I’m acclimated to manhandling manual gearboxes. I’ve done so all my activity to the point breadth automatics feel eerily aberrant to me. Here, too, Bob is a footfall up. Contrasting with the automated rotary shifter used by the Ram 1500, Bob’s chiral batten is gigantic and lodged on the dashboard, not the floor, like a good, ancient pickup. Giving abroad its primary action as a workhorse, Bob’s aboriginal three apparatus are absolute short, authoritative for absorbing starts at red lights.
Bob sits absolute aerial on its wheels, acute a windshield-side handle and muscled legs to jump in. Its 8-foot box makes it a best agent than best in the city. I feel taller and bigger than aggregate about me. I additionally booty up a lot added amplitude on the road. All this combines absolute accurately to accord a quintessential American pickup experience.
It took me a day to get acclimated to his little quirks, but Bob and I are now accessible to roll! Aboriginal stop: burghal Seattle. Navigating this monster in the (very) abrupt and attenuated Seattle streets is a baptism-by-fire affiliated to my Manhattan acquaintance with Albert aftermost year. Parking on the artery is not an advantage as there are no (free) parking spots ample enough. My alone way out was the billowing breadth alfresco of an underground parking lot. Full-size auto trucks are absolutely frowned aloft in green-obsessed Seattle…
Only in Seattle: two hour-queue for a chowder.
Now assimilate Seattle as a city. I had no expectations, but wasn’t captivated either. Healthily ashore afterwards two abounding weeks spent in mostly alien Alaska, I was somehow attractive advanced to a added “sophisticated” experience, for abridgement of a bigger word. But the town’s crowd of latte-sipping hipsters, suit-wearing buskers and queue-making chowder-eaters leave me unimpressed. Pike Place Bazaar is a must-see, but annihilation out of the accustomed for a Frenchman. It was, however, nice to access the absolute aboriginal Starbucks coffeeshop anytime built.
Before we hit the road, a babble on the acknowledged cars in Washington accompaniment (see all the sales abstracts for the ten states visited here). With Seattle as the capital citizenry hub, it’s a passenger-car-dominated accompaniment with the top 3 sellers acceptance to that segment: Toyota Camry, Corolla and Subaru Outback. Although beneath arresting than in Alaska, the Subaru chic is still angry here, as is the case in the absolute Northwestern allotment of the United States. A advantageous bulk of privately-owned Subaru Outbacks can be spotted throughout the city and its suburbs as I witnessed during a day cruise to Snoqualmie Falls. In fact, the acknowledged “light truck” in WA and fourth-best all-embracing affairs agent is the Subaru Forester, outselling the Ford F-150 and Chevrolet Silverado in a attenuate achievement.
Image Source:
Seattle is the commonwealth of eco-friendly cars. The accent is set as anon as we leave the airport with a Tesla annex in abounding appearance with its dozens of Model S units apprehension delivery. A aggregation of Toyota Priuses can be apparent alive forth Seattle’s streets, with the majority of the town’s taxis actuality Priuses too. All models in the electric agent class are able-bodied represented as well, including the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Volt and the three BMW i3 spotted in a amount of hours.
Compared to Alaska, the car and barter mural is absolutely newer. There are no added old F-Series trucks on the anchorage in Washington as they are countless up north. I alone spotted one 1980s best example in two days. I additionally saw my aboriginal Scion iA and new-generation Hyundai Tucson of the trip. On this aftermost point, Hyundai has grabbed a abundant college bazaar allotment of the Washington car bazaar than it has in Alaska. A connected breeze of Elantras (#4 commuter car actuality so far in 2015) adroitness Seattle’s roads.
Seattle may be green, but it’s still socially awkward. While the cartage was at a standstill for afar in all lanes of the artery on the way aback from Snoqualmie Falls, the carpool lane was absolutely empty.
Just afar south of Seattle, in Renton abreast the Seattle–Tacoma International Airport, I was able to annotate a abstruseness I mentioned while still in Barrow in Arctic Alaska. There I spotted a cardinal of Fords with Complete Ford authorization plates. According to its website, Complete Ford is about to bless 40 after years as the cardinal one volume Ford banker in Washington. A quick babble with Derek, a salesman at Complete Ford Renton, tells me why I found cars from his dealership all the way up in arctic Alaska, 2,000 afar away.
“Yes, we do address a lot of cars to Alaska. Here, about Seattle, you accept a dozen Ford dealers in the area, so the antagonism is intense. Our retail prices are abundant lower than what Ford charges in Anchorage, Alaska. Barter acquirement their cars on our website, accord us instructions as to which anchorage and barge to drive the car to, we load the car on the barge and they aces it up in Barrow. Barge carriage to Alaska costs around $1,000 and, alike aback factoring that amount in, these barter end up extenuative $5,000 to $10,000 per agent by purchasing it actuality instead of in Anchorage.”
It all makes faculty now. Attractive at the best common cars in Barrow, I would assumption a lot of Ford F-150 pickups accept fabricated the comfortable three-week barge cruise through the Bering Strait, bouncing at Russia on the way.
Image Source:
It’s now time to booty Bob on the road. We head south to Portland, Oregon for Bob’s aboriginal day on the highway. Along the way, and acknowledgment to a tip from adolescent TTAC biographer Cameron Aubernon, Bob and I meet Optimus Prime from the latest Transformers movie. This keeps Bob on his toes, assuming him that alike admitting he was a monster on the road, he was still no bout for the adapted Mack truck.
According to the Lonely Planet, Portland is “an advancing destination that has assuredly accustomed and a can’t-miss stop on your adventures in the Pacific Northwest”. Once again, and I’m apologetic I feel this way, but I begin it to be an over-rated aloof town. I am accomplishing this drive for big skies and National Parks, not much-hyped hipster towns. The car esplanade in Portland, however, makes for absorbing observations: Teslas, added Smart Fortwos actuality than in the blow of the U.S. accumulated (only a slight exaggeration) and barter that accept absolutely accepted the active Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon mid-size pickups.
Favorites in Portland: the Subaru Outback and Forester
Looking at the official car sales abstracts for 2015 in Oregon, we acquisition an eerily agnate account to that in Alaska: the all-embracing best-seller is the Ram auto (so Bob feels appropriate at home), followed by the Subaru Outback, Toyota Camry and Subaru Forester. The Ford F-150 is agape down to fourth all-embracing and the Toyota Tacoma is fourth in the light-truck category, acknowledging Oregon’s aftertaste for mid-sized pickups.
I won’t absorb the night actuality but will drive a added brace of hours east to beddy-bye in The Dalles, at the bound amid Washington and Oregon, in the aboriginal of abounding Motel 6 hotels I will break at during this trip. The acceptable account in this allotment of the country is the low gas prices: from $2.729 a gallon of agent in Anchorage to $2.299 Seattle and $2.599 in The Dalles. That’s up to a abounding dollar per gallon beneath than what I was advantageous aftermost year and will accomplish up for the weaker ammunition abridgement of my Ram 2500, continuing in the low twenties for now.
Next we cantankerous Idaho to ability Glacier National Esplanade in Montana.
Matt Gasnier is based in Sydney, Australia. He runs a website committed to car sales statistics, trends and assay called BestSellingCarsBlog. The website features sales abstracts for 190 countries worldwide including 80 countries adapted monthly.
Related
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source:
Image Source: