8/30/20 Our New Car Is Smarter Than Most People?

     I finally really drove Wife's car Friday.  We have had the Telluride since the start of the pandemic shutdown and for the first two months, we hardly even drove it since we were all grounded at home by the government.  Wife then started going back to work and she started racking up the miles, quickly as she was driving back and forth, first twice a week then four days a week.  Eventually, we decided to buy another smaller commuter car that we can essentially sacrifice to by driving it to death and hopefully, keeping the miles on the Telluride under control.

    I respect the new SUV as Wife's, so even when she leaves it home, I don't drive it to work, I still have my Excursion, which I love but wish it was newer, paint is starting to peel and some of the plastic components have seen better days, but still the motor and A/C are still doing their job.  The only time I do drive it is to take it to the car wash, but that doesn't really count.  I barely get it up to 45mph on 1st Street.

    Yesterday though, we all tagged along with her to Crystal City.  She came back up to Austin to take Boy to work with her, he has been helping with the release of the new computers and setting them up for the school year.  I figured it would be cool to join her and head down to my folks with Javalina for the day.  She drove in the morning, nowadays, she usually drives when we go out of town as I am always sleepy.  Since I had worked and come home late when she was already asleep,  it made sense that she was in better condition to drive.  I slept maybe three solid hours, but I did stay awake the whole way, it helped that we were blasting the Hamilton soundtrack.

    Driving back, I was already in the driver's seat, so I decided I would drive, at least to San Antonio, if not all the way.  Man!, the car does not really let you make mistakes without warning you.  Backing up at HEB this morning, it stopped the motion because there was a car coming behind me.  Making lane changes, it actually holds the steering from leaning you over if there is a car in the space.  Setting the cruise control at the speed limit, I noticed that if you are behind somebody, it slows the car down so you don't tailgate too close.  At one point, we were down to 55 because I got in the slow lane and a slow truck must have been going that slow (the a-hole), and before I knew it, we were down to that speed.  As soon as I got out of that lane the car started speeding up again to the speed limit.  When the speed limit officially changes on the road, the car somehow knows and the speed limit changes in the car too.  I still haven't figured everything out, but I think I like all this new technology.