Nicholas Pike

Twice a year or so I make a 1000 mile round-trip to visit the family in NH.  For five years it has been with my very trustworth 1995 2D Jeep Cherokee Sport.  At the start of every winter season something major on it has required repair… practically like clock work.  This year being the most expensive repair so far.

The Friday before turkey week my water pump exploded like a grenade – and required me having the Jeep towed to my favorite Jeep dealership in Rochester.

Total cost?  Almost $700 to make it drivable again.

Moving forward… I drove it another 500 miles (after repair) back to NH – with it over heating off and on the whole way.  This was also my first long drive using my iPhone as my soul means of navigation – the Google Maps GPS actually did fairly well!

It’s interesting to note, that voltage from a cigarette lighter is not enough to power the iPhone completely while it is using GPS,3G,Google Maps, and playing music.

Almost as soon as I entered NH I lost AT&T service completely… and it remained mostly unavailable through out my stay in NH.

The weekend that followed was a marathon of car shopping…  saw many many Jeep Wranglers, and even test drove a few…  finally settled on the very last one we found – just as we were about to call it quits for the night.

2005 Jeep Wrangler X: 26,900 miles – barely used.  Has never had the top taken off, never had the doors taken off, and still had its original stock tires.   Unfortunately it was a stick…. but for the deal they offered me, I was willing to learn.

I drove it home that night… and the end is history.

More pictures of stuff:

RIP Jeep… you will be missed :(