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Sunday, January 21, 2018

General Leia Has Arrived

I don't know if you noticed, but the last blog featured a picture of a random, beige Jeep Cherokee.  This beautiful, classic XJ is now "General Leia".  She is the new BattleScout.

A little background about the good General, she was built in 1987 in Toledo, Ohio.  American Motors (AMC) started designing Cherokees in the late 70s, noticing that General Motors was designing a Blazer based on their small S-10 pickups.  In retrospect, this was kind of the prototype for the crossover, but really, it's just the sort of small, bullet-proof SUV that serious off-road makers would try to copy for years and years.  (Look at 4Runners, Pathfinders...)  Kiplinger said the Cherokee was one of "10 cars that refused to die."  They made them from 1983 - 2001, which is incredible, a 18-year-lifespan, which, interestingly, is put to shame by it's big older brother, the Wagoneer, which ran for 29 years from 1963-1991.  Long live Jeeps, I guess.  Literally.


At any rate, we're the third owner of this beautiful thing.  It's so base model, it doesn't have a passenger-side rear-view mirror.  The Matriarch's excited for me to put the Rebel Alliance symbol on the hood.  I'm just excited to have a vehicle that I feel confident going out in the snow to play.  It doesn't hurt that it gets a little bit better than 8 or 9 miles per gallon around town like the BW.  Plus, it's got enough power to pull the little teardrop we inherited, so I'd say with some nominal tweaking, we're gonna be ready to hit the dirt as soon as we're out of our lease in our current house.

I talked to the mechanic recently (the best mechanic around Salida, who likes to keep a low profile, so I won't put him on blast), and he's got some work to do underneath it.  There are some pretty significant oil leaks and a couple of loose odds and ends here and there.  I don't know how much we'll be getting into him for, but it'll be worth it for the peace of mind.  This will probably be the BattleScout that comes to visit you, wherever you are, pulling a beautiful teardrop trailer behind it.

The interior is super clean, and very basic, which is perfect.  Simplifies things on the inside, so you can focus on more important things, like the rocks all over the road, or the loud kids in the back.  The automatic transmission shifts pretty smoothly, considering it has over 180,000 miles on it.  It handles really nicely on the highway, for sure.  It climbs over the passes between Buena Vista and Denver with ease, gently downshifting at the tops of the highest to give you that boost to get you back up to the speed limit (or on the tail of the Californian RV in front of you).

We're feeling stoked, blessed, and all that other nonsense.  Thanks for the support!