The answer is the scooter/moped/motorcycle... you can make those longer journeys at 50mph, easy to buy, easy to sell, 100 miles to the gallon (or however gas is sold in Canada... km/l?... whatever, its about 5x better mileage then a car) and although not great for winter, they're great the other 8 months a year (or more) and can make it easy to snowbird.
'Round here the best place to suit up for winter on low-investment is an army surplus... boots, coats, sleeping bags, whatever you need for crazy wild weather to keep you warm or dry. I've always hated winter though.... so thats when I practice glaring at the snow, and read for months so that when spring comes all I want to do is MOVE MOVE MOVE.
That church was beautiful. I really want to build a tiny white chapel in in my backyard just for funsies. It would just be like... a guest house or whatever... rent it out or have a place for others or use it as a work space. Just teeny... just enough for the neighbors who are all crowded around me to go, "Wtf they got in their yard NOW?!?!"
The motorcycle idea is indeed tempting, although dangerous. Still, i often looked at those electric mopeds that are ubiquitous in China and thought how useful they'd be to cruise to the next town over. I guess their range isn't all that great for America, though. Electric cars can get about 300km now, which is perfectly fine to get just about anywhere, but even the cheap ones are spectacularly expensive in my books - certainly an order of magnitude more money than i have ever spent on anything in my life. I'm not sure i'd consider a gas-powered bike, that feels a bit like worst of both worlds - not the comfort of an enclosed vehicle, but still the noise and pollution!
Churches are quite fun looking buildings, especially the ones built in a cross shape like this one. I think i'd enjoy climbing up to the belfry and looking out over the land, it'd be like living on a little mountain, or sitting on a land boat!
The little mopeds have a top speed of 50mph, which means that in America it's great for in-town/in-city driving... but once you're on a backroad or main highway... you're out of your league since back roads are 45-60mph (usually more like 55-60mph average driving speed) and highways are 60+mph with 65-68mph being the average speed. But for general vicinity driving, they're pretty great.
When it comes to gasoline vs electric... I guess it depends where your electricity comes from. PNW... so much of it is the dams, which is clean as long as you don't bother thinking about drowned communities and the killing of river wildlife and habitats. But.. other parts of the US.. its coal-fired plants, or natural gas, or nuclear power, or burning garbage.. *shrug*. At least driving for two hours on 1 gallon ($3) worth of gas feels efficient compared to so many other gas-vehicles.
Even cheap electric cars are expensive... but a tiny 2-person version was invented in my city and does limited sells each year... the Tango! https://www.consumerreports.org/xprize/commuter_cars_tango.html (My city is strangely famous for inventors... even though its a small city. My friend grew up living next door to the guy who invented recumbent bikes and tried some of his early versions as a kid, and another friend was the inventor of modern film holography. Spokane is an extremely strange place...)
'Round here the best place to suit up for winter on low-investment is an army surplus... boots, coats, sleeping bags, whatever you need for crazy wild weather to keep you warm or dry.
I've always hated winter though.... so thats when I practice glaring at the snow, and read for months so that when spring comes all I want to do is MOVE MOVE MOVE.
That church was beautiful.
I really want to build a tiny white chapel in in my backyard just for funsies. It would just be like... a guest house or whatever... rent it out or have a place for others or use it as a work space. Just teeny... just enough for the neighbors who are all crowded around me to go, "Wtf they got in their yard NOW?!?!"
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Churches are quite fun looking buildings, especially the ones built in a cross shape like this one. I think i'd enjoy climbing up to the belfry and looking out over the land, it'd be like living on a little mountain, or sitting on a land boat!
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But for general vicinity driving, they're pretty great.
When it comes to gasoline vs electric... I guess it depends where your electricity comes from. PNW... so much of it is the dams, which is clean as long as you don't bother thinking about drowned communities and the killing of river wildlife and habitats. But.. other parts of the US.. its coal-fired plants, or natural gas, or nuclear power, or burning garbage.. *shrug*. At least driving for two hours on 1 gallon ($3) worth of gas feels efficient compared to so many other gas-vehicles.
Even cheap electric cars are expensive... but a tiny 2-person version was invented in my city and does limited sells each year... the Tango!
https://www.consumerreports.org/xprize/commuter_cars_tango.html
(My city is strangely famous for inventors... even though its a small city. My friend grew up living next door to the guy who invented recumbent bikes and tried some of his early versions as a kid, and another friend was the inventor of modern film holography. Spokane is an extremely strange place...)
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