A blog worth visiting

I just came across a blog that is definitely worth visiting if you are interested in the Routan. It's the Routan Summer blog http://routansummer.blogspot.com/. Their descrtiption is: "Welcome to our family. What you are reading is the story of our summer adventure in a new 2009 VW Routan. Yup, the German-tuned minivan. Our family of four is always going somewhere, doing something. What are those things? Well I guess you will just have to read along and find out. Welcome to our family. Enjoy our ride."

The most recent post waxes poetic over heated seats. I used to thing they were a decadent, bourgeois affectation and surely unneeded in Memphis. (BTW, like the family in Routan Summer, I grew up in northern Ohio--in a town named Madison that was adjacent to Geneva-on-the-Lake. Perhaps, I thought, they might not be so affectative there.) That is, before I took delivery of a new 1985 Peugeot 505S which came with heated seats. Even in Memphis, where we see freezing temperatures, and where we have already had mornings this year in the low 40s, heated seats make driving a pleasure.

Since that time, I have owned 3 other cars with heated seats--another 1985 Peugeot, a 1984 Mercedes 300SD, and a 1994 Infiniti Q45. I have also owned a handful of cars without heated seats--and I was thankful that I owned them concurrently with the cars above. There was one summer where I owned 2 vehicles that didn't have heated seats, but I remedied that quickly.

The Routan SEL (and maybe the Routan SE) come with two-stage heated seats. High is definitely toasty, I haven't tried low yet. But as an added bonus, the middle seats are also heated. Being the father of 3, who also often transports adults, this is a nice "luxury" to offer.

Somewhere in the process of passing 50 and raising the 3 (17-year old girl, 13-year old boy, 10-year old girl) I have developed fibromyalgia. The heated seats allow me to be able to move. I may have to drag myself out to the car, but the heated seats let me walk into work like a man.

Anyway, Routan Summer's post got me ranting and raving. Visit them, and tell them I sent you.