Catching up with the Joneses

So, we went there. I used to be a bass fisherman and be on the water several times a month. I went to college in Berkeley and it became too difficult to get connected with fishing clubs etc, not that I had any time between kids and grad school. As a result, my fishing gear collected dust and I only went out a couple of times in several years, fishing from the shore and not having much luck. One of the problems is that I'm used to fishing from a boat. Well, my dad hadn't been using a boat much so last week he offered to lend it to us, and we took him up on that offer. We had it shipped out and it arrived last Saturday...only problem is that we didn't have a vehicle to launch with. My Vespa wouldn't do it and our Chevy Malibu wasn't able. So we were shopping for something that could pull a boat...dare I say SUV. Yes, we were shopping for an SUV, which started with a mid sized Land Rover, then to a Dodge Durango. No luck on any of these. What did we get...a huge Ford Expedition. OK, this was bigger than we wanted, but it had what we needed, pulling power and a third row. This is the best time to buy a gas guzzler, but I was slightly embarrassed driving it today. On top of that, it defies what I would consider my moral fabric. See this link to know what I mean http://christiansandclimate.org/. OK, my only rationalization (not justification) is that it will be parked 9 out of 10 days. OK, this thing also is 10 years old and has 152,000 miles and cost us $3100 so it hopefully won't depreciate much more. I think this is a good time to buy a gas guzzler. I am going to do a little experiment and see if the "vehicle effect" will actually increase my household's vehicle miles traveled (VMT) like the travel demand models predict. Check back in a year on that one. For what it's worth, here is the beast and our new boat that we took out today for the first time. We are trying not to catch up with the Joneses, but we are living blocks from a lake and a boat is going to be tons of fun for the family and me.