MY HOLIDAY CRUZE
AND WHITE CHRISTMAS
By Paul Borden
Going
north for a winter vacation is not exactly high on my personal “bucket
list,” assuming I even have a bucket list, which I don’t though maybe
I should consider one.
If I ever do create such a list, visiting cold climes will not be on
it. I’m betting that Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson didn’t have
that on theirs.
Yet, five days before last Christmas, there I was heading north up
Florida’s Turnpike, the trunk and backseat of the new Chevy Cruze I
was driving packed with luggage and Christmas gifts, steadily watching
the number on the instrumental panel’s ambient temperature gauge
steadily growing smaller with each passing mile.
How low can it go?
That I would find out later. Suffice to say, it went low enough,
especially for someone who has become a weather wienie after years of
South Florida living.
I mention the Chevy Cruze.
I had thought an SUV or wagon of some sort was going to be required to
lug the grandkids’ Christmas haul up to my daughter’s home outside of
St. Louis, but I was wrong.
The Cruze, a midsize sedan Chevy brought to the U.S. for the 2011
model year, proved more than adequate for the task with its 15.4 cubic
foot trunk providing the bulk of the stowage and the foldable backseat
handling the spillover.
The Cruze also provided a very comfortable ride and had to be more
fuel efficient than any SUV would have been. Equipped with a
four-cylinder turbo engine, it is rated at 24 mpg city, 36 mpg high.
My figure in about 3,000 miles of driving for the trip, mostly
highway, was 29.4 mpg, but it no doubt would have been better had I
kept the speed down just a bit.
A small portion of the highway driving, too, was off the interstate
and on two-lane roads in the mountains of southeast Tennessee.
What was I doing there?
Good question. While I readily acknowledge the value of interstates
and how they have give us so much flexibility and convenience in
highway travel (I would hate to contemplate driving from Miami,
Florida, to St. Louis on the old highways; the trip on U.S. 41 from
Miami to the Georgia-Florida line no doubt would be an all-day
affair), I do get bored with them. All those gas stations and
franchise food stops at the various exits tend to begin to look alike.
Given the opportunity, and the time, I’ll get away from such monotony
when I can.
This time, that opportunity came a few miles up from Chattanooga on
I-24 in southeast Tennessee. At exit 127, I got off the interstate and
headed toward Altamont. Beyond it was my destination high on the
Cumberland Plateau.
Back in the late 1970s and early ’80s, we used to have family
gatherings in a small community called Beersheba Springs. I call it a
community because even “village” doesn’t really fit.
Essentials -- the fire station, post office, couple of grocery stores
(one with gas pumps), and library -- are all strung out a couple of
miles along a two-lane road designated Tennessee state route 56. Most
homes sit back in the woods, out of sight from the highway. You get to
most via gravel roads.
There is no downtown, no offices, no fancy restaurants. About all it
has -- for us, any way -- is memories.
Once upon a time Beersheba was a popular resort destination drawing
visitors from as far away as New Orleans. The onset of the Civil War
kind of ended those days of glory, and after an attempt to revive the
hotel as a resort failed following the war, the Tennessee Methodist
Assembly purchased the grounds and turned the facility into a summer
church camp.
It was fun to see again, even though the morning fog obscured what is
a spectacular view of valley below. We then backtracked back to I-24
and resumed our journey north.
My advice is for you to find your own “interstate breaks” and side
trips. It may get you to your destination a bit later, but it’s often
worth it.
The time on two-lane highways allowed me to appreciate the Cruze’s
handling. The 1.8-liter, turbocharged four-cylinder engine, which is
standard in the top-of-the-line LTZ, pumps out only 138 horsepower and
148 pound-feet of torque, delivered to the front wheels via a
six-speed automatic, but it didn’t labor when faced with the inclines.
(A non-turbo 1.8-liter four-banger is also offered on Cruze LS models;
the mileage and horsepower figures are about the same, the torque
figure slightly lower.)
The Cruze’s cabin appointments reflect the emphasis on upgrading its
interiors GM initiated a couple of years back, a definite improvement
over the Cobalt model it replaces in the Chevy lineup. I always felt
past GM sedans had a spartan feel about them with hard lines and cheap
materials throughout. That’s not the case with the Cruze.
Controls are intuitive to operate, but one modification might help. It
was easy for the passenger sitting in front to bang the blower knob
with a knee, resulting in a sudden blast of warm, in our case on this
trip, or cold air from the heater/AC.
My appreciation for the Cruze did not dim with our time in the St.
Louis area either. It adapted to the cold weather (temperatures
dropped into the 20s), better than I did.
In fact, I’d have to say the Cruze played a key role in the success of
the holiday trip, which featured my first white Christmas since I
don’t know when. It was only a gentle dusting of snow, which began the
day before, not anything like the winter storm that paralyzed the East
Coast about the same time. But nonetheless it was snow.
And the good thing about it?
There wasn’t enough snow to delay our return. As we retraced our
pre-Christmas route, even down to the one-night stop-over in Atlanta,
I watched with delight as temperatures climbed back into the 60s the
farther we progressed south on the the final leg of the journey.
We were soon back home for the new year with a renewed appreciation
for both Chevy products and our South Florida weather.
