... and again

Saturday morning we kept on our car quest and tried out Fords and Subarus. I've owned a Ford for the last 18 years and they haven't been bad despite their overall bad reputation among my friends. In any case, I wanted to find out about the Escape Hybrid. Friends back in CA will find out (proudly) that every one Ford makes apparently gets shipped out there to meet the CARB requirement, and if we were to place an order for one out here, we'd wait 7 or 8 months!!! Just goes to show that good policy IS the precursor to real change. So we tested the conventional Escape, and to our dismay, we really enjoyed it. Every seat fit in there nicely, and it was maneuverable, and its emissions are good even in its non-hybrid conformation. Hmmm. Plus it's very affordable.
We moved on to Subaru, ready to be impressed, and well, we found the interior dimensions much too similar to our current car's, which is to say, hard on tall people.
At this point, we're a little confused. We've decided to take a break and test infant seats instead, looking for the most compact model that might buy us time. A neighbor who reads the NYT carefully every day told us he read that VW was going to start importing a Passat turbodiesel wagon that gets 51 mpg, and that might just be the ticket. Or maybe when we vacation in CA next year we'll buy the hybrid there. Or something. Headache!