I made an unexpected 400-mile round-trip drive this weekend in our Silverado and have a couple observations.
A) Don't drink a half-cup of coffee before bouncing over the concrete-slabs that comprise the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. Luckily, the gut-foam-inducing slabs cease at the base of the Sepulveda grade.
B) Even when it's raining pretty hard, windshield wipers are largely unnecessary when you're the only one on the road at 5:00 am on a Sunday morning. Without oncoming headlamps to light up the streaking rain drops, the view through the windshield is less distracting than the wipers would've been.
C) XM satellite radio is nifty. Once I was out of range of my favorite local terrestrial stations, I was very pleased with the range of selections available on XM. Eventhough I'm not a big fan of the digitally compressed sound quality, the sometimes ardent downpour didn't diminish the signal strength one iota. Even going through a short tunnel didn't run out the play back buffer.
D) Flipping the rear seats up and out of the way and throwing a blanket on the floor makes for a generously sized dog room complete with bed, water, and a couple toys.
E) I averaged between 11 and 14 mpg going "a little over" the speed limit.
Chris Walton, Chief Road Test Editor, 6790 miles
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