I had to drive out to help with some things at my mother-in-law's cabin that's about a 3 hour drive from where we live, west of San Antonio down about 100 miles of hill country roads. The cabin is on a "dirt" "road" that's about a quarter mile or so of non-pavement from the roadway. This "road" is mostly on exposed limestone bedrock, is rather steep, has some extreme ruts and volleyball sized boulders on it, barely enough width between trees and branches to fit an ordinary vehicle and is just generally a quite off-road "road".

My wife voted on Saturday for us to take her car, a Lexus IS250. Of course every inch of the drive was a breeze in this car, since it involved interstate highways and the like, and then kind of windy but nice TX state highways that snake through the hill country. But that last quarter mile was white knuckle insanity with a car with 5 inches of ground clearance. It was a matter of creeping along at a snail's pace to try and find the smoothest possible line and hope like crazy that a big rock didn't find its way into the oil pan or one of the wheels didn't find a rut. I was contemplating a $1000 towing bill the entire time.

I had to haul a bunch of stuff there Sunday including an air compressor, an assortment of various power and hand tools, some materials like lumber and big cabinet doors etc., so the Jeep was the only choice. I was foolish enough to leave the back window out when I put the rear hitch carrier on where the air compressor was being carried, so I couldn't open the tail gate and therefore couldn't get the window back in. We drove there with the top up but tail window out and the 180 or so miles of pavement was hellacious in the Jeep, especially with a day-old memory of that trip in the Lexus. First of all it was right about 100 degrees the whole afternoon while we were driving and the AC just could not keep it cool. And the whistling of neighboring cars' tires on I-35 was bad enough coming in through the back window opening, but ROT rally was going on in CenTX so we also had to share the road with obnoxious harley riders with their super loud exhaust and there was just no relief. The Jeep's ride was bumpy, wallowy and rough generally all the way there and it was much slower going down the twisties than the Lexus. In the Lexus you just set the cruise on 75mph and turn the steering wheel and don't worry about corners. Not so with the Jeep. But that crazy last quarter mile of unimproved "road" was a complete breeze in the Jeep. I mean, it just rolled over every piece of it paying no mind to the line or ruts or anything, just go, totally ho-hum, and in stark contrast with the white-knuckling in the Lexus the day before.

It was an interesting contrast for me, I mean how many times do you do a 3.5hr trip and back two days in a row in different vehicles? At the end of it, it was clear that the Jeep is really at its worst on the highway, it's quite pleasant driving around town at sub-40mph speeds and it's heaven once the going gets rough. The Lexus is perfectly at home and lovely on the highway or really any smooth paved road at any speed, quiet and efficient. But all it takes is 1/4 mile of "off-road" road and suddenly it's virtually useless. Glad we have one of each!