Introducing Gemma

As a very frequent business traveler I often get asked what’s the best way to defeat jetlag.  Until now I would have said something about sleep, eating light and drinking lots of water.  But here’s a new one for you – how about going to the car dealership 12 hours after landing, testdriving a few SUVs and writing a really enormous check?

We knew we’d need a really big car.  We also knew that my criteria --  1) it should look cool  2) it should fit our bags and 3) it should have a sunroof  -- were not very sophisticated.  So we enlisted the help of Skip, who loves car shopping – as well as an informal survey of our facebook friends.  We had it narrowed down to the Nissan xTerra, the Toyota FJ Cruiser and the Ford Escape.

Before we could even test the xTerra a few friends told us it was simply not a comfortable choice and taught us a valuable lesson in car frames – something about unibody vs truck blah blah blah.  Seeing the xTerra in the flesh so to speak, it was definitely too small for our haul.

The Toyota FJ cruiser was next on the list – if you haven’t seen one, go google it.  They are an adorable modern retro beach truck.  Probably too small. And definitely too expensive as there aren’t too many on the used circuit yet.  Don’t be surprised if we think about this later after our road trip – it’s still one hell of a fine looking automobile.

Finally we had the Ford Escape.  Susan told me a hysterical anecdote about this model.  It seems this is the replacement for the Ford Bronco – remember the Ford Bronco?  It was famously used in the car chase by OJ Simpson. You have to picture a conference room full of Ford executives concerned about their image post OJ – hmmm, let’s think of a new name for the Bronco…and what do they come up with? The Escape?  Really?  No one thought that was a tad bit ironic?  Anyhow, it’s a decent car and we’d probably have been very happy with it. That is, if we had seen one before we met Gemma.

Skip was so excited about his personal shopping assignment that he went to the car dealership the day before we arrived to do reconnaissance for us.  When we asked for a report he told us about the GMC Acadia.  This one hadn’t even been in our consideration set.  And while we trust Skip to have exponentially more car knowledge than us, he kept rambling on about the speaker volume button in the trunk and how great this car would be for tailgating.  You should know that I really don’t like football, and the chances of us tailgating are pretty slim. 

We humored Skip and gave the Acadia a test drive.  I don’t know anyone who drives a GMC.  I wouldn’t even begin to know who their target market is.  But that Acadia is one sexy automobile – leather seats, power everything, DVD in the back seat, 7 seats including 2 captains chairs in the first row of back seats, XM radio and onboard navigation system, etc.  And get this, not one, but 2 sunroofs.  We were smitten.  It rides like a car but is hugely cavernous.  The search was over, time to write the check.

We took the car home just an hour or so later, and had to come up with a name.  Andy was on G’s for GMC and stopped on Gemma.  It’s obvious, yes, but it has an extra special meaning.  You see, we’ve been watching an awful lot of Sons of Anarchy lately, trying to catch up to the current season, and Katey Sagal’s character is called Gemma – she’s one beautiful woman who doesn’t take any crap from anyone.  What better name for our new vehicle?