Warbirds
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I flew into Dallas (DFW) on Monday night around 9:00pm. I had a long week coming up, I had an 8:00AM meeting in Camden Arkansas Tuesday morning- its a 5 hour drive Ive made many times.
When headed to the Avis my name wasnt on the preferred board so I had to take a little detour to get my car.
Imagine my surprise when I saw 4 Jeep Gladiator’s on the lot!
When I approached the counter I learned I had a Toyota Corolla waiting on me- I asked for a Gladiator and the lady was excited to let me swap for one.
I was pretty happy knowing how much driving I would be doing in the next week. My Gladiator was Silver with a soft top and a full 7 miles on the clock.
I left the airport and decided to try and drop the top, it was a clear night with a big moon and the temp was around 78-80 degrees outside.
I cruised up the interstate to Hope, AR and put the top on- which was fortunate. Arkansas was getting the rain from hurricane Barry and it was raining hard with lots of flooding. The road between Hope and Camden is a twisty 2 lane highway that is worn down by logging trucks and the rain doesn’t make it any more pleasant to use. The Gladiator took it in stride- I was really impressed with how good the soft top is.
The next afternoon before leaving Camden to head back down to TX I stopped and took a photo with the swollen Quitchita river.
Shortly after passing back into TX the rain quit but I was tired from a long few days so I chose to spend the night in Texarkana instead of heading all the way back to Dallas. I toon a power nap then did a little exploring and found the Atlanta Stare park- which made for a nice sunset with the Gladiator next to a nice lake.
Wednesday evening I shot a USPSA match and it was a bit of dirt road with s little mud to get to the range- I did my best to capitalize on that and got the jeep a little dirty because it seemed like the right thing to do.
Speaking of shooting I needed to know about the rear storage- a rifle definitely fits under the back seat. i found the back seat pretty clever actually.
Taking the Gladiator to a shooting range - well it drew lots of attention as this is a pretty outdoors prone crowd. Everyone wanted to crawl through it and take pictures.
Thursday I went to lunch with my old boss and we took the Gladiator- He loved it & he even asked to drive it back from lunch- He is heading to the dealership on Saturday. I expect he will buy one.
The indicator had it at 17.1 MPG when I turned in the keys & read 906 miles.
Not a single hickup or issue- I had the soft top on and off 3 or 4 times and everything was really night and the Gladiator ran great.
For me after 900 miles I would say its a pickup that is greater than the sum of its parts. People love it and it got lots of compliments, and I was really quite content with the Sport S. I would say the base radio (display specifically) is antiquated and I will spring for an upgrade there.
Good times so I thought I would share.
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