"Anybody caught selling macrame in public should be dyed a natural color and hung out to dry." - Calvin Trillin

I'm in Grand Rapids, MI where it is FREEZING! My rental car (more on that later) has an outside temp reading and when I left the Detroit airport it read 70 degrees and according to the radio the winds were gusting to 40 mph. By the time I got to G.R. it was 50 and they have a frost warning here tonight. I'd forgotten what cold feels like, but now I remember that I do NOT like it.

The flight was fine. I got a middle seat between two guys about my age and also wearing blue jeans and T-shirts. Two of us had ball caps. None of us talked. That works.

I had the choice between a Toyota (don't know what model, but a sub-compact) or a Chevy SSR. I took the SSR just because the Toyota would be predictably vanilla. I might hate the Chevy but at least it would be different.
So far I've just driven it across the state, and the 40 mph wind got in the way of fairly judging the handling. Not to worry; I promise to put it through its paces.
"Drive it like you rented it."
But some early reactions:

• It has more spunk that I expected. I drove a PT Cruiser once and it was fairly gutless. Don't expect the SSR to throw you back in the seat but the word peppy fits. At 55 you can put your foot in it and it quickly downshifts and responds surprisingly well. 
• The cup holders are back even with your hips. Why do care makers do that? 
• The floor has no place for the driver's left foot other than drawn up by the seat. A three hour drive is a long time to have my leg bent that much. I'll put up with it for four days but at 6'2" I would not want to own a car configured like that. 
• There's a nice storage area on top of the dash. The lid is about 8" square. Touch the front of the lid and it pops open to reveal a compartment about 3 or 4" deep, enough for some CD's or.... 
• The cruise control buttons are on the left side of the steering wheel and are very, very small. On the same panel are two more buttons. One is an i, which I figured out was for info. Pressing it repeatedly cycled through a series of displays on the dash including outside temp ("cold!"), mpg, projected range, and the psi in each of the four tires. (They were different by up to 10 psi.) I never did figure out what the tiny button below that does. Maybe tomorrow. 
• I'm sure the car has AC but I haven't any idea how to turn it on. No button or dial is labeled AC. 

Tomorrow I'll drive around town some as the reasons for the trip kick in, so we'll see how it handles. And I'll be using the HEAT, not the AC!

I've been up since 3 a.m. Phoenix time, and I don't even know what time that is here. I just know I'm sleepy.