At least once a year, I like to get away from the city to decompress. This past week, I took the two youngest kids to The Pinery provincial park on the shores of Lake Huron. It's quite the drive, and we've got quite a bit of gear, so I needed to drive something much larger than my bicycle.
I made the road trip, about 225 KM each way, in a Nissan Armada. The Armada had all the essentials for a family road trip, which I'll outline here.
It's Roomy!
Full disclosure: I invited at least four others to join me, so I was fully prepared for us to be more than a party of three. But in addition to the valuable human cargo, I was taking:
- a cooler
- a tent
- four sleeping bags
- a propane camping BBQ
- stuff (clothes, bathing suits, towels, food, etc.
The Nissan Armada has plenty of room for all, and I could have easily added another person or two if warranted. It actually seats 8! Space was not a problem on this adventure.
It's Smooth as Silk
The six year old tends to get motion sickness from longer drives, but not this time! The Armada is a smooth operator that gets the job done. What a pleasant drive, and so quiet. Comfortable, quiet and no emergency stops required.
The Intelligent Mobility Suite
When you're at the helm, you need a slick system at your fingertips for flipping between podcasts, satellite radio, terrestrial radio and your phone. Android Auto is great for this. But the Intelligent Mobility Suite is more about safety.
Intelligent Cruise Control adjusts the Armada's speed, so you don't have to constantly brake and accelerate in fluctuating traffic. When sensors detect a sudden slowdown, the Intelligent Forward Collision Warning alerts the driver to slow down. Other Intelligent items in the suite include tools to detect blind spots and cars or other objects when backing up.
At least there was some intelligence on this trip!
I'll write more about the camping trip itself in a moment, but for now I'd just like to thank the good people at Nissan for an engineer's gift for a road trip, the Armada.
