If you have a big family, need lots of room and it fits the budget, the Ford Expedition is a great choice! Ok, it’s an amazing choice!
We got to try one out for a week and see what we thought – I’m used to driving a small Focus. I can drive bigger things, but 99% of my driving is a tiny car. Which I love. I love zipping around, in and out of small parking lots and things like that. So, I was a bit scared to try out the Expedition. It drives great, handles well, I drove it on the highway and loved it. Then, I decided to do my normal errands – tiny parking lots, tiny spots, lots of midday traffic in those lots….and the Expedition blew my mind. I could park it like I park anything else. My escape plan had been to just use the park assist – it’s so good now it can park you in any spot, parallel or not. And to my giant surprise – I did not have to use it once, all week! I parallel parked it, I fit into tiny spots – it was amazing! Huge confidence booster for sure!
The Expedition we got seats 7, very, very comfortably. You can also get it for 8 people. You might think, oh lots of other vehicles do that. But yeah, when you get that 3rd row, you lose all your cargo room. So, I was shocked when I put up the 3rd and opened the back hatch – what the heck? There’s an entire giant cargo room left – enough for a huge trip to Costco without rearranging and shoving things in! It drives like a regular vehicle, til you park it beside a van and realize how much longer it is. It’s crazy! But, it really drives like a small car. You forget how massive it is. And if one days, SHTF, this is the vehicle you want. It was like having a half ton, but covered. And there was even a roof rack if you wanted to get crazy with hauling things. It can tow too of course – and has all the fancy towing buttons and all that. We didn’t need to tow this week at all, since we just crammed things in the Expedition, as you’ll see.
So, what did we do with our week? Lots – and some just couldn’t get pics of. Like going to La Barriere park super late at night to look at the stars….then realizing, what the heck? I can’t get a nice shot of this. So, we just watched the stars, saw some deer and had a nice family time out – we even picked up some Mcd’s late at night, which we never do since we were out late anyway. I’m a big fan of enjoying the moments – I take a lot of pictures, but a lot of it is just in my memory.
I did do a crazy day of errands with my cousin who had foot surgery – so, we had to bring along her wheelchair. Even though the Expedition is high up, it was pretty easy to load in the back. And unload, and load, and unload and so on. I did have quite a few bruises from it, but the SUV was ok. We went to my fave places, Bothwell for cheese, Menno Mart for some furniture, Nature’s Pasta for giant cases of pasta, Cob’s Bread for all kinds of goodies, the mall, Home Depot, Michaels – my arms got quite the workout that day! 🙂 It was great to have so much room, and be able to easily take out the wheelchair when we needed it. Especially when you see our giant boxes of pasta! We checked out some greenhouses too – why not when you’re out and the weather is lovely!
One thing I wanted to do was try to make a pallet planter – figured why not wait to use the Expedition to get soil, plants and everything I’d need. Tons of room in there and it was a really fun project. Which then totally got us in a project type of mood.
It just happened to be giveaway weekend in Winnipeg, and also a huge community garage sale on Saturday. So, Friday night we went out and on our way home started to notice cool stuff everywhere. The first thing we grabbed was a reel mower – more about that later. Just threw it right in there. Went home, then realized, hey, that was fun. Let’s look for more! So, we all got back in and drove around more and found this super cool Ikea light fixture and a bunch of other fun stuff. Our ceilings are low in our hundred year old house, so we decided we would turn it into a garden light. We spray painted it – which I had never really done before and now I’m in love – and we strung old solar lights we had through it – and it’s so fun! It looks a little odd in the daylight, but once those lights turn on, it’s really cool. And it was fun to do! Picked up a lot of other stuff too for later projects.
Back to the reel mower – why did these go out of fashion? We saw so many on curbs, so we picked up the Lee Valley one we liked. We have a gas mower, which I’m not a huge fan of, the smell, noise etc.  So, it ends up you can’t just sharpen the blades, you need a compound and a crank to do so. We went to Lee Valley, got the kit for $30 and now we are good for years and years. It mows so well, it’s actually faster than getting boots on, taking out the other one, checking gas, getting it going and so on. And you can mow the lawn any time, and it’s great for kids too! Not toddlers, I mean my 12 year old! 🙂
The next day we hit up the garage sales and in under an hour we filled the Expedition. I got two huge loungers for $20, kiddo got a new to her bike and a big music stand. I had been looking for loungers for backyard for a long time, either they were hundreds each, or not comfy – well, these are super comfy, spray painted them (yay!) and cleaned the cushions and they are the best!
We loved the Expedition. I really didn’t expect to. I know it’s an amazing SUV and total luxury, but I thought the size would keep me from driving it a lot. Totally the opposite. So, if you’re a little daunted by the size, give it a test drive and see what you think. Have to say too, the sound system in it was great – perfect background for all our fun little trips. And you can tell it’s a great car when Mom decided on a Friday afternoon she needs a chair from Steinbach so everyone has to hop in, in weekend rush hour traffic to get there – and everyone has a blast. Even when the chair is sold by the time you got there! 🙂
I do love all the stuff in it – heated and cooled seats, all the tech stuff – it actually had tv’s in it which is really neat. Also has wifi. We were pretty busy chatting and just having family time so I think that’s more for roadtrips and if you commute same road with kids. My favourite thing is just how well it drove and how safe you felt in it. Perfect for a bigger family, if you’re into sports and need that extra cargo room – if you were torn between an suv and a truck, this really is a good mix. Not sure how they did it, but they did. It was unbelievable on the highway, couldn’t ask for more, it really ticked all the boxes. This was a vehicle you just wanted to keep driving – it was so fuel efficient and comfy and just fun to drive. Can’t recommend this one enough if you’re in the market for this style.
Huge thanks to Ford for the week, it was a lot of fun and wow did it ever feel weird going from this monster SUV back to my Focus again! 🙂
This post describes the fantastic experience of riding a Ford expedition.