These last few days have been BRUTAL to say the least. But I had one lucky turn of fate that has made it an Arctic blast in a good way. No, I didn’t drink or drug myself into a state of false euphoria. Those days are long gone. Ha. I had the chance to test drive a Buick Enclave for 5 days.

In general, as a non-car-owning New Yorker, I’m proud to take mass transit everywhere I go. I love heading underground, reading for a while and emerging in another place. It’s magical. But when the arctic wind is upon you, walking to the subway and then walking to your destination feels like a death sentence for you and your baby.

So this weekend I learned about how great it feels to own a car in the city. In fact, I’m pretty much sold on the fact that I can’t live without a luxury sport crossover. Sure, parking can be a pain but I have truly felt nothing short of lighter and more free just knowing that we had a car at our disposal. We took full advantage of not having to put on extra layers, loaded up the diaper bag and had a lot of adventures that we NEVER would have had otherwise.

Here’s what we did in 4 days on one of the coldest weekends in NYC history:

• We visited my sister on the Upper West Side.
• We went to China Town to have our favorite soup dumplings at Joe’s Shanghai.
• We visited friends who recently moved to Broad Channel, Queens.
• We went to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum.
• I went to the Jacob Javits Center and (gasp!) enjoyed myself.
• We were able to return a cell phone left at our place by a friend to the Upper East side.
• We dropped off a load of stuff at the Salvation Army.
• We even cashed in our jug of change at the bank.

I don’t think that any of our friends would say that we’re Buick people, but damn did I fall in love with this car. I expect to be romanced a little bit with a sticker price over $50K; and I was. Oh yes, I was. As suburban as the Enclave looks, it sure made traveling around Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens feel great in this frigid weather. The seat warmers, all wheel drive and the option to start up the car before we got in were life savers.  The interior was spacious enough that we had 4 adults and 2 car seats installed without any comfort issues at all. The babies loved looking out of the giant moon roof. The seats were insanely comfortable. The defroster worked like a charm.

Our only complaints are that there are some pretty huge blind spots that make maneuvering in the city a little scary.  And, the warning signals go off rapid-fire when parking and generally driving around the city due to the close proximity of, um, EVERYTHING. The warning signals definitely stressed me out but we’re pretty sure there’s a way to disable them. There has to be!

My extended date with the Enclave has me seriously second guessing my car-less family status. Whether I find reasons to drive every day or not, the little bits of freedom on the weekends and evenings add up to a lot more “profiter de la vie”. And busy families like us with friends and family spreading far and wide need all of the help we can get! #necessaryluxury