This evening I had the opportunity to check out the Fiesta's big brother, the Taurus. Now I am fairly familiar with the Taurus of yesteryear. Back in my days of field engineering with the General, I would end up with a fine Taurus rental every couple of months. The experience was decidedly underwhelming on a consistent basis. When I heard that the new Taurus was garnering glowing reviews across the board, I was understandably skeptical.

I am here to tell you those reviews are fully justified. The new Taurus is a huge step forward. The only thing that I would change from first scans would be the front grill. Now that is just my taste. I didn't get the chance to drive it tonight but all those that did gave rave reviews. A few iphone shots on the backside of the jump, apologies for the low quality

Have you ever heard someone say, "We have 4 seasons; fall, winter, spring, and August."? If you have ever lived in or visited a northern region on this planet, chances are you have heard at least a variation. I have always found it funny how each region tells the joke with an honest feeling of authenticity.

Well this year, we honestly have lived those 4 seasons. After four months of spring, we finally arrived in our month of summer. The family and I took full advantage of the warm and dry weather. Here are a few photos from last weekend.

Welcome back to the Thursday Rally Photo. It has been awhile since I posted one of these. We have been getting a little bit more attention for our exploits during the Mongol Rally and it seemed appropriate to resurrect this little feature.

I took this shot on the side of the Trans Siberian Highway. You can tell it is an important road, you know the only East West road in Russia, by the high quality material and excellent condition. That train in the background is the famous Trans Siberian Trailway. I bet those fire trucks were heading to Sakhalin to fight all the fires the Russians are sure to cause with their new pipeline.

This is the point that the Seat (in white) ceased to operate. We worked on her like mad men until it was deemed that there was no time left (our visas for Russia were about to expire and we faced Siberian prison). We ended up driving straight through from this point in the Fiesta (in blue) and made the border about 20 hours later. 15 minutes before they shut down for the day.

High quality photo here.