On the Road with the Pod

I really love my new car but it does have one drawback--there's no input for my iPod on the sound system. I read somewhere that Mazda will be adding that option in the 2007 models, but that doesn't help me now. In my Saab I used the cassette adapter, which worked great. The Mazda doesn't have cassette player, so I use the device that tunes the iPod into a blank FM station. In the Bay Area, with so many FM radio stations, I often have to deal with static. I didn't know how it would do on the road.

I am happy to report that it worked just fine, thank you very much. I first tried it when we hit Highway 5, and the station I found worked all the way up through California and over to the Oregon coast. I had to adjust the station at the coast, and once again as we circled Seattle. But that was about it. One nice added feature is that it charges while it plays, so there's no danger of running down the battery.

We didn't keep it on during the entire trip. We like to check out the radio stations in different regions, both AM and FM. We didn't travel that far, but you still get different perspectives in news and sports. That's especially true if you can find the independent stations. Everywhere you go you get the views of the right, the left, and the Christian evangelists. But it's hard to beat the Pod for music selection. I've downloaded enough of our CD collection to keep both Ken and me happy. Since Ken did most of the driving, I was able to do some discrete editing of the shuffle selections--skipping through some songs that I knew he wouldn't like or I didn't feel like hearing.

My next long road trip will be to LA at the end of October. I'll be by myself, so I'm glad to know that the Pod will be with me.