I spent several hours as a passenger recently in a Dodge Durango, an insurance company rental replacement. It left a very favorable impression. However, if I were going to bite the bullet and put up with Dodge reliability and poor fuel mileage, I would go all in and get the V8. As it is, I'm not throwing away $50K for something I don't need (4x4 SUV).
Good to know the 411 on the Pilot, I had assumed Honda would have done a better Job.
As someone who has driven over real forest roads, logging roads (more like logging trails), abandoned roads to abandoned ski hills, used-to-be roads to canoe put-ins and over-grown farmer's fields (once got a sapling caught in the fan belt of a '69 Satelite on the way through the woods to the duck blind) using a one-wheel drive (open diff rear wheel drive and/or open diff front wheel drive), I enjoyed this bit of the article: "You’d totally drive a minivan (you’re not one of those people whose ego is so precious that you’d be embarrassed to be seen behind the wheel of
an Odyssey), but you truly need one of these jacked-up wagons wrapped in cladding like so much bacon around a sirloin. Because, as we understand it, you have children to take to summer camp. Not band camp or sports camp, and heavens no, not space camp, but the real outdoorsy kind, out in the country on a lake with canoes and archery and mosquitoes bigger than the horses. Sure you do."