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Before I go on, I'd just like to emphasize my point about a different vehicle with a little math as your situation is pretty extreme.
You say you're traveling 700 miles back and forth to home constantly. By that I'll assume nearly every weekend. Traveling 700 miles at 20 mpg (your hwy rating on the Rodeo) that trip will consume 35 gallons of gas. At the current national average of $3.69 per gallon that trip will cost you $129.15. Since we're assuming you're doing this nearly every weekend (50x a year for simplicity sake), you are spending $6457.50 a year in gas just to go home and back! That doesn't include any other driving at all.
Now, lets say you pick up a beater Chevy Metro because you do love the Rodeo and don't want to get rid of it. You pay $1500 for it. Now, that same trip takes 15.9 gallons of gas (44 mpg hwy rating) which costs you $58.70 per trip and $2935 annually. After one year you've now shelled out $4435 for buying the Metro and driving it back and forth to home. So, you have an extra $2000 in your pocket and you still have the Rodeo for when you want to drive it. Now, you would still have to pay insurance on the Metro so that would eat into the $2k (unless you transfer insurance off the Rodeo in which case you'd probably save even more). But, it gets even better. The second year year you drive the Metro and not the Rodeo just on the trip home and back you're now saving the full $6457 - 2935 = $3522 per year.
Lets take it one step further now. If you sold the Rodeo you would be upwards of $6000 ahead of where you would be otherwise after one year. Thats no small chunk of change! Is the love for the Rodeo really worth $6000 plus $3500 every year after that?
The alternative is that you could do a bunch of modifications, get ~10% (a guess, we don't have many Rodeos here) better mileage and save ~$640 per year minus the modification costs. Or, you could go home less.
The choice is yours. We'll still help you mod the Rodeo. I just wanted you to see the numbers.
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