970 Mile Trip

[john1701a]

Like countless other owners who share, here's my recent road-trip story:

My cousin was getting married in Chicago suburb. So it was a road trip for my mother, sister, and I... a fantastic opportunity for the Prius to strut its stuff. And it did! The temperature was cool at first, so we didn't fire up the A/C until the final third of the way there. Then it was never shut off until finally arriving back at home two days later.

The speed limit was 65 MPH just about the entire way. That meant going 67 or 68 to keep with the flow. On the only 70 MPH stretch, no speeding, since there I had the highway almost to myself. Chicago rush hour was the extreme opposite, very crowded & slow. Oddly, we were sandwiched between a first year Accord-Hybrid and a second for awhile there. I hadn't realized the badging was so different until then.

Immediately after getting off the highway, the Prius got the most expensive gas I've ever purchased: $3.39 per gallon. That particular stop was well worth it though. I saw my first ever Smart Car. It looked extremely out of place, not resembling anything else on the road by a long shot. Its future here should be interesting.

Anywho, there was only 14 miles on the tank when I left my driveway. That and the following brought me 861 miles total, using 16.425 gallons of E10... which calculates to a very pleasing 52.4 MPG. Yeah! Even better was the remaining travel, Multi-Display measured so far at 56.4 MPG after 122 miles. So it's pretty safe saying I got about 53 MPG for the trip overall, especially considering the efficiency increase you'd get from non-ethanol blended gas.

That's fantastic... but not as good as how many Prius I saw. They were everywhere!

It was a great trip!!!