Prime road trip!

Elk City, OK. Came out of the Holiday Inn this morning to discover a flat tire on drivers rear side. Used the kit to pump it up. Now, what to do? Nearest Toyota dealer headed west on I-40 is 156 miles away in Amarillo and it is Sunday. They are closed. Drive more than 60 miles on goo-sealed tire? Wish the Prime had come with a real spare tire. Bummer.

 

Flat fixed at Super Walmart in Pampa TX. Yay! $10. No apparent problem with tire pressure sensor. The mechanic did get spritzed with tire goo, though. Did not find out what caused the leak. It was about a 90 minute layover and a 100 mile trip down some great two lane blacktop in the Texas panhandle. Have to get a new load of goo at Toyota tomorrow. BTW, if you're runnning this old 66 route, every Holiday Inn has at least one outdoor AC outlet within reach of your Prime. I would guess that my good luck is coming from the low numbers of people on the road in February in an areas that ordinarily don't have such great weather as we are getting. As a local told me at the Pampa Walmart, "In February, the only thing between her and the North Pole is some barbed wire."

 

I didn't need towing and the Toyota dealers were closed on Sunday. I don't think Road Hazzard is covered in Toyota care, is it?

 

Buried the front tires of the Prime into a 40 mph wind blown snow drift under white out driving conditions up on top of a mountain in Carson National Forest, New Mexico, northwest of Taos. Strange sensation as I never hit the brake. The gas pedal simply stopped responding. Tried to back out but the passenger side front was too buried. The blowing snow was unbelievable. We sat tight for about 20 minutes until two snowplows came through and one of the guys schooled me in the tow hook tool that was in my charger cable compartment. After pulling me out in neutral, he and I agreed that I would turn around and head back down the mountain. Prime was happy to be on dry high desert blacktop again. Huge detour added three hours to our drive.

The car is dirty as all get out but running like a champ. I'm not a hypermiler so take this as a regular bozo driver running at 5 mph over the speed limit most of the time and not finding many plugs to use, I'm getting 46 mpg. This is not according to the Prime readout but rather on my actual mileage.

 

The Prime pre-snow drift wipe out, being cool in Taos.

 

Hey, have you used the voice recognition navigation? That girly robot in the navigation system is nuttier than me by a long shot. My wife and I often want to strangle her if we could only wrap our fingers around her virtual neck!

 

In the Valley of the Gods, Utah.