And so it begins... my wife and I headed out on our cross country trip yesterday. We drove 11 hours to Bloomington, IN. What a hideous little college town, but Janko's has the best steak either of us have ever eaten. EVER!! (and I'm open to suggestions on places to see & eat in Tulsa, Santa Fe, Phoenix, Grand Canyon, Sedona, Durango, CO, Salina, KS, St Louis, and Pittsburgh.)
We finally got to hear some cicadas. I've heard them when I was a kid, but my wife never has. Near the Ohio/Indiana border, we heard what sounded like static/noise/snow through the windows at 70mph. We were talking to my sister in L.A. on the speakerphone, so my wife rolled the window down. The sound levels were absolutely stunning. It peaked for about 2 minutes, but went off-and-on for about 15. My sister heard a stat on NPR that a sound man measured the cicadas outside NPR's Washington, D.C. studios at 72db! And that's just standing in the doorway at the studio office -- not even walking INTO the woods!
At one rest stop, a soccer Mom stopped near my car to tell her teenage sons how much she loves my car, then asked me how much I like it. She went on to ask if I have AWD! It was pretty funny.
Oh, and big news! I finally got some numbers matching Edmunds!! When I was researching the car, Edmunds said the total range on a tank of gas is 512 miles. But even on Florida drives, I would get too nervous to go past 450 or so -- it was really on E. Yesterday, we hit so little traffic, that on our second tankful, the MPG went up over 22, and the miles driven so far plus the DTE added up to 510!!! I couldn't believe it! To put it in perspective, when we left the house that morning, my avg MPG (before resetting it for the trip) was 16.4 and with a full-full-full tank, DTE was 278. I've been setting the cruise at around 77 since the cops are working BIG TIME this Memorial Day Weekend. We're going through "high risk" tornado areas today (Bloomington, IN to Tulsa, OK) so I have to make sure I get some storm spotter ham freqs before we head out.
I wanted to take a picture of the trip odometer and the DTE, but that's alright. You get the picture. So I'll post this useless picture of what my car looks like after 760 miles, including 20 miles of cicadas.
Not to mention, some people haven't seen Deep Bordeaux yet. As the name implies, it looks like a red wine.
We finally got to hear some cicadas. I've heard them when I was a kid, but my wife never has. Near the Ohio/Indiana border, we heard what sounded like static/noise/snow through the windows at 70mph. We were talking to my sister in L.A. on the speakerphone, so my wife rolled the window down. The sound levels were absolutely stunning. It peaked for about 2 minutes, but went off-and-on for about 15. My sister heard a stat on NPR that a sound man measured the cicadas outside NPR's Washington, D.C. studios at 72db! And that's just standing in the doorway at the studio office -- not even walking INTO the woods!
At one rest stop, a soccer Mom stopped near my car to tell her teenage sons how much she loves my car, then asked me how much I like it. She went on to ask if I have AWD! It was pretty funny.
Oh, and big news! I finally got some numbers matching Edmunds!! When I was researching the car, Edmunds said the total range on a tank of gas is 512 miles. But even on Florida drives, I would get too nervous to go past 450 or so -- it was really on E. Yesterday, we hit so little traffic, that on our second tankful, the MPG went up over 22, and the miles driven so far plus the DTE added up to 510!!! I couldn't believe it! To put it in perspective, when we left the house that morning, my avg MPG (before resetting it for the trip) was 16.4 and with a full-full-full tank, DTE was 278. I've been setting the cruise at around 77 since the cops are working BIG TIME this Memorial Day Weekend. We're going through "high risk" tornado areas today (Bloomington, IN to Tulsa, OK) so I have to make sure I get some storm spotter ham freqs before we head out.
I wanted to take a picture of the trip odometer and the DTE, but that's alright. You get the picture. So I'll post this useless picture of what my car looks like after 760 miles, including 20 miles of cicadas.
Not to mention, some people haven't seen Deep Bordeaux yet. As the name implies, it looks like a red wine.
