First weekend trip!

It’s official. I got the car. And while I don’t want to confuse PriusChat with the Oscars, I have several thank yous to dole out. First to the members of PC – especially the veterans who supply an enormous amount of information for hybrid virgins like me. You guys answer the same questions every day with incredible grace. As many others have said – thanks to you I have never been so knowledgeable about a car purchase as I have with this one. Thanks to Stephanie at Koons Toyota, Easton MD for exceeding my expectations for customer service.
Yes. I ran the border. The Dealer Region border that is. Took my Saab for one last road trip – driving straight through from Boston to DC and landing with friends in the DC area. Saturday we wandered to Maryland’s Eastern Shore where I picked up my IV with solar Prius and said goodbye to the Saab. Next morning I was off on a roundabout return trip that was designed to follow the break-in rules and have fun at the same time. I took slower state highways up through Gettysburg and Lancaster PA, NJ, up the Hudson River in NY and then got on the highway to zoom home. Over 780 miles of mostly rolling hills and some grades with the AC on, I averaged 52 MPG and 48MPH.
The sunroof is great – I think it’s the biggest/widest sunroof I’ve ever had. The solar panel ventilation was nifty. I had left the car out in the lot of the Visitor Center at Gettysburg. When I returned to plot the next leg of my route into the nav, I wasn’t looking for the ventilation, but I noticed it when I got in. It was definitely cooler than it would have been. (Wish I’d thought to use the remote AC (doh!))
Just having the fob in my pocket or purse and not having to really use it was very cool. Love that. Was happy with the sound system – I had brought an audio book for the trip and was happy to find that there was very little road noise to distract from the sound system. The Bluetooth worked well. My phone synced up with it – although I have not tried to upload my contacts yet. Those I talked to on the system said the sound quality was very clear.
Overall, I was impressed with the handling of the car. Went down a particularly steep and windy street and slipped into B just to see what the effect would be and was able get all the way down without braking. It also worked well on a couple of steep downgrades. There’s a more substantial feel to this car compared to the GEN II I drove last year- nice thunk from the doors. The nav worked well – I’m still figuring some of it out – when I knew where I was I realized it lead me in some funky directions, but I loved being able to wander home on this trip and know that the nice lady inside the nav would get me where I needed to be.
I’m going through the owner’s manuals a little at a time. I really want to better understand the various hybrid displays to understand what they all mean. I know that the times I had to push the car up a grade and go into the Red Zone (I figure red = bad) the normally quiet ICE roared up as I pushed to try to maintain speed. I was not trying to drive any differently than I would normally so that I could see what sort of mileage I would get without ‘trying’ – I was pretty impressed that the car performed well and didn’t need any special driving technique to get better FE than advertised.
Bottom line: Is it wrong to love a car?