Trip Report

3200 additional miles now resides on my odometer, thanx to an all too short trip to Haliburton, Ontario, Canada. The Prius performed this drive to absolute perfection. Fuel mileage remained in the upper 40's throughout most of the trip with a couple of exceptions. The drive between Detroit, MI, and Haliburton, ON, resulted in 51.2 mpg by the computer. Calculated came out to 51.5 due to bladder effect from the cold. The second exception came from the stretch between St. Louis, MO, and Oklahoma City, OK. Here I calculated 51 mpg with the computer saying that I got 54.8. My overall trip average came out to 46.8mpg. As always, I maintained the posted limit to a maximum of 65mph.

I generated a bit of attention at the US/Canada border crossing. First, for taking the wrong line in, and second for stealthing from that gate to the customs parking area to be razzed for the gate mistake. The RCMP officer took intense interest in the car due to the silent running. He got his friendly razzing done as fast as he could, and then wanted to know all about the car. :mrgreen: I think I now know how John 1701a feels when he generates that much attention over the car. I also noticed a couple of people pointing and then talking amongst themselves about the car in front of them (me) on a couple of occasions - sweet.

The unit measurement switch on the dash was of course very handy. It was cool to be able to set the cruise control to 100 - kph that is.

The trip itself was four days of snowmobiling in the Haliburton and surrounding trail systems. We had a meet of some 60 people, and had tons of fun lake and trail running. We also had a charity raffle and canned food drive to benefit the local area charities. My overall mileage on the sleds was approximately 335 miles over the four days, with two of them covering well over 100 miles.

It sure is sad that the US automobile industry is so grossly inept at building cars of the quality and caliber of the Prius. Toyota has a great thing going, and they deserve the reputation that they have for product quality.