Back home from New England

Submitted by R. Neal on Sun, 2007/10/21 - 10:32am.

As you may have gathered, we finally took some time off for a road trip to New England. Here's a trip summary...

Driving Summary:

• 14 days, 13 nights, 10/7 - 10/20
• 3421 miles driven
• 136.2 gallons of fuel
• 25.1 MPG overall trip average
• $2.779 average fuel cost per gallon
• Approx. 25% interstate driving
• Best tank: 29.1 MPG
• Worst tank: 20.1 MPG

States:

• Tennessee
• Virginia
• West Virginia
• Maryland
• Pennsylvania
• New Jersey
• New York
• Connecticut
• Rhode Island
• Massachusetts
• New Hampshire
• Vermont
• Maine

Points of Interest:

Blue Ridge Parkway
Woodrow Wilson Library & Museum, Staunton VA
Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg PA
Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, Philadelphia PA
Valley Forge National Historical Park, Valley Forge, PA
Delaware Valley, Pennsylvania
Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania
Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Plymouth,, Massachusetts
JFK Library & Museum, Boston MA
White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire
Acadia National Park, Maine
Bar Harbor, Maine
LL Bean, Freeport ME
Southern Vermont



Factchecker's picture
Mileage ain't too shabby.

Mileage ain't too shabby. Was that in the Freestyle?

R. Neal's picture
Yep. Loaded down with a lot

Yep. Loaded down with a lot of junk. We could actually get it all in the Prius (we tried) but it was tricky. Since we had to load it all in and out at every stop, we decided to take the Freestyle. It was a lot easier to load and unload and made more room for pupster, and it was more comfortable for us.

Besides being on mostly secondary roads and a bit of in-town and around the parks driving at our destinations, I think the mileage was affected some by the fact that almost all the fuel we got up there past Virginia was 10% ethanol.

Factchecker's picture
I think we would have done

I think we would have done the same. That's one reason we decided to keep our two old station wagons instead of buying a Prius or other smaller car.

10 percent ethanol

When I first got my 97 RAV, I got very poor milage with the 10 percent ethanol gas (somewhere between 21 and 24 MPG) and so switched to pure gasoline for a while. Eventually, I went back to the 10 percent ethanol and I noticed that the milage was better. (24-29 MPG) Now days I make a point of using it as my small contribution in the fight against global warming. I've also become much more aware of my speed when driving (both keeping the speed down and trying to drive at a more consistent speed) and these days I'm very, very happy with the ethanol blend. With a mix of town and highway driving, I usually get 300 miles to a tank. And, no, I don't know the exact size of the tank, but it's around 11 gallons.

Pam Strickland

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut

New Hampshire

See any political signs..or adds ect?

R. Neal's picture
Bill, did not see much in

Bill, did not see much in the way of ads or signs. Just missed an Edwards town hall meeting in Keene, NH. Caught a little of it on C-SPAN the next morning, though. He does a lot better when he goes off the prepared speech script and talks directly to the people and answers questions.

We were at this diner in Vermont having lunch. These two guys came in and sat near us. Couldn't hear much of their conversation, but they looked like Young Republicans and we figured they were advance men on their way to NH. I would have bet money on it.

When we left and got outside, we saw their van. They were vinyl siding salesmen.

Interesting

so now we know another reason to dislike Republicans. :)

Pam Strickland

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." ~Kurt Vonnegut

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