Prius Prime – Month 6 – Finally a road trip

I was filled with anticipation last week – ready to make my first road trip in the car: a 3.5 hour drive between my home and my daughter’s new apartment in State College, Pennsylvania.  The trip would push the miles on the car over the 2000 mark and use up the first tank of gas. I took some pictures of the sunflower on my deck before I left at about 6:30 AM.  The unpleasant surprise came about 30 minutes later as I was driving on I70 (at about 70 mph): a rear tire blew out! I managed to get the car off the side of the road and then pulled further off when I looked at the tire. The car does not have a spare and the tire was too damaged for the temporary repair kit to work at all. I called my husband and my insurance company (since towing is part of our policy). Aargh!

While I waited for my husband and the tow truck, I took pictures. I did not take any pictures of the flat (too upsetting); it was calming to take pictures of the roadside vegetation,

critters on the still intact tires, and

closeups of some flowers.

The car was towed to the dealership and the car was ready to drive again my mid-afternoon (paid for by an extra warranty we had purchased when we found out it had no spare). I decided to start out again the next morning; charging up the car again overnight. This time it was more like I expected. I left even earlier – at 5:30. My first rest stop was the South Mountain Welcome Center. There is one on both sides of I70 about an hour into the trip so planned to stop there coming and going.

The next stop was a Sunoco – not for gas yet; it was a rest stop. I did buy gas in State College even though, the car still had about 1/4 tank of gas left. I later calculated that the car got about 2060 miles on the first tank of gas…but maybe for plug in hybrids that is a meaningless metric. Most of my trips from home are short enough to be completed as an EV which is why I decided to buy the car in the first place.

A few days later I headed home and stopped at the South Midway rest area on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. I like it better than the other options. This road trip is one I will make frequently enough that it’s worth it to find places that are easy on/off the highway and open all the time.

I stopped at the South Mountain Welcome Center and

Noticed the rocks on the façade of the structure and the encouragement to venture off the highway. Maybe I do that next time. As I came down off South Mountain, I got the only bug splats of the trip on my windshield!

Previous posts: My new car – a Prius Prime, week 1, month 1, month 2, month 3, month 4

Prius Prime – Month 4

The biggest milestone in the past month for my Prius Prime was passing the 1,000 miles mark and still have 7/8 ths of the first tank of gas!

That means that

• Remember to charge the car after I drive it (overnight while the rates for electricity are at their lowest) and
• Most of my trips are relatively short and done almost entirely on the EV battery rather than using any gas at all.

I am still looking forward to a road trip and anticipating it will happen when my daughter moves into her apartment near Penn State. The majority of the trip will utilize the hybrid aspect of the car rather than the EV.

Overall, I am very pleased with the car. I enjoy the quite of the EV….and the adaptive cruise control is something that has thoroughly spoiled me for the old-style cruise control!

Previous Posts about the Prius Prime: My New Car – a Prius Prime, Prius Prime – Week 1, Prius Prime – Month 1, Prius Prime and Samsung Galaxy S7, and Prius Prime – Month 3.

Prius Prime – Month 3

I am still on the first tank of gas in my Prius Prime – over 700 miles and it is finally not quite ‘full’ (although it is not even to the first mark away from it yet)! The around-town trips are almost all within the EV range of the car. I’ve discovered that using the adaptive cruise control as much as possible when I am on any street with a speed limit over 40 mph is the way to maximize the range of the battery power. I will have to take a more substantial road trip to use up the tank of gas.

I have started my volunteer naturalist work with the Howard County Conservancy so the passenger seat of the car is the repository for things I might need – a hat for if its sunny, various jackets in case it is cool, and boots for if it is raining hard.

I’ve put sunscreen and insect repellent in the door pocket.

The next 6 weeks are going to be busy ones…the only requirement to keep the gas tank at about the same level is to remember to plug in the car when I get home!

Previous Posts about the Prius Prime: My New Car – a Prius Prime, Prius Prime – Week 1, Prius Prime – Month 1, Prius Prime and Samsung Galaxy S7.

Prius Prime and Samsung Galaxy S7

I thought for sure I’d made a road trip sometime during my second month owning the Prius Prime but we took the new Honda CR-V for the road trip to Pittsburgh (more on that in the posts over the next few days). I’ve included a picture of the car with a backdrop of snow piles at the South Mountain rest top on Interstate 70.

We did tease out about how much the electricity cost to charge the Prius Prime for my “around town” driving: the car got about 300 miles on about $5 of electricity!

I’ve had my Samsung Galaxy S7 for about a month….have most of the apps I’ll use frequently loaded. I leave it on my desk when I am at the computer – plugged in so when I leave it is always fully charged.

I added the app for my grocery store (Wegmans) so I can see the coupons I clipped electronically, experimented a little with the iNaturalist app for BioBlitz and used several apps while I was traveling recently: FlightView (to get the current info for my air travel), the Accuweather forecast for where I am and where I am going, and texts to people I need to connect arrival and meetings. I also have started using the phone for (Kindle book) reading on the plane.  I bought a lanyard phone holder so the phone is attached to me (without me dedicating a hand to it) in the grocery store and on the plane. I’m still experimenting with the length of the lanyard but the holder part works very well and will attach to just about any lanyard.

I’m very pleased with my 2017 tech purchases and am still learning how to best apply them --- using the technology effectively for the way I want to live.

Previous Posts about the Prius Prime: My New Car – a Prius Prime, Prius Prime – Week 1, Prius Prime – Month 1

Previous Posts about the Samsung Galaxy S7: A New Phone

A Morning Tea at the Belmont Carriage House

The Howard County Conservancy held their annual Volunteer Tea yesterday at the Belmont Carriage House in Elkridge, MD.

I packed up two books to swap, some Zentangle tiles to give away as book marks, and Dark Chocolate Pudding (made with an avocado, 1/4 cup cocoa powder, 1 tablespoon maple syrup or honey and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla) as a sweet indulgence among the scones and egg salad sandwiches. I have a picture of one table at the set up….and then about half way through. There was a lot of friendly conversation and enjoyment of food. I intended to come home with fewer books that I took…but there were so many books (many people brought more than 2!) that I came home with three…and have already read the one about Montezuma Castle (I got it because I enjoyed walking around the place during an Arizona visit – see the post here).

On the short walk back to my car, I took a picture of the barn built from stone found in the area; it could be used for a geology lecture!

I’d forgotten about the crocus bulbs that seem to have planted in the lawn around Belmont. They’ll done by the time the grounds need to be mowed.

The front of the Manor House still seems too open without the large English Elm that had to be removed because of Dutch Elm disease.

I’m still savoring the look of my new car (the red Prius Prime!).

Prius Prime – Week 1

I’ve had my Prius Prim for a little over a week and am still learning its nuances. I’m not driving any more than I need to (i.e. no special trips to just drive the car) so it’s a slower pace for me than any other new car.

I did drive the car to Belmont for a winter hike with other volunteers. I was a little worried about the potholes on the one lane entrance road and the possibility that I might have to back up if I met another car on that same road. I was pleased that the worst of the potholes had been patched and when another car approached as I was leaving, I was near an easy place to pull off the road. I am learning to drive in a way that helps the car get better mileage, but the car switched from EV to hybrid mode on the way home…very smoothly. It was a good experience.

I also took the car back to the dealership to have the feature for garage door opener buttons to be part of the car (I don’t like to have a separate clicker). It took about 30 minutes at the dealership and a few seconds to program it once I got home. Now I’m familiar more with the dealership facilities for service although – hopefully – I won’t need them very often.

On the weekly grocery shopping day, I discovered that the hatchback easily holds at least 8 bags of groceries (maybe more if I fit them in more tightly). Another positive – the route to the grocery store and my driving pattern yielded the projected mileage in the all-electric mode for the car!

Brookside Gardens is a little further afield than the grocery store and part of the route was at highway speeds. I used the cruise control for the first time. It has some features that are new-to-me: Full-Speed Range Dynamic Radar Cruise Control. I seems to work very well and should make it easier to drive for long distances without having to turn the cruise control off. This time when the car switched from EV mode to hybrid on the way home, the car was at highway speed, on cruise control, and a long uphill climb. It was smooth enough but I heard the gasoline engine more.

I’ll post about my continuing adventure with the Prius Prime in about a month. Maybe I’ll take a short winter road trip….

Ten Little Celebrations – January 2017

January started out with a burst of travel – driving cross country between Maryland and Arizona with a stop for a week in the Dallas area. There were associated ‘little celebrations.’

Leaf earrings from a local artist in McKinney TX – I celebrated finding earrings I like a lot…and if they are created by a local artist that makes it even better. I find it very easy to remember where I purchase earrings so they are great mementos for my travels.

A day on my own – Usually when I travel, my time is full of interacting with other people and I end up exhausted after it continues for too many days. On this 9-day trip, I had one day that was almost all ‘me time’ and I celebrated the lull!

Getting to the hotel in the snow – One day I was out and about in Dallas when it started snowing. I thought it wouldn’t stick but it started before I could head back to the hotel. Dallas does not use salt and there had not been any time for sand to be out either. I was driving an unfamiliar car too. I white knuckled the drive (overpasses particularly) but made it back to the hotel without incident…and celebrated.

Then there were ‘home’ related celebrations:

Home again – I enjoy traveling but coming home again is always a little celebration.

A good night of sleep – I came home from my travels with a cold so the first night that I sleep well was cause for celebration.

A sunny day – January in Maryland has been full of gray skies and drizzle (no snow) so I celebrated one on of the few sunny days.

A new car – Maybe this is a big celebration rather than a little one. I only buy a new car about every 10 years or so…and I’m still savoring the lingering celebration of acquiring the Prius Prime.

There are instances of little celebrations in my favorite activities as well:

Anatomy of the Abdomen and Pelvis Course – This might be the most challenging courses I’ve taken on Coursera – but tremendously interesting. I am celebrating every module. Kudos to the Leiden University Medical School for producing it.

A hike and finding skunk cabbages – I enjoyed a winter hike and was celebrating being outdoors when I found skunk cabbages already up in the winter muck…and that made for a bigger celebration.

Red-tailed hawks – It seems like I am seeing red tailed hawks a lot more frequently this winter….or maybe I am just becoming a better observer. My daughter and I saw them on our cross-country road trip, there is at least one that is frequently the woods behind out house and I saw one at Centennial Park when I was there last week. I celebrate that the birds are thriving and that I am seeing them!

My New Car – a Prius Prime

Late last year, I had decided to give my 10-year-old car to my daughter/son-in-law and buy a new car for me. This weekend was the scheduled hand off and I decided to start looking at new cars last week. My husband was very leery of going down to one car for very long. At first I wanted to look at a plug-in vehicle and then decided a plug-in hybrid would be better. Most of my driving is close to home and I wanted something that would be electric most of the time but I quickly decided that I would need a hybrid if I wanted the option of taking the car on a road trip. So – when I started looking at cars, the Prius Prime was at the top of my list and the Chevy Volt was a second choice. The Prius Prime has a 25 miles estimated EV range and a 640 miles estimated total range. I was a little concerned that the dealerships in Maryland would not have the Prius Prime since so many of the cars were going to California…but there were several available at the first Toyota dealership we visited (the one closest to where we live). We took one out for a test drive. Wow! I liked the feel of the car. I had to watch that I didn’t go way over the speed limit! The car is very quiet and handles very well.

When we got back from the test drive some additional Prius Primes had been delivered to the dealership – including a red one with a white interior which is what I thought I wanted based on my web-based research. So – to shorten the story – I bought it! It was home in our garage about 4 hours later and charging at the regular outlet in our garage (it takes about 5.5. hours to charge on this type outlet).

There are three versions of the car and I got the middle one (Premium); the ones the dealer had were all this version and it is probably the most popular one they sell. The car has all the must-haves (navigation system is the highest on my list) except for the Homelink mirror (that includes a garage door opener) which I ordered; it will be installed next Wednesday.

I’ve driven it for a few short errands and put my key addresses into the navigation system. It is easy to drive and I’m thinking about what road trip I can take. My husband installed a hook to coil the charging cable when it is not in use.

This is an easy step toward a greener lifestyle!

(I’ll be posting about the next phase of my experience with this new car in about a week. This is the most different car I have ever bought…quite an adventure. Hopefully there will be some sunny days so I can get some better pictures too!)