Wind and Ice

Another good trip to Colorado Springs today--to get my Toyota truck which I had to leave there when I picked up my Prius on Saturday. My GF went with me today, and she brings a bright outlook on things.

We ate lunch at a restaurant we'd both been to but had nearly forgotten about, right near one of the famous old hotels that I see has become a Hilton. A couple of errands, and then we got my truck and headed back across the mountains toward home. This would involve a drive across South Park which is a large, relatively flat area surrounded by mountains. It's about 40 miles across, around 9000 feet high, and can be a real weather-magnet! Today it was very windy from the north, and that was causing snow to blow across the road.

When this happens, a little of the snow may accumulate on the road, where it gets pressed down into ice by cars on the highway. Also, each car runs over a few of the blowing flakes, adding to the growing sheet of ice. Before long, there can be areas of clear, extremely nasty ice on the road--plus a very strong crosswind. That was the case this afternoon, though morning had been fine. It was 21 degrees up there.

Anrahyah was ahead of me, driving my truck. I was following in my Prius. Neither of us had a problem. But particularly with the strong crosswind blowing toward the oncoming traffic, this was a genuinely scary situation.

More about the Prius: The fuel gauge is unlike I'd ever seen before. It's very non-linear. The fuel tank holds over 11 gallons. When the gauge reads half, only about two of those gallons are gone. When it reads about a third, another two gallons are gone. So, when the gauge says you have a third of a tank, you actually have nearly two thirds of a tank! I have not yet discovered why it works this way, but I noted it for future reference.

Enroute to the Prius' first fuel stop, it got 44.8 miles per gallon. Most of this was highway driving, and was about what I'd been told to expect.

There are a couple of noises characteristic of the Prius that are not heard in most other cars. One seems to come from the continuously variable transmission. Often, you hear it allowing the engine to accelerate--apparently to allow more torque to reach the wheels. Another is, of course, the feeling of silence when the car is stopped, say at a traffic light. The engine only starts after the car begins to accelerate. In a parking lot, the car may several tens of feet before the engine jumps into action. Silent in a parking lot--that may not be so good! I look out particularly well for pedestrians who may not hear me gliding along.

We still don't know how to use the GPS navigation system, but it's obviously quite amazing. There's a whole instruction book about it, but clear directions were still difficult to find. In several ways today, while playing with the Prius' computer, I really believe we discovered more questions than we did answers.

The Prius is not just a car--in which you learn to start, shift, and stop. This car is a moving computer console! Plus what you see, nearly every function the Prius performs must be computer controlled. And it works very well.