Fargo to Portland / How To Get 70 MPG
Alrighty! So I'm back home with my family for the first time since May 2nd. It's the longest I've been away since my 2005 country-wide road trip. It feels really weird to be back here, almost like I'm a guest as opposed to an occupant. Everything seems larger and I seem smaller. It's great to be back but I think it's better that the road trip is done. It was a long series of trips (I've put 3,600-miles on my car alone over the last 7 weeks) and I think I'm done with the open road for a spell.
So on Tuesday, Ryan and I left Fargo, North Dakota. As shown in the photo above, he drove a loaded U-Haul towing a trailer with a Dodge Neon atop while I brought up the rear with my trusty Geo Metro. We also had Ryan's cat, Dakota, who is one of the few cats I know who actually enjoys traveling. Because we had a weighed-down U-Haul, we decided to drive the whole trip at 50-55 miles-per-hour (80-88 km/h) as opposed to trying to keep up with posted speed limits of 75 mph (120 km/h) on most of the roads between here and there. This meant our 1,500-mile trip would take three days instead of two (Barring any disaster). Day one was our big push- We drove the 611 miles (983 km) west through flat grasslands to Billings, Montana, the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. The hood on my car began fluttering only miles west of Fargo and I realized the securing-clasp had failed. Luckily, the second latch never released, but I spent the whole trip wondering if my hood would fly up at any given moment.
Ryan and I had el-cheap-o GMRS walkie-talkies that allowed us to chat back and forth across the void between the cars and in cities. It was so entertaining that we're now considering getting real Citizens' Band (CB) radios for our cars. As it was, anyone within 12 miles of us on our broadcast frequency (GMRS channel 8) could possibly have heard us recite movie quotes while we sailed along. It was a riot. Every time we left an interstate freeway for the final time, I'd come on the line and say, for example, "Farewell, Interstate 90, and we thank you." The phrase is a take on a quote from Apollo 13 when the astronauts bid farewell to their Lunar Module lifeboat, Aquarius, as they jettisoned it before Earth re-entry. Ryan would then come on and continue the quote, saying, "She was a good ship," which would then cause us to recite other quotes from movies. This would continue for miles down the road and the lighthearted wackiness kept us from going insane.
Day two was our big mountain push through the Rockies of Montana and northern Idaho. We made it to Spokane, Washington, that night but not before running into some odd people. We had stopped for gas in the tiny town of Wallace, Idaho, (Which was the filming location for Dante's Peak) and when we pulled up to what we thought was the only gas station in town, a family of oblivious foreign tourists blocked the way for our U-Haul. We spent an agonizing 15 minutes waiting for them to figure out what they were doing and asking them to move before it finally happened. To add injury to insult, the station was out of unleaded. Later on that evening, we had Spokane to deal with. That tragic town is just laid out funny. It took me an hour to find food for us that night. Ohh, and practically all the road surfaces between here and Fargo blew. Apparently, here in America, we pave our roads with crumpled up pop cans, shredded tires and the tears of motorists.
Thursday was a cake walk; only a few hundred miles from Spokane to home here near Portland. We had made it! What a relief that nothing horrible happened to our cars and even the cat survived. Although, it appears that one casualty of the trip is my trusty Fuji digital camera. I bought it for my big 2005 road trip but apparently I've spent these last three years working it to death as the lens failed catastrophically on the trip and no longer opens. I tried taking it apart but it's beyond my patience for such an obsolete device. Just an excuse to get a newer, better camera anyway! Kind of a shame though- The camera and I had seen and done a lot.
I sat down yesterday and was able to run some numbers about the road trip to see if driving at 50 mph had any effect on things. As it turned out, it had an unreal effect. Normally, my car gets 40 mpg. Even with all the luggage I had in the car, at one point on the trip, I got seventy-one miles to the gallon. 71. Seven, one. By driving slower. I ended up spending only $86 on gas for the 1,500-mile trip. I'm completely sold on the theory that driving slower--though time consuming--saves gas. From now on, no matter where I'm going, 50-55 is how I'll be getting there. Even the U-Haul got better-than-expected gas mileage. They said the truck we rented gets at best 12 mpg unloaded. We had it loaded to the gills and we towed that Neon and guess what? By just driving slower and taking a third day to get here, we got 14 miles to the gallon out of the U-Haul. Ryan spent HALF on gas than he expected. Not bad at all.
Click image or here to see full size!
So on Tuesday, Ryan and I left Fargo, North Dakota. As shown in the photo above, he drove a loaded U-Haul towing a trailer with a Dodge Neon atop while I brought up the rear with my trusty Geo Metro. We also had Ryan's cat, Dakota, who is one of the few cats I know who actually enjoys traveling. Because we had a weighed-down U-Haul, we decided to drive the whole trip at 50-55 miles-per-hour (80-88 km/h) as opposed to trying to keep up with posted speed limits of 75 mph (120 km/h) on most of the roads between here and there. This meant our 1,500-mile trip would take three days instead of two (Barring any disaster). Day one was our big push- We drove the 611 miles (983 km) west through flat grasslands to Billings, Montana, the eastern edge of the Rocky Mountains. The hood on my car began fluttering only miles west of Fargo and I realized the securing-clasp had failed. Luckily, the second latch never released, but I spent the whole trip wondering if my hood would fly up at any given moment.
Ryan and I had el-cheap-o GMRS walkie-talkies that allowed us to chat back and forth across the void between the cars and in cities. It was so entertaining that we're now considering getting real Citizens' Band (CB) radios for our cars. As it was, anyone within 12 miles of us on our broadcast frequency (GMRS channel 8) could possibly have heard us recite movie quotes while we sailed along. It was a riot. Every time we left an interstate freeway for the final time, I'd come on the line and say, for example, "Farewell, Interstate 90, and we thank you." The phrase is a take on a quote from Apollo 13 when the astronauts bid farewell to their Lunar Module lifeboat, Aquarius, as they jettisoned it before Earth re-entry. Ryan would then come on and continue the quote, saying, "She was a good ship," which would then cause us to recite other quotes from movies. This would continue for miles down the road and the lighthearted wackiness kept us from going insane.
Day two was our big mountain push through the Rockies of Montana and northern Idaho. We made it to Spokane, Washington, that night but not before running into some odd people. We had stopped for gas in the tiny town of Wallace, Idaho, (Which was the filming location for Dante's Peak) and when we pulled up to what we thought was the only gas station in town, a family of oblivious foreign tourists blocked the way for our U-Haul. We spent an agonizing 15 minutes waiting for them to figure out what they were doing and asking them to move before it finally happened. To add injury to insult, the station was out of unleaded. Later on that evening, we had Spokane to deal with. That tragic town is just laid out funny. It took me an hour to find food for us that night. Ohh, and practically all the road surfaces between here and Fargo blew. Apparently, here in America, we pave our roads with crumpled up pop cans, shredded tires and the tears of motorists.
Thursday was a cake walk; only a few hundred miles from Spokane to home here near Portland. We had made it! What a relief that nothing horrible happened to our cars and even the cat survived. Although, it appears that one casualty of the trip is my trusty Fuji digital camera. I bought it for my big 2005 road trip but apparently I've spent these last three years working it to death as the lens failed catastrophically on the trip and no longer opens. I tried taking it apart but it's beyond my patience for such an obsolete device. Just an excuse to get a newer, better camera anyway! Kind of a shame though- The camera and I had seen and done a lot.
I sat down yesterday and was able to run some numbers about the road trip to see if driving at 50 mph had any effect on things. As it turned out, it had an unreal effect. Normally, my car gets 40 mpg. Even with all the luggage I had in the car, at one point on the trip, I got seventy-one miles to the gallon. 71. Seven, one. By driving slower. I ended up spending only $86 on gas for the 1,500-mile trip. I'm completely sold on the theory that driving slower--though time consuming--saves gas. From now on, no matter where I'm going, 50-55 is how I'll be getting there. Even the U-Haul got better-than-expected gas mileage. They said the truck we rented gets at best 12 mpg unloaded. We had it loaded to the gills and we towed that Neon and guess what? By just driving slower and taking a third day to get here, we got 14 miles to the gallon out of the U-Haul. Ryan spent HALF on gas than he expected. Not bad at all.
Click image or here to see full size!