Tech with a twist of lime! & FLHybrid Club.

First, we met up with a nice man driving a dark colored Honda Insight, our friend gave a thumbs-up and we all waved, he gave waved back and at some point, we did what I call the hybrid dance. We drove for quite a few miles together until we parted ways, we waved goodbye and continued onward.

I call it the hybrid dance because it always seems to happen regardless of who's driving. Driver A meets Driver B and they end up exchanging relative positions on the road. This is where contact is made, a simple thumbs-up, a smile, even a toot-toot of the horn. When traveling opposite directions only contact is made, this time a quick flash of the lights is sometimes included. A quick flash of the fog lights or low-high-low, or off-high-off. The dance is omitted due to safety and efficiency concerns (why turn all the way around, though in the past when there were fewer hybrids on the road this was not uncommon).

Then we met up with a nice couple driving a green Camry hybrid they were fun too, we traveled for quite a while until the couple pulled off the road suddenly, my group was worried at first, but we didn't see any hazard lights so we continued on. We were slowed down a great deal, not too long afterwards, but continued to make great time. A few minutes later (15 to 30), my group sees a familiar silhouette closing on our relative position. (Kacey why do you keep saying relative? Because, on the road you don't usually sit still you are there to get from one place to another.) It was our friends in the green Camry hybrid! We continued traveling together until my group stopped for cheap Georgia gasoline and a few sandwiches from Subway.

Subway now offers pizzas we were not able to sample them because this particular subway did not have any in stock yet. Gas was $2.37 where we filled and it took less than $18 to fill up. We arrived back in Gainesville down one bar on the fuel gauge. Our mileage for the trip up was an unimpressive (for my driving) 47 miles per gallon. While we were in Columbia, we averaged 40 MPG (my mom is not a hybrid driver she drives a Mustang normally, but I am training her slowly for efficiency) even with her 40 MPG and freeway trip I brought the mileage back up to 47 MPG. From Subway/Shell to Gainesville we used one tick on the fuel gage (I've estimated these to be about one gallon each) and arrived with an average of 51.5 MPG.

On the way on two separate occasions we had a Honda Accord hybrid (HAH) zoom past us at a high rate of speed both were a dark color similar to the insight, I've yet to come across a HAH that wasn't zooming somewhere, unless it was parked. We also passed a few Highlander hybrids, and spotted a Ford Escape hybrid, there was a white Mercury Mariner hybrid traveling the opposite direction (my first sighting in the wild), both generations of the Honda Civic Hybrid, an aqua-pearl classic Toyota Prius . The only models we didn't see were the new Ford Escape, the Saturn Vue Green-line and we weren't even looking for the "contractor special" "hybrid" trucks. (I don't feel these are true hybrids but kudos if you have a work need for one of these vehicles and chose to get the hybrid over the regular that was a responsible choice.)

We had a great trip, thanks to all of our traveling companions for keeping it interesting.

Kacey Green
www.grlt.com, www.FLhybrid.com
"Tech with a twist of lime!", "Promoting the spread of clean personal transportation technologies."

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Havier said:

How about those truckers?

March 19, 2007

Kacey Green said:

One wouldn't let me merge onto the highway, but truckers being jerks aren't usually a problem for me, we all tend to get along. I'm a very courteous driver and they recognize this.

March 20, 2007 | url

Suzette (Kacey's Mom) said:

We did have a wonderful trip, and Kacey taught us alot about hybrids along the way. The ride was guite comfortable, I was in the back for both legs of the trip(by choice), alot of room was had by all. I do recommend this car for anyone doing alot of driving. ( I may have to consider parking my Mustang????)

March 20, 2007

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