Month of February 2021 (Nat’l Avg $2.422)

Welcome to the grind (Edit by Gord - forgot to start Feb thread!)

Drove to the movie theater Saturday afternoon.3.8 miles there and back.
Sunday we drove to the forest preserve to walk in the snow. Got a little bit stuck
because parking lots were not open ?! Cook County is extremely lame.
Where I live ( DuPage County ) They open up the forest preserves at dawn , or one hour later.

Today , 25 deg F in E;lk Grove , roads still have crusty snow , which makes acceleration
tricky and gliding..............the car slows down very rapidly in the snow , so I try to maintain some
momentum. 10.1 miles fcd = 45.8 x .943 = 43.2 MPG.

 

We have a weakness for ice cream as well and I just picked up a couple cartons of strawberry ice cream. It's a local brand and our favorite. We find the quality excellent. In the summer time pre-COVID, the wife would enjoy an occasional trip to the ice cream place that mixes various creamy, frozen desserts and sundry ingredients (edit: on a cold surface). For me, I'd rather buy a 1.5 Qt container (used to be 2Qt/half-gallon) and savor reasonable servings over several days. Yes, she enjoys her Strbcks chai tea latte and I, my instant Nscf "Classico" coffee.

 

Today , 21 deg F in Elk Grove. Headwind of course.
35.2 miles , fcd = 53.6 x .943 = 50.5 MPG. Since I was gone all weekend
and didn't get back home until last night , I was greeted with a wall ( 15-16" )
of snow in front of my driveway that the plow had thrown up. The driveway itself
only had about 7". What fun. I didn't get it all done , I left the Prius on the street.
Unless it melts before I get home ( ha! ) I will have some shoveling to do when I get home today.

 

Your snow piles must be something really bad. My priority would have been to get the car off the road by reducing or removing enough of the end-of-driveway pile and "plowing" the car into the driveway before doing more shoveling. My street is narrow with houses about every 100 feet (30.5 meters). Do you not have snow emergency parking bans? Or was it because of time constraints switching cars and going to work. Then... never mind.

edit: Now off to shovel that 1+ foot of overnight snow before my work with flex around typically 9:00-5:30.

 

I have found out how fragile the Prius ( and most modern CARS ) are.
I do like to back up into my driveway and garage. It's possible the rear plastic could "blast"
thru it , but the front would try to dig in. There has been unavoidable damage to the front plastic.
I think it hangs down a bit. By "unavoidable" , I mean an orange construction barrel , you know , the
ones that are supposed to weighted down with sand so they don't tip over ? A few years ago , one of
them blew into my path at 55 MPH on a ramp. They are so flimsy that the car just swallowed it
and spit it out the back. Maybe spit is the wrong verb , lol. But Toyota wanted over 1000 dollars to fix it.

No emergency bans. But if you park there , they can't plow. I do want to drive the Civic tomorrow ,
so I will shovel tonight. But I will be home by 3:00 . so plenty of light.

 

Ouch!

No, I wasn't suggesting that you blow through frozen piles of densely packed snow, just the hopefully fluffy stuff on the other side of the pile. I can usually hack through the end of the driveway pile with a shovel unless it is frozen solid. I guess yours might be if it's been there a while.

 

Yes , that's what I will attempt to do today. Get the tall , crusty , icy stuff out of the way ,
then maybe I can get thru the rest.

 

Good luck, Edwin!

 

Decades ago, if my back wasn’t bugging me, my mtn bicycle would take me up to the 1000 acre ridge park, where I would have vistas of three valleys & mountains beyond. I would travel the old logging roads, making sure to drink ALL my water that I had. Descending to the valley floor, I would pedal over to the diary farm, where they made their own ice cream. They had a small outlet, & I became a regular, buying cones with their freshly blended ice cream. They were friendly & soon learned that I rode my bike up on the park ridge. Their one scoop cones were pleasantly big. Later, they began serving me one scoop with a little extra, later a full 2 scoops, which was over-brimming. Once they gave my 3 scoops, the last scoop they had to put in a cup. Then, I started bringing the car & buying 1 gallon cartons to take home. Just the best Ice cream, Snohomish County made.

 

Nice story, litesong.

 

It took 40 minutes , but I got her done. Also re-arranged the Civic for easy exit in the AM.

I was a regular at another place. They knew I was usually on the bike when I visited.
I would usually get some free stuff , like a pint. I don't drink anymore , but I miss the camaraderie
at the breweries. My bartender Paul told me "Edwin , thanks for dressing "normal". ( no special attire that
screams CYCLIST ).

 

Today I drove from Glenview to Elk Grove.
Still in the Civic , of course.
31 deg F , 10.0 miles , fcd = 40.9 MPG.

 

Today in the Civic.
10 deg F in Elk Grove. I actually warmed up the car for a few minutes
as I was scraping off the hard crusty icy mess off my windows.
Roads were a bit messy , but the plows tried.
16.8 miles , fcd = 36.4 MPG.

 

Today in the Prius. 4 deg F in Elk Grove.
Nice dry roads.
35.1 miles , fcd = 54.1 x .943 = 51.0 MPG.
We're planning to drive around 90-100 miles Sunday(mostly highway).
I don't like driving as much as I used to , especially in
bitter cold , but I want to see my grandson , and later in the day ,
my friend Richard. If I only get 50 MPG...........
well , that's better than most of the vehicles around here.

 

Filled up our Camry for the first time in the month that we've owned it, so take the numbers with a grain of salt since I'm not sure how many miles they drove between when they filled the car up, and we officially took delivery.

360 Miles (From when we took delivery to the gas station)
12.771 Gallons
28.188 MPG

90% city driving, and with how cold it's been here lately I'm not at all surprised. I've reset the trip meter so we should be able to get a more accurate number now.

 

I'm sure you'll do fabulously, TFF.

 

Gord, thanks for the cleanup work moving posts to the February thread.