As you probably didn't notice, I was gone for the first week of May. I was on vacation, first time in about a decade. I talked to the AAA agent, since I had no where to go, but wanted to get away from MI, and had a whole week to myself. So, we discussed options, and I went with Myrtle Beach, SC. Got a sweet package deal for an oceanfront room for a week, and the reservations were made.

One of my conditionals was that where ever I go had to be drivable, preferably in one day. According to AAA, it was about 15 hours, a bit of a drive. Well, with the hotel reservation form, I put the address into the Nav system the night before.

Well, I left later than I intended to, and was somewhat distressed when the Nav system displayed 16:34, sixteen hours and 34 minutes to get there, 963 miles away. Already late too, meant I wouldn't get there until 11:30 PM. Not good.

I had also picked up a Trip Tic and some tour books from AAA, though since it was just me, I found trying to use the Trip tic to be rather difficult, fortunately, for the most part, the Nav system and the Trip tic were in agreement. (1 slight deviation in MI, 1 slight deviation in Ohio, the first one I used the Trip tic route (Which I knew to be better), the second Nav system.)

I ended up stopping about every 5 hours, to change the CDs in the changer, stretch my legs, etc. I also tried to play the fuel game a bit, and fill up in states where it was cheaper, but that's a pretty hard task when you have no idea if the next state is going to be cheaper. I also used both the Nav and the Trip tic, Nav for directions, Trip tic for a larger picture, so I could plan stops for meals and whatnot. For the most part I used Cruise Control, and even take off my shoes for the trip. Unfortunately, I seemed to be holding true to travel time, so I sped up () to get there earlier, from 65 to 70 MPH.

Somewhere in Virginia, one of my biggest complaints about the FEH became a big problem, that darn drivers side arm rest began to really rub me the wrong way, so much so that my elbow was sore (and looked a little bruised) so that I was resting my arm in my lap. I got out of the Mountains (beautful scenic trip BTW) and into North Carolina.

As night wore on, and NC seemed to last forever, I sped up again, to 75-80 MPH. Traffic was light, and darkness had settled, which meant I was pretty much in pitch black. Nav system had updated now I'll get there at 10 PM.

Now, I don't think of Myrtle Beach as an Orlando 'big' destination, but I do think of it as a pretty major destination. Why in the world doesn't it have a highway connecting it to the rest of the world? Why doesn't it have a single sign letting you know how to get to it? You can imagine my surprise when in the pitch black, the Nav system tells me to get off at the next exit. A mostly unmarked and uninteresting exit. Hey, it's been right so far. So I get off, and drive along this little two lane road that's under construction, through the residential neighborhoods. In the pitch black night. At this point, the Trip tic isn't of much use.

Then, the Nav system, through the winding residential road, loses my position, and asks me to hit enter to replot. I do, it does, we continue. The little road becomes a much larger freeway.

I continue on in the dark. I start to pass other cars, all with their maplights on. Ah, must be going the right way. I come to the official Myrtle Beach Welcome Center, with gas stations, hotels, pools, tourist stores, etc. And I keep driving, as the Nav system still says I'm 90 miles from my destination.

Back on the black Expressway.

Until finally, a sign, Myrtle Beach one way, North Myrtle Beach the other. Nav system stays true, and I go to North Myrtle Beach. I get to the "city", and am washed in lights and traffic. The Nav system leads me right to the parking lot of my hotel, and I EV the vast majority of my time from entering into US-117 to the hotel lot. I check in, and get to my room. 10:05 PM.

The vacation is great. I fill up in town, use the Nav system to find a massage parlor (No funny stuff, just a a nice relaxing massage), a major attraction, (Broadway on the Beach), and a great resturant. Temperatures seems to be in my favor, 74-86 all week, low around 65. Fantastic MPG weather. I notice almost right away that it's "harder" to get the ICE on, I'm able to pull away in EV mode at higher speeds and for longer periods of time down there. Unfortunately, the light timing sequences for the traffic patterns blows. While I eventually learn the sequence, you hit the majority of the lights red, regardless of speed.

I debated setting home as the hotel parking lot, but decide not to, instead creating a seperate entry in the Nav system for it.

Now, I hadn't reset my trip odometer since I left home, and at that point crossed the thousand mile marker. Much to my dismay, the electronic trip odometer resets after 999.99 miles, no 1K trip odometer. WHY?

When the time to leave comes, I hit home and away I go. On an entirely new route. Okay. Through the back roads of SC and NC, crossing into North Carolina on some tiny little road. Whatever. I'm taking it easy anyway, I'm leaving in the afternoon, and I'm planning on stopping for the night and get home the next day anyway. When it comes time to get onto the expressway, the Nav turns red/orange. The Nav system states, "The route you have chosen contains incomplete data, safe driving is the responsibility of the driver." Oookay. I continue on the Expressway, and it tells me to make a U-turn. States the safe driving message, then tells me to get off. Then replots, and tells me to continue on the current road. Good. This time, I stick at the lower speeds, pretty much 65 with the Cruise Control, in the right lane, and get passed by everybody.

Rest of the day, no problems. That night, I switch discs, knowing that I'm going to be stopping in the next few hours for the night, I'm going to want street level mapping, as I'm going to be stopping at a hotel. After I switch discs, it has me quite a distance off the expressway. Makes a bit of sense, as I'm driving through the mountains in Virigina, it probably lost where I was and there's no clear satilite signal. And tries to get me to get onto the expressway I'm on. I try to get it to figure out that it's wrong, to no avail. I even eject and put the disc back in. No good. I'm getting farther and farther "off course" according to it. I get the safe driving message and the map turns red. Well, I turn off the system, and if that doesn't work, I'll get off at an exit and reboot. Well, the system off display gets funky, almost matrix codelike. I turn the system back on, everything's normal, I'm on the expressway according to it. No problem.

I stop that night at a hotel, next day I finish the trip home. Funny thing, once I got back to MI, and the roads I knew, my FE shot up rather dramatically.

I congratulate you on making it through all that, now for my actual thoughts:

One disadvantage to having a hybrid, you don't stop for gas a lot. Which means you don't clean your windshield a lot. Lots of bugs can accumulate as you drive.

Macomb Township MI to Myrtle Beach SC, 963 miles, or just over 2 tanks of gas! (And the return trip is the same tankwise.) Even at expressway speeds! Trip down FE about 29, trip back about 33 MPGS! 2005 miles, about $110 in gas. Not too bad.

I'd like to know from a Ford Engineer why the drivers left elbow rest is hard plastic. It's painful on a long trip. In fact, I'm thinking about getting one of those Dr. Scholls foot/heel pads and putting it on the door to act as an elbow rest.

I'd also like to know why the digital trip Odometer resets at 1K.

The Nav system was a godsend. There's no way I could've made this trip without it. At any point in the Nav or Map modes, you can hit enter and the voice will repeat your "instructions". While it's great to have, there seems to be a pretty clear need for a "refind position" button.

People seem to be far better educated about hybrids. Even though I was on vacation and trying not to talk about it. I did, to the people at Hard Rock Cafe, at the hotel (You check in your vehicle), at the massage parlor, and the big one, at the Virigina Toll booth. Why was it big? Because she was rather informed, she read my FAQ!

In the gorgeous weather, my FEH seemed to hate the ICE. For the most part about towning, the ICE only came on when the battery was drained. I managed to get up to 38 MPH in EV mode from a dead stop.

I saw a number of hybrids, from a nice white FEH in Myrtle Beach, to a dark shadow gray in Ohio. All FEHs or Prius. All passed me, they don't seem to be hypermilers.

It's been pretty much cold and rainy all week here in MI. It's kind of interesting to see how quickly the ICE jumps on, compared to in Myrtle Beach, where several times I was shocked to find the ICE was still off after starting up after the light changed.

Looks like next week I'll get my oil changed and some other stuff done, check up, etc.

 

Loved the trip report -- makes me want to take a road trip with my husband in tow (vs. the whole extended family, which we did the second week after taking ownership of my '06 FEH). Something leisurely, more under our control than family coordination (we don't have kids, yet, and try to enjoy that fact when it's just the two of us.)

Some comments, not to ignore the rest of your write-up at all:
I have the same problem. It doesn't help on road trip/highway drives, but I tend to put my driver's side window down and just rest my arm on the open window rest at slower speeds (<45mph).

Now that's just silly. Annoying and silly! Course my portable GPS (high end; Garmin Streetpilot 2720) fills up its track database even on a drive from San Antonio to Dallas and back, so I lost my data track of the trip which I'd hoped to download to my computer and plot for posterity's sake. In my case it's a data storage issue; how much could tracking another digit 'cost' in the trip odometer's case? hehe

Had the same happen to us a few times on our San Antonio->Dallas->San Antonio trip. Never got that message on our Streetpilot 2720 which we dual routed with on the trip, for fun (not a lot of variance, but the processor in my Streetpilot is faster than the FEH's GPS system, so we had lots of slightly delayed vebal instructions. None that would cause driving hassles, though.

Stop for ergo/rest breaks if nothing else. We were travelling with family so there were kids (8, 11 years of age) and retirees so there were inevitable bathroom breaks, soda/water refueling and lotto ticket purchasing (the retirees in the group, oddly enough). Gave me a chance to clean off bug muck, and top off the tank because everyone else felt weird hearing we didn't actually need gas anytime soon.

The nav system is better than my initial impressions, as a long time GPS user (can't even count how many GPS units I've had, and right now between hubby and I we have something like 8 or 10 units for various purposes -- vehicle nav, aviation, hiking/geocaching, mountain/road biking, hiking/geocaching with kids (built in walkie talkies), etc.

Sounds like a great trip and like I said makes me want to take a leisurely one with the hubby after having done the extended family route just a month or two ago.

 

I'm still trying to understand why other people see Myrtle Beach as the destination to hit in SC. It's a dirty, rednecky, awful beach - and you were probably there during one of the series of loud, annoying bike weeks that plagues Myrtle this time of year. There are no good roads, and it's the worst-planned community in terms of logistics in possibly the whole US. I sure hope you and yours had a great time there, but if you're ever inclined to return to our podunk-*** state, hit the beaches of Charleston! The whole area is much nicer and more quaint, and Kiawah Island's beach was just ranked #3 in the US.

 

The Cycle fest was the next week, so I left before that.

Like I said, I had no where to go, and when the travel agent suggested it, I went for it. Besides, it was quiet, sunny, and there's some nice places around. I gotta agree that whoever laid it out is in need of some serious questioning, as well as the aforementioned lack of expressway acess. I'll freely admit, living in SE Michigan has spoiled me in some ways, especially with the road system. While the roads themselves may not be great, there's always 7 or 8 routes to anywhere you want to go, and it's all laid out very rationally. There's lots of wide expressways (minimum 3 lanes) that go in every direction, and the Nav system seems to work much faster and with less error than it did out of state.

Also, keep in mind, this is my first Nav system as well, I have no handhelds, in fact, never even seen anyone use one before in actual use. So, while the FEH may not have the greatest, it's sure nice when you are used to nothing.

 

I've been nothing but pleased with the Nav system. It's never let me down, and got me out of a couple of jams ( once in a Sierra snow storm at night! ).

I've had mine loaded with the full 1000 pounds of cargo, and crossed the Rockies with it loaded from L.A. to Denver ( Sea-level to 10,000 feet to 5,000 feet ) and got 34 MPG at 65 MPH.

I'm amazed more every day. Got a new job with a 9 mile commute ( vs. my old 1.5 mile commute ) and my cummulative FE is going up and up.

I'm in the mid-40's for MPG when driving in the mid-40's to 55 MPH day after day.

Cool!
-John