apple juice

Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I turned to my wife and said,

“Honey, I think I need to take one my spare fuel containers and get some diesel for my trip down to Rochester tomorrow, just in case.”

With an amused look, she replied, “What on earth would you need that for? Can’t you just fill up in the morning?”

“Yes, but, see, I’m almost to 700 miles on my tank, but I’m not sure if I’ll make it all the way down there without running out, so I want to have some backup. But I have to try for 700, I’M SO CLOSE!”

She just shook her head, and told me to come to bed. I went to sleep deciding that during the drive down, I would decide whether to go for it or now when I was getting close to the Conoco near the Koch refinery. (Where I normally fill up, if possible)

This morning, as I was drawing near to the point of no return, the mental math was running rampant. “Okay, well, if the light isn’t on yet, I should have at least 60 Miles left on this tank, but it’s about 66 miles from here, so I may run out….”

But as I approached the turn, I could see the light was green, so I just kept on going….

About 15 Miles from Rochester, the light turns on…:

Almost there….

700!

The Final tally, 701.1 Miles

I filled up with the Koch Gold in Rochester, 14.46 Gallons, which makes my fuel Mileage 48.5mpg for that tank. Not too bad!

Okay, so yes, I am a super geek. Nothing I can do about that!

A little Bogey news for all my car enthusiasts out there. The latest tank netted me 425.7 miles on 10.3 gallons of diesel, working out to 41.1 mpg. Not bad for a little tyke.

I’m still looking forward to the all-highway tank to see what that gets me. I think I’ll be able to give him a good workout on a roundtrip to Minocqua and back.

I almost hit 500 miles on one tank of fuel today, the final tally was 497.6 miles on 12.75 gallons of diesel. That works out to be about 39 mpg. I still can’t consistently break 40 mpg (really not all that bad). I’m pretty sure that the umm, poor, mileage is because the majority of my miles are the 1.6 miles to work in the morning and 1.6 on the way back. Not good for the mileage. And I like to stick my foot in it all the time.

Sometime soon Sonja and I are going to take a road trip to Chicago or something. We’ll see how the mileage goes then.

Time for the second oil change.. first I’ve ever done. (bought him with 6,956mi) From here on out, it’s oil changes every 10,000 miles. Pretty amazing, eh?

The sky was clear and the roads were fast for our trip to welch village today. 85 miles round trip, and smiles were on our faces as we carved up the turns leading down to welch. (and then we carved up some turns at Welch!)

I washed him up afterwards, since I had to show him off a bit at work tomorrow, so here’s a pic when he’s all nice and clean:

Well, some of you may have been wondering what the big news was. We’re not having a baby. But we did get a new car. It’s the culmination of about 3 years of research, followed by a frantic week of the old explorer dying (more or less) and me searching the 7-state area for a TDI.

For those that aren’t familiar, the TDI is VW’s Diesel engine in North America. It’s 1.9L and makes 90hp at 3750RPM, but it makes 155ft-lbs of torque at 1900 RPM. So it’s a little beast down low.

The other awesome thing about it is the mileage. Fuel Mileage. (Can’t say gas mileage anymore, cause it runs on diesel) I reset the gauge when I picked up the car today (so I’m not sure if it was totally full or not), but on our trip home today, 169 miles, we got 39.2mpg.

I can’t say enough about the car, I’m very excited. There are tons of cool features. (like the daytime running lights that turn on when you release the parking brake). But also, lots of practical things, compared to the explorer. For example, Sonja and I can have a normal conversation at 75 miles per hour. The sunroof doesn’t whistle when you hit a crosswind, etc.

Anyways, like a geek, I have a spreadsheet to keep track of the mileage. Also like a geek I’m going to go get the owner’s manual and read through that.

I’d also like to say, I purchased the car from Eich Motor Co. in St. Cloud, and they were awesome. I worked with Kirk Winkler, and he did an excellent job of keeping me up to date, giving me a fair price, answering all my questions, etc.He even gave me his cell phone #, which he answered while he was home sick with the flu. Awesome.

Well, if anyone is looking for a 92 Explorer, 5 speed, give me an email. I’ll hook you up. Runs good, clean.