We drove 1250 miles each way to Boston, and 300 miles or so each way up to Bar Harbor, Maine and Acadia National Park. A little over 3100 miles in ten days.
I really appreciated the tips from people who had gone that way ahead of us. Thanks.
We didn't see a single accident along the way anywhere. Here is one reason, I'm sure:
We took I-80/I-90 across the country. We must have been radared 50 times on the trip. I have never seen so much enforcement. No construction delays. Lots of traffic, though. Couldn't just set the cruise and forget about it like out here. I got a transponder for the toll roads and that really saved a lot of time and scratching around for cash. Ohio is the only state that you need cash for.
Navi: This was the first really long trip that we have taken. The navi handled all of it really well. Even the back roads in the national park were on it. It does a good job with Boston's rotaries, too. Who thought those up? Navi knows you are coming to a rotary and tells you ahead of time which exit to take. It says "take the second exit in the rotary", or whatever. Minimum button-pushing. Just say the phone number and you're done. You really come to appreciate the voice integration. It would have been a real pain to get around Boston without it.
On hilly terrain, with the manual transmission and a full load (four adults and luggage to Maine and back) you really have to manage engine power to drive smoothly. Downshifting sooner to keep revs/power up is better than trying to lug it over the top and hoping for the best. I'm not used to that here in the mid-West. When I test-drove an automatic, it was always downshifting to keep the revs up. With just two of us in the car, there is plenty of power and you can pretty much set the cruise control and forget about it.
Noise in the car was not an issue.
We averaged 37mpg for the entire trip. Fewer than 100 gallons burned. Less than two gallons per hour. Headwinds and A/C use seemed to account for any variation.
If you are traveling I recommend
Hotwire.com: Discount airfare, hotel reservations, car rentals, vacation packages and cruises for your hotel reservations. Except for this charming place in Maine, we didn't spend $50 per night for hotels along the way, including the Boston area. Everything worked, and was as advertised.
Within Boston, public transportation is easy to use, even for tourists, and takes the anxiety out of the parking problem. We drove to train stations and parked there for five bucks. We did a lot of walking and hiking. Of course, in the big city, country people like us see strange sites, such as this weird mutant car we saw near Boston Public Garden.
We saw a lot of Fits in Maine. Not so many in Boston, but quite a few on the road. There are a ton of CRVs out there, that's for sure. With just two of us in the car, the Fit worked well for us. We were glad to have the navi, the iPod integration, and the interior flexibility.
Recommended: clams (with bellies) at Clam Shack in Ipswich, and raw oysters at Neptune Oysters in the North End. We sure enjoyed watching the Red Sox lose at Fenway, as well.
We were in Boston when the tall ships were in the harbor. We spent a spectacular Saturday afternoon on a water taxi:
We bought the Fit to go cross-country in. Ten thousand miles on it now since January. Time to get another oil change, clean off the bugs, and vacuum the crumbs. Round trip to STL coming up this Saturday.
Cheers.
Fit country.
like Sea food
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