Wikipedia says, “Shakedown cruise is a nautical term in which the performance of a ship is tested. Shakedown cruises are also used to familiarize the ship’s crew with operation of the craft.” We had our own shakedown cruise of sorts. It was our trip from Denver to Kansas City. We got to try a few things out we’ll need to do regularly during our year-long project:
- Packing all our gear into the Prius, without a cargo carrier on the roof
- Unloading stuff we need nightly for staying in motels without unloading everything in the car
- Driving a Prius that’s packed like an overladen cow
Overall, our shakedown cruise was a success in that we learned a lot.
First, we learned that we still have too much stuff. We did a “test pack” of the car a few days before leaving, and everything looked good then. But we left a few things out that we needed to pack for real. For example, we assumed food wouldn’t take up much room – WRONG! And we assumed Beth’s sleeping bag could be squeezed into any hole – WRONG! When we got down to actually packing so we could leave Broomfield for the last time on Thursday, we had more than we could fit in the car. We had to give some more of it away to charity and we sent two boxes of stuff ahead to Beth’s sister’s house in Kansas City, so we could deal with it here.
So while we’re here in Kansas City, we’re doing yet more downsizing. Some of it’s easy; Beth brought some books and artwork she’s taking over to her family home. I brought a box of CDs and DVDs that I’m ripping onto a hard drive so I can recycle the discs and the box. If I have time, I’m going to make another pass through all my clothes and try to eliminate more duplicates (I may have more pants than I need). And I bought a waterproof compression sack for Beth’s sleeping bag, and some similar sacks for my clothes. With these, you put stuff in them, and then squeeze the extra air out; they have a one-way valve so the air leaves but can’t get back in, and the end result is the stuff takes less volume.
We’re also trying a few things to pack smarter. For example, I bought three GRID-IT panels to more efficiently pack cables and small electronic thingies. In the future, we will not take a few bottles of wine in our cooler (they take too much space). Plus, one thing I learned from the two-week car camping vacations we used to take years ago is that packing and unpacking gets easier the more you do it. For example, we learned on only the second day of the shakedown cruise that if we arrange the stuff in the Prius right, we can get our suitcases in and out via the back seat doors, without having to unpack all the camping and other gear behind them. This will be useful when we’re traveling between cities, but staying in motels instead of camping each night.
Despite being loaded down, the Prius did pretty well on the shakedown cruise. Our highway mileage ranged between 40 and 46 mpg, down from the usual 50 to 60 mpg, but not nearly as bad as it would have been if we’d had a Thule or Yakima cargo box on top of the car. Not being able to see out the back was a challenge. It makes parallel parking impossible, and diagonal parking dangerous. I may get some of those little convex backup mirrors to stick on the main exterior mirrors; those would help the driver see into the blind spots. Acceleration was slow, of course, but the Prius is never very speedy. Plus, I’m a bit of a hypermiler, so I drive super mellow as it is. The only other thing I can think of is it’s annoying to not be able to recline the seat. Beth and I switch who’s driving pretty regularly, because she has back and leg problems if she sits still for too long. When Beth takes over driving, I sometime like to recline and rest my eyes a little (though I can never really sleep in a car). But when the cargo area is packed right up to the backs of the front seats, reclining isn’t an option.
Friday, we’ll take what we’ve learned and spend another couple days on the road driving from here (Kansas City) to the badlands of South Dakota to see Mount Rushmore. Meanwhile, if you have a good suggestion for packing smart, please leave a comment below.
Very entertaining. My one concern for you in the cities is that leaving anything in a car is a flag for someone to break into it or steal the car. You may want to take everything in with you unless you are paying for guarded parking. Even something as innocent as a single bag that has something in it can be enough for someone to think there may be something of value to steal.
I just eliminated one box from our pile of stuff. It was the box of DVDs and CDs that just needed to be ripped onto a hard drive. Now they all are on a tiny portable HD the size of a pack of cards. Yay for this small victory in our continuing downsizing effort!
Our Prius mileage used to drop about 10 mpg with the car loaded down AND the cargo box on top during the Alaska trip. We attributed most of that to the wind resistance of the cargo box, but perhaps it was mostly the load, since you’re seeing a similar effect without nothing on top.
Now that we have a lot more data points, I think the MPG we were seeing east-bound in Kansas wasn’t typical. Since leaving Kansas City, we’ve seen mostly upper 40’s and even got one tank full of 50.1 MPG. And really we’ve only gotten 60 MPG on one particular stretch of road – from Redstone to Denver. So I now think we’re losing about 3 or 4 MPG due to weight.
I mean, “with nothing on top.” Oops!