North, South, East, West
So, we’ve been meaning to post more articles that would fall into the ‘tips from the road’ category. If the main purpose of this blog is to keep a personal journal to remember and share, then the secondary purpose would be to pass on what we’ve learned from traveling so we can help and encourage others to travel more (cheaply).
One of the cheapest and most helpful things we bought for our roadtrip was this $2 windshield-mounted compass from Emily’s favorite store – you guessed it – Target. Short of a GPS system that would run in the hundreds, I can’t imagine one thing that would help us navigate better with our hodgepodge of maps and tour books. So seriously, do yourself a favor and next time you can’t tell North from South, look to the sky and follow that big red bullseye to your driving salvation.
Did we mention that one of our criteria for finding a new place to live is that it needs a Target near by?
Calculate your miles per gallon
Maybe everyone knows how to do this already, but just in case, here is a quick how-to on calculating your car’s miles per gallon. For this exercise, you’ll need a car, money for gas, time to drive around aimlessly for a while, and a calculator (watch).
1. Fill up your gas tank all the way
2. Set your car’s trip odometer to zero (or if you don’t have one, write down the current mileage)
3. Drive a lot until you have used a good amount of gas (my current suggestion would be a road trip to Maine)
4. Fill up your gas tank again, and write down the total number of gallons of gas
5. Figure out how many miles you have driven since you first filled up (easy with a trip odometer, or do some subtraction if you wrote down your original mileage)
6. Calculate your mileage: Total Miles Driven / Gallons of Gas = Miles Per Gallon (tada!)
My Corolla is getting just over 33 mpg, not bad considering its rated at 34 mpg on highways (and 25 mpg in the city).
I’ll make sure to keep my tires inflated and tail Mac trucks from 10 feet behind… see if I can hit 35 mpg.
