Gloria and I took the new GTI on a 2700 mile 8 day road trip. We started September 15 leaving Frisco, Texas following a day behind the aftermath of hurricane Ike up through Ohio.
In Frisco, Texas, Saturday and Sunday before we left, the hurricane was no worse than any typical North Texas storm front. A fair amount of rain and some strong wind but not seemingly hurricane strength. The worst damage we saw was in Ohio where very high winds and little to no rain took down most of the power lines in the areas we visited. There were many 10 to 20 vehicle (long) caravans of “cherry picker” repair trucks on the interstate going in both directions. It seemed like they didn’t know which direction to go first.
Gloria over heard one of those fella’s bragging (at a restaurant) he was making a cool $1K per DAY fixing power lines. Hm…
We heard of damage in Cincinnati, Ohio which we mostly by-passed. We stopped in Columbus, Ohio where there was a lot of power outage. Every other signal light was out causing traffic delays. We stayed in Youngstown, Ohio where there was a lot of the same type power outage. Since the weather was mild to warm, Heating and Cooling were not critical, but a lot of food was lost in freezers.
We visited Gloria’s family near Amsterdam, Ohio (Outside of Steubenville) and there was a lot of tree damage with power outages for at least several days and up to a week. Again, freezers suffered the worse loss.
The real trip besides exercising the new GTI was to attend my nephew’s wedding in Canton, Ohio. As I always like to report, “The wedding went off with a hitch.” That of course was the intention.
The GTI ran great. The average MPG was 31 MPG. At some points while in cruise control the MPG was indicating over 45 MPG. The hills in Ohio helped whittle that down. So over all we burned 90 gallons of fuel.