Living in downtown Seattle, we rarely drive anywhere. Most places are within walking distance. We drive to church on Sundays and to small group Wednesday nights, but it’s super nice not having to drive many places. We save on gas, car maintenance (we’ve put less than 4,000 miles on the Honda since this time last year), time, and stress. And most of the time that we need a car, the S2000 is fine — it fits just enough groceries and both of us. The problem is, when we need to go to Ikea or somewhere with family, it often doesn’t cut it.
So we signed up for a Zipcar. It’s super easy to use, relatively cheap, and it fills that occasional “we need to buy something at Ikea” urge without having to borrow a friends car or bum a ride. The way it works is simple: reserve one online, go to the car, swipe your card (which unlocks the doors), get in, and drive. Gas and insurance are paid for — you just have to make sure you leave at least a quarter tank in it. (Also, did I mention Zipcar has cars in a bunch of other cities, including London?)
Katie's note
However, since we signed up for it a month ago, we haven’t used it. Knowing it was going to be nice this weekend (in the upper 40s and not raining), we decided to take our maiden voyage. So at 12pm, we headed onto I-5 North, missing both the construction and a nasty car accident right by the aforementioned construction.
Getting 100mpg!
We really didn’t have a plan beyond getting onto I-5 north, driving for an hour or two, getting lunch, and turning around. Here’s a map of our trip up.
Our basic route on I-5 North to Bellingham
Once we got up there, we decided we were getting hungry and needed to get some food. We made one short trek east off of the highway to someplace that looked interesting on the blue “Food” signs littering all highway exits. It was … shady. It was a “Bar and Grille”, but from the outside, it seemed to be more like a local bar that happened to serve some type of food. It had a gravel parking lot with 1 car parked (the cook/waiter/bartender?) and 2 windows, both of which were filled with neon beer signs.
Algers Bar and Grille
So we headed back to the highway and continued north through some beautiful mountains. We eventually got near Bellingham, and a “Historical Old Town district” sign caught my eye, so we drove to what I’m guessing is old town Bellingham. We found a parking spot, walked across the street, and ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant with super good Chimichangas and Tacos.
Mexican restaurant
Katie and the parked Zipcar
Me getting ready to start driving
Looking at the map, we decided to head back a slightly different way, and took scenic Hwy 11 south.
Our route back on Highway 11
Here are a few pics of the short 15 mile drive along the coast; it was super pretty (and narrow!).
After having driven on Highway 11, I-5 was boring. We stopped near Everett to get some Starbucks and read the included instruction manual.
Instruction Manual
This is where I discovered the one strange part about driving this hybrid — the engine is killed when you stop. The first few times it was just plain stressful– “oh no! the car died!”. After panic set in, I realized that it was just saving gas. As soon as I took my foot off of the brake, the car started and would go forward. The only downside is that it took what seemed like forever to get going after a light turned green. It probably only took three quarters of a second, but it made me feel like I was going to miss the light every time and get the person behind me upset at me.
By the time we got back to Seattle, traffic hadn’t gotten any better. Fortunately, the express lanes on I-5 were going our way — they change directions, depending on the time of day — and we zoomed through the express lanes, past hundreds of cars parked on the non-express part of I-5 (who were watching us with jealousy, I’m sure), and made it home without any incident, exactly at 4pm.
It was great, and it made me think that having a Civic Hybrid might not be too bad — it was comfortable, roomy, had plenty of power, and I could fit in the trunk (I tried). Plus it got great gas mileage and didn’t feel as strange to drive as I thought it would. But I’m not ready to give up the S2000 quite yet… 
