The Washington Auto Show is in full swing. This is significant because decision makers here are deciding which laws they should pass regarding energy, jobs, and transportation. The road trip across the United States on RenDiesel has completed.

I made it to Louisville and it was quite cold. Starting the Audi in the morning could have been an adventure as it was 6°F, and I hadn’t tried starting the car at that cold of temperature yet.  But, no worries, the Audi started almost instantly and ran just fine.  Not like the old diesels that would emit white and black smoke from poor combustion when cold. 
 
I drove to Blue Grass Audi and met Woodie Hippler (Sales Manager), John Abrams (Parts Manager), and 4 others that I apologize for not getting their names written down.  They were all extremely helpful and even opened the service bay early for me to refuel as soon as I got there. These Audi Dealers have all been wonderful. 
 
I did make a mistake though, I took the first route Maps.Google.com gave me and didn’t look at all the alternatives.

Hwy 64 to Charleston, WV, Hwy 79 to Weston, then Hyw 33 and 55 across the WV mountains to Strasburg, VA. Then Hwy 66 into DC.  What I should have done was stay on Hwy 64 to Richmond.  But this route was very scenic although much of it was on rural roads and took probably 2 hours longer to drive than if I took the highway all the way.  But I would recommend it if you have the time as it is very pretty.
 
This leg of the drive was just over 600 miles.  I actually got better mileage this segment than last, probably due to the fact I wasn’t driving in blowing snow as I was coming out of Kansas City.  The car averaged 37.8 MPG at an average speed of 62 MPH.  This was a lot slower than expected, as Hwy 33 and 55 through WV are very curvy and go through many small and medium cities (plus I made a few wrong turns as well).  That teaches me to take the right maps with me!
 
Well, the Audi is quite dirty as I didn’t have a chance to wash it in Louisville.  See Photo –22.001.  The second shot is of hwy 55 in WV, very pretty area!
 
The final picture is the Audi sitting in front of the Courtyard Marriott in DC.  A blurry shot as I couldn’t hold the camera still enough for a long exposure.  But we are in DC, Finally!  

Well, a day of rest in DC and now it is time to get the car ready for the show.  I was very fortunate to get Audi of Alexandria to help clean the car after two days of nasty driving.  The photo is of the car in front of the Courtyard Marriott as I didn’t have good sun in Alexandria and the car was between other cars.  But there was a very nice sign on the door of the Audi dealer that I hadn’t seen before.  It says: “Diesel!  It is no longer a dirty word!”  And with RenDiesel, it is even cleaner.  Many thanks to Beaver Ho and Eric Treadway of Audi of Alexandria for getting the car so clean!
 
I was not able to refuel the Audi in DC as we have to bring the car into the show with less than π tank of fuel.  But here is the summary:
 
Left Denver and drove to KC where we put in 15 gal of fuel plus about 3 gal from my reserve.
From KC to Louisville, it was snowing and I had to put in about 1 gal of fuel to make it to the Holiday Inn and then to the Audi dealer.
From Louisville to DC, I had to add another 3 gal of fuel (approximately) and was nearly empty when I arrived in DC.  I put in 5 gal of fuel on Sunday and that brought the tank to 1/3 full. 
 
Total fuel consumed during the drive from Denver to DC, over 1750 miles, was about 52 gal for an average of about 33.7 MPG.  This is only a rough estimate as none of the cans of fuel were weighed or filled to a constant volume, so I may have overestimated the total amount of fuel by a few gallons.  But none the less, this is excellent fuel economy for a vehicle driven in winter weather conditions and represents realistic minimum fuel economy that can be expected. 
 
Tomorrow we need to do a final detail on the car and get it ready to put into the show.  But I expect it to snow tomorrow and Wednesday, so wish us luck!
 
Regards
Bob