{"id":6248,"date":"2014-08-12T04:29:51","date_gmt":"2014-08-12T04:29:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2014\/08\/12\/pedal-to-the-metal-woo-hoo\/"},"modified":"2014-08-12T04:29:51","modified_gmt":"2014-08-12T04:29:51","slug":"pedal-to-the-metal-woo-hoo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6248","title":{"rendered":"Pedal to the metal … woo hoo!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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RESUME SPEED, Wyo.<\/strong> — OK, so this isn’t a real place.<\/p>\n

It’s a term I use to describe remote locations anywhere in the United States of America.<\/p>\n

But today it more or less symbolizes a trend across much of the western United States — and it is a trend to which I am getting used.<\/p>\n

Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Idaho are just four western states that allow motorists to drive 80 mph on interstate highways. Part of the rest of the story is that I’m getting accustomed to it.<\/p>\n

My wife and I have been flying low across some of these highways in recent days. Allow me to add that we’re doing this in a little bitty car, a Toyota Prius.<\/p>\n

Before you chuckle, I’m going to add that the Prius — in the words of ol’ Dizzy Dean — can “pick ’em up and lay ’em down.” It moves … quickly.<\/p>\n

We’ve enjoyed our time on the road, partly because we can get to our destinations more quickly than we could when speed limits were a “mere” 70 mph, let alone prior to 1995 when they were posted at 55 mph.<\/p>\n

It’s taken me some time to get used to these speeds. But I’m there.<\/p>\n

Part of my justification for driving so quickly is that the Prius is among the most fuel-efficient vehicles in existence. We’re averaging close to 50 miles per gallon on our journey, which is a lot better than virtually every other family car on the road today.<\/p>\n

Back in the 1970s, when gasoline prices spiked after the infamous oil embargoes, Congress slowed everyone down to 55 partly to conserve fuel. Since then automakers have done a lot better job of manufacturing fuel-efficient vehicles. My wife and I own one of them.<\/p>\n

So that gives us carte blanche to give the all-clear “flaps up” signal when we hit the road.<\/p>\n

By golly, it’s rather fun getting places lickety-split.<\/p>\n\n

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RESUME SPEED, Wyo. — OK, so this isn’t a real place. It’s a term I use to describe remote locations anywhere in the United States of America. But today it more or less symbolizes a trend across much of the western United States — and it is a trend to which I am getting used. … Continue reading Pedal to the metal … woo hoo!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[432,1112,1829,4357,4873],"class_list":["post-6248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arab-oil-embaroes","tag-congress","tag-fuel-efficiency","tag-speed-limits","tag-toyota-prius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6248"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6248\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}