Sunday 10/02/2022
Jan called at 8am to say he was ready to leave. That was earlier than I expected; he had preferred leaving at 9:30 to drive North and I had to talk him into 9am. But he was ready and so was I, so off we went.
We arrived back at Channing House just after 3pm, so it was about 6 hours driving, plus an hour in Ukiah for coffee. Well, half an hour for coffee, and half an hour driving in circles trying to find the Starbucks. Anyway. Home safe and sound.
US 101 is a very pleasant drive once you are North of Santa Rosa. The scenery coming through the Sonoma wine region was very nice, with vineyards up the sides of the rolling hills. The 2021 Prius Prime was a nice highway cruiser. I really am glad I got to try it because now I know I would not want one. That user interface on the big screen is just awful, so confusing and very very dangerous for a solo driver to try to do anything while driving. (And you know you would.) After San Francisco it was getting warm inside and Jan in the passenger seat spent at least 5 minutes stabbing at things trying to get more A/C going. It’s very “modal” in that if you have the controls for the audio, or the climate controls, showing, they cover up half of the map, including the buttons to zoom in and out. So if the passenger is trying to cue up a podcast or audio book, the driver can’t see half the map and can’t reach over to zoom it in or out. Just as well, because the tiny little +/- buttons are small as pencil erasers (on a 12-inch screen) and are hard to hit when you are trying to just glance down quickly and get back to the road.
Codgerville 