Tree hugging.

I am sure anyone who drives a vehicle can agree, filling up your gas tank has become somewhat of a painful experience. Gas prices in our area have been averaging around $3.00 a gallon this summer. The recent high (that I can remember)has been $3.19 and the recent low has been $2.89. This, along with our interest in doing our part for a better environment and our love of gadgets, has prompted us to research getting a hybrid vehicle.

We've been talking about it for over a year, but we only just bought a new car about 2 years ago. Our 2003 Saturn Ion gets 20 mph city and 30 mpg highway and we've been happy with it. We noticed that the car is finally worth more than what we owe on it and picked up our discussion again about getting a hybrid. Our two front runners were the Ford Escape Hybrid and the Toyota Prius. While we would like a larger vehicle for the dogs ( soon to be 75+ lbs each), we decided that we really don't need a small SUV until we have kids. Additionally, the Escape gets similar gas milage to our Ion and we are looking for an improvement for a while. So, we decide upon a Prius which gets between 50 and 60 miles per gallon depending on driving conditions.

So, the other night we got online and get pre-approved financing from Toyota and yesterday we went and test drove a used 2005 Prius - the only Prius available withing at least a 50 mile radius. The cars selling price is actually about $1000 more than buying a brand new 2006/2007 model (which was odd, since it really didn't have any bells and whistles other than what comes standard on the 2006). Needless to say, we opted for the cheaper, brand new model.

Unfortunately, the demand is so high for these cars now that the wait is 6 weeks to 4 months for delivery. The dealer said isting several color choices might speed up the process so we chose four, in order by favorite: Barcelona Red Metallic, Seaside Pearl, Magnetic Gray, and Super White. Hopefully that will speed up delivery time. Visit toyota.com/prius
for an interactive look at all the bells and whistles that come standard. (We opted for a pretty simple model, only adding the saftey features such as airbags and vehicle stability).