Pr-pr-pr-Prius

So being in the Southwest, natural habitat of all-that-is-granola (okay, maybe the Northwest has us beat, but there is a lot of hippified environmental responsibility around here), we decided to go ahead and save a polar bear and buy a Prius , Toyota's Hybrid 50 mpg super-car. Actually, to be precise, *Beck decided*, but I'll go ahead and let her explain that one. But a brief word to the newlywed wise - if your betrothed asks you if you want to go "test-drive"(please join me in a general session of hyper-finger quotation-marking) a car with her, the answer is YES. YES. YES.

The car is totally freaking SWEET. Zooms around, doesn't use fuel, nice stereo that even has a mp3 aux jack (which we admittedly haven't used yet). It uses an auto-system to determine when to use electrical power and when to use the gas engine and uses the turning of the wheels to generate electricity / recharge the elec motor. We (obviously) have to use the AC all the time which requires a little bit of gas motor, but when it cools down here a bit, we'll roll down the windows and enjoy the weird phenomenon of the engine turning OFF instead of idling at stops. There's no ignition, so it operates with an ON switch that only operates if you have the remote key inside the car. The door locks also respond automatically to the presence of the key, so you don't even have to unlock the car, you just walk up and open it. I mean, it's not scanning retinas or anything, but it's pretty cool. I could blah on and on about it, but it's generally sweet and we're quite happy with it. So ON to the pics!!!

The next couple of shots show off the keylessness AND something I forgot to mention, that it has a camera for backing out of parking spaces. SCHWANK!

We'll cap a silly "new car" post with a cutie pick of its primary driver, some Prius-based proof of
the daily misery, and finally, proof that the Mass days are behind us...