We celebrated our 20th anniversary recently. I planned a spectacular weekend for my wife. A night out at our favorite restaurant and a stay at our favorite hotel without kids. Then the surprise, a trip to NYC for a show on broadway and dinner with good friends who celebrated our first anniversary with us many years ago. It all went smashingly well.
I hate to even blemish the weekend, but there was a tiny little quirk. Instead of using our normal limo or taxi service, I opted to impress my bride with an “Eco Friendly” limousine service that I had seen. After all, we own two hybrids and why not make a tiny effort to avoid burning up our dwindling fossil fuels when possible? It was only a few dollars more than normal, so no big deal. I had assumed that like many Chicago and NYC taxis, typical models would be Prius, Camry and Fusion hybrids. Of our three segments, the first was in a Ford Escape Hybrid. Certainly no Prius, but perfectly reasonable. I wasn’t expecting to be driven in a Tesla or something, though that would have been a nice touch!
Well, much to our dismay, the next two trips to and from the airport were not hybrids, electrics, diesels or fuel conserving vehicles of any kind. Not only that, they were actually among the least fuel efficient passenger vehicles that could have been used to transport two passengers. For both trips, a dreaded Earth Destroyer was dispatched for our very UN-green airport commutes. When I asked later, the service said that they keep some of these monster SUVs for larger parties and assured me they were flex fuel models using E85. I guess they didn’t realize that even if the drivers actually did put E85 in the tanks, the fuel economy is much worse!
Oh well, so much for having “Green” in the name of your limo service! Next time, I guess we’ll save money and fuel by driving our 50 mpg Prius and paying for parking. In my defense, it was a big anniversary and we departed and arrived at different airports. Still, my apologies for the extra CO2 and smog you are now breathing! At least it was comfortable inside…