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Orlando150

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Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 0C580E02-1F75-450F-9FB3-137E6119D5A4

Sunset in the Badlands

Last month I took my 2021 Lariat Powerboost on the ultimate roadtrip: A 8600 mile journey from Orlando to Yellowstone National Park and back (stopping at many more parks along the way). I put as many miles on it in a month that I had on the odometer in the first year. This was the trip I had in mind when I bought the truck a year ago and overall I have to say it performed like a champ. In fact I’m so pleased that I am reconsidering my Lightning reservation which came up for order while I was out of town. My Powerboost feels like a keeper.

Route:
Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 195399C9-CBC1-43B2-8A34-0FCE56937C83

Orlando to Detroit (to pickup family): 16 hours driving
Detroit to Moab: 24 hours
Moab to Bryce Canyon: 5 hours
Bryce Canyon to Vernal, UT: 6 hours
Vernal, UT to Yellowstone: 8 hours
Yellowstone to Badlands, SD: 9 hours
Badlands to Detroit: 16 hours
Detroit to Orlando: 16 hours

We visited:
Arches NP
Canyonlands NP
Mesa Verde NP
Capitol Reef NP
Grand Staircase - Escalante NM
Bryce Canyon NP
Dinosaur NM
Grand Teton NP
Yellowstone NP
Badlands NP
Minuteman Missile NHS

Plus numerous other state and local parks and places of interest. I’d be happy to answer any questions on those parks if you are interested but I figure that most of you are looking for my thoughts on the truck.

BlueCruise

My BlueCruise was activated via OTA a couple months before the trip. I had limited experience with it on the local highways around central Florida before the trip but I was pleased with how it was going. This trip was a real trial for the feature as most of the distance traveled was on BC eligible highways (major sections between Utah to Yellowstone and Yellowstone to South Dakota were not limited access highways and therefore not eligible for BC). After many thousands of miles of BlueCruise driving I would say it worked great 96% of the time. The hands free feature was a great benefit for long road trips as I was able to relax a lot more and didn’t get tired as quickly as I might have with hands-on driving. In fact I did a lot more driving than I had planned as I was always quite fresh and my passengers didn’t need to back me up as often.

My observation is that when it couldn’t do hands-free driving was when the camera had issues seeing the road lines. This happened most commonly when the sun was in front of the vehicle or when the paint was very close in color to the road surface. Basically if I had difficulty seeing the lines with my eyes (due to glare or poor paint) then the truck couldn’t see them either.

There were also times when it asked me to put hands on the wheel but kept steering (hands-on BC) usually on tight curves. My experience here in Florida was that almost never happened but I had it happen a lot more often on various highways across numerous states. Road standards are really all over the place. My thought is that it’s really a case of the road curves being too tight for the truck to handle confidently and just wants your hands on the wheel for backup. I still rarely had to steer myself.

Overall I highly recommend BlueCruise and I’m glad I had it for this trip.

Gas Mileage

My hybrid Powerboost experience has been that my best mileage is usually around 50-60 MPH on flat Florida roads. In those conditions I have gotten 26-28 MPG. For this trip of mostly highway driving I wasn’t expecting that but I was quite pleased. By the end of the trip I had 22.4 MPG average on the display (I didn’t bother with any hand calculations). The worst mileage I saw on the whole trip was around 11MPG while driving 80MPH (the speed limit) through South Dakota with some high winds. My best was about 143 MPG…. driving down some mountains around Moab.

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! EE167D8F-E03D-49DD-8C8B-7890B8481595

Trip Totals


Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 0F1CDCB4-04ED-4F3A-A5A5-FA2CEB8BA3EF

WOAH

Offroad

My truck has the FX4 package with no aftermarket modifications. Unfortantely I wasn’t able to do much off-roading. Many National Parks don’t have places where you can drive off road and the weather didn’t cooperate when we were in places that did (many rainy days in Moab). I did do a little including driving down the switchbacks of the Echo Park road in Dinosaur (before being forced to turn around due to oncoming rain). I tried out the various drive modes and used combinations of 4A, 4H, and 4L. Never had any issues and never got stuck.

Overall

My F-150 Powerboost was a great vehicle for this trip. Lots of space for people and stuff. Gas mileage was good and the range meant fewer stops for fill ups (only needed 2 full tanks to drive Orlando to Detroit, for example). The FX4 was more than enough for the driving we did on some mountain dirt roads and the tires held up well. No issues with the truck, like I said it handled all the driving like a champ.

It was an amazing trip and I’d love to head out west again sometime in the future and I would trust my truck to do it again.

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 74B0A859-753E-4A03-A506-833987659CF9

Shafer Trail in Canyonlands

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! D7840A18-5934-442C-9EC4-BF51400B5FE8

Arches NP

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! DBA1C9B1-D08C-4593-9BC7-FD99580B4AB8

Mesa Verde NP

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 8F651AFB-E7B2-4552-A7EC-C04C26D122C2

In the La Sal Mountains above Moab

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 06435CC5-279B-40D0-8A25-82D8B501B881

Colorado River, Moab

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 4F53553E-FAD2-468B-BA5F-C814D04DE4E2

Bryce Canyon

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 48BA96E9-C23F-42DC-9F38-9EDCD1EED3D9

Echo Park Road, Dinosaur NM

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 5874529B-9533-486C-833D-3611906E872F

Dinosaur NM

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 4649BBA1-0093-4071-B972-816C4BA33C15

Old Faithful

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! D97D1151-D956-45C9-97EB-9467ED908459

Grand Tetons

Ford F-150 Ultimate Powerboost Roadtrip: 8600 miles to Yellowstone and Back! 7E7DEF37-3046-4EF6-8481-36867DB6930D

Lower Falls, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
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Last edited:

Ford Motor Company

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0C580E02-1F75-450F-9FB3-137E6119D5A4.jpeg

Sunset in the Badlands

Last month I took my 2021 Lariat Powerboost on the ultimate roadtrip: A 8600 mile journey from Orlando to Yellowstone National Park and back (stopping at many more parks along the way). I put as many miles on it in a month that I had on the odometer in the first year. This was the trip I had in mind when I bought the truck a year ago and overall I have to say it performed like a champ. In fact I’m so pleased that I am reconsidering my Lightning reservation which came up for order while I was out of town. My Powerboost feels like a keeper.

Route:
195399C9-CBC1-43B2-8A34-0FCE56937C83.jpeg

Orlando to Detroit (to pickup family): 16 hours driving
Detroit to Moab: 24 hours
Moab to Bryce Canyon: 5 hours
Bryce Canyon to Vernal, UT: 6 hours
Vernal, UT to Yellowstone: 8 hours
Yellowstone to Badlands, SD: 9 hours
Badlands to Detroit: 16 hours
Detroit to Orlando: 16 hours

We visited:
Arches NP
Canyonlands NP
Mesa Verde NP
Capitol Reef NP
Grand Staircase - Escalante NM
Bryce Canyon NP
Dinosaur NM
Grand Teton NP
Yellowstone NP
Badlands NP
Minuteman Missile NHS

Plus numerous other state and local parks and places of interest. I’d be happy to answer any questions on those parks if you are interested but I figure that most of you are looking for my thoughts on the truck.

BlueCruise

My BlueCruise was activated via OTA a couple months before the trip. I had limited experience with it on the local highways around central Florida before the trip but I was pleased with how it was going. This trip was a real trial for the feature as most of the distance traveled was on BC eligible highways (major sections between Utah to Yellowstone and Yellowstone to South Dakota were not limited access highways and therefore not eligible for BC). After many thousands of miles of BlueCruise driving I would say it worked great 96% of the time. The hands free feature was a great benefit for long road trips as I was able to relax a lot more and didn’t get tired as quickly as I might have with hands-on driving. In fact I did a lot more driving than I had planned as I was always quite fresh and my passengers didn’t need to back me up as often.

My observation is that when it couldn’t do hands-free driving was when the camera had issues seeing the road lines. This happened most commonly when the sun was in front of the vehicle or when the paint was very close in color to the road surface. Basically if I had difficulty seeing the lines with my eyes (due to glare or poor paint) then the truck couldn’t see them either.

There were also times when it asked me to put hands on the wheel but kept steering (hands-on BC) usually on tight curves. My experience here in Florida was that almost never happened but I had it happen a lot more often on various highways across numerous states. Road standards are really all over the place. My thought is that it’s really a case of the road curves being too tight for the truck to handle confidently and just wants your hands on the wheel for backup. I still rarely had to steer myself.

Overall I highly recommend BlueCruise and I’m glad I had it for this trip.

Gas Mileage

My hybrid Powerboost experience has been that my best mileage is usually around 50-60 MPH on flat Florida roads. In those conditions I have gotten 26-28 MPG. For this trip of mostly highway driving I wasn’t expecting that but I was quite pleased. By the end of the trip I had 22.4 MPH average on the display (I didn’t bother with any hand calculations). The worst mileage I saw on the whole trip was around 11MPG while driving 80MPH (the speed limit) through South Dakota with some high winds. My best was about 143 MPG…. driving down some mountains around Moab.

EE167D8F-E03D-49DD-8C8B-7890B8481595.jpeg

Trip Totals


0F1CDCB4-04ED-4F3A-A5A5-FA2CEB8BA3EF.jpeg

WOAH

Offroad

My truck has the FX4 package with no aftermarket modifications. Unfortantely I wasn’t able to do much off-roading. Many National Parks don’t have places where you can drive off road and the weather didn’t cooperate when we were in places that did (many rainy days in Moab). I did do a little including driving down the switchbacks of the Echo Park road in Dinosaur (before being forced to turn around due to oncoming rain). I tried out the various drive modes and used combinations of 4A, 4H, and 4L. Never had any issues and never got stuck.

Overall

My F-150 Powerboost was a great vehicle for this trip. Lots of space for people and stuff. Gas mileage was good and the range meant fewer stops for fill ups (only needed 2 full tanks to drive Orlando to Detroit, for example). The FX4 was more than enough for the driving we did on some mountain dirt roads and the tires held up well. No issues with the truck, like I said it handled all the driving like a champ.

It was an amazing trip and I’d love to head out west again sometime in the future and I would trust my truck to do it again.

74B0A859-753E-4A03-A506-833987659CF9.jpeg

Shafer Trail in Canyonlands

D7840A18-5934-442C-9EC4-BF51400B5FE8.jpeg

Arches NP

DBA1C9B1-D08C-4593-9BC7-FD99580B4AB8.jpeg

Mesa Verde NP

8F651AFB-E7B2-4552-A7EC-C04C26D122C2.jpeg

In the La Sal Mountains above Moab

06435CC5-279B-40D0-8A25-82D8B501B881.jpeg

Colorado River, Moab

4F53553E-FAD2-468B-BA5F-C814D04DE4E2.jpeg

Bryce Canyon

48BA96E9-C23F-42DC-9F38-9EDCD1EED3D9.jpeg

Echo Park Road, Dinosaur NM

5874529B-9533-486C-833D-3611906E872F.jpeg

Dinosour NM

4649BBA1-0093-4071-B972-816C4BA33C15.jpeg

Old Faithful

D97D1151-D956-45C9-97EB-9467ED908459.jpeg

Grand Tetons

7E7DEF37-3046-4EF6-8481-36867DB6930D.jpeg

Lower Falls, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
Sounds like a wonderful trip, in a beautiful blue F-150 too! So glad you're enjoying your Truck!
 

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Str8Shooter

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Nice looking truck. I especially love Colorado and Utah - that's where I did my last trip from mid August to mid Sept...I'm still cleaning the red dirt off my truck.

I am already bored being home, and seeing your post makes me want to get back out there. :).
 

Harry Dangler

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0C580E02-1F75-450F-9FB3-137E6119D5A4.jpeg

Sunset in the Badlands

Last month I took my 2021 Lariat Powerboost on the ultimate roadtrip: A 8600 mile journey from Orlando to Yellowstone National Park and back (stopping at many more parks along the way). I put as many miles on it in a month that I had on the odometer in the first year. This was the trip I had in mind when I bought the truck a year ago and overall I have to say it performed like a champ. In fact I’m so pleased that I am reconsidering my Lightning reservation which came up for order while I was out of town. My Powerboost feels like a keeper.

Route:
195399C9-CBC1-43B2-8A34-0FCE56937C83.jpeg

Orlando to Detroit (to pickup family): 16 hours driving
Detroit to Moab: 24 hours
Moab to Bryce Canyon: 5 hours
Bryce Canyon to Vernal, UT: 6 hours
Vernal, UT to Yellowstone: 8 hours
Yellowstone to Badlands, SD: 9 hours
Badlands to Detroit: 16 hours
Detroit to Orlando: 16 hours

We visited:
Arches NP
Canyonlands NP
Mesa Verde NP
Capitol Reef NP
Grand Staircase - Escalante NM
Bryce Canyon NP
Dinosaur NM
Grand Teton NP
Yellowstone NP
Badlands NP
Minuteman Missile NHS

Plus numerous other state and local parks and places of interest. I’d be happy to answer any questions on those parks if you are interested but I figure that most of you are looking for my thoughts on the truck.

BlueCruise

My BlueCruise was activated via OTA a couple months before the trip. I had limited experience with it on the local highways around central Florida before the trip but I was pleased with how it was going. This trip was a real trial for the feature as most of the distance traveled was on BC eligible highways (major sections between Utah to Yellowstone and Yellowstone to South Dakota were not limited access highways and therefore not eligible for BC). After many thousands of miles of BlueCruise driving I would say it worked great 96% of the time. The hands free feature was a great benefit for long road trips as I was able to relax a lot more and didn’t get tired as quickly as I might have with hands-on driving. In fact I did a lot more driving than I had planned as I was always quite fresh and my passengers didn’t need to back me up as often.

My observation is that when it couldn’t do hands-free driving was when the camera had issues seeing the road lines. This happened most commonly when the sun was in front of the vehicle or when the paint was very close in color to the road surface. Basically if I had difficulty seeing the lines with my eyes (due to glare or poor paint) then the truck couldn’t see them either.

There were also times when it asked me to put hands on the wheel but kept steering (hands-on BC) usually on tight curves. My experience here in Florida was that almost never happened but I had it happen a lot more often on various highways across numerous states. Road standards are really all over the place. My thought is that it’s really a case of the road curves being too tight for the truck to handle confidently and just wants your hands on the wheel for backup. I still rarely had to steer myself.

Overall I highly recommend BlueCruise and I’m glad I had it for this trip.

Gas Mileage

My hybrid Powerboost experience has been that my best mileage is usually around 50-60 MPH on flat Florida roads. In those conditions I have gotten 26-28 MPG. For this trip of mostly highway driving I wasn’t expecting that but I was quite pleased. By the end of the trip I had 22.4 MPH average on the display (I didn’t bother with any hand calculations). The worst mileage I saw on the whole trip was around 11MPG while driving 80MPH (the speed limit) through South Dakota with some high winds. My best was about 143 MPG…. driving down some mountains around Moab.

EE167D8F-E03D-49DD-8C8B-7890B8481595.jpeg

Trip Totals


0F1CDCB4-04ED-4F3A-A5A5-FA2CEB8BA3EF.jpeg

WOAH

Offroad

My truck has the FX4 package with no aftermarket modifications. Unfortantely I wasn’t able to do much off-roading. Many National Parks don’t have places where you can drive off road and the weather didn’t cooperate when we were in places that did (many rainy days in Moab). I did do a little including driving down the switchbacks of the Echo Park road in Dinosaur (before being forced to turn around due to oncoming rain). I tried out the various drive modes and used combinations of 4A, 4H, and 4L. Never had any issues and never got stuck.

Overall

My F-150 Powerboost was a great vehicle for this trip. Lots of space for people and stuff. Gas mileage was good and the range meant fewer stops for fill ups (only needed 2 full tanks to drive Orlando to Detroit, for example). The FX4 was more than enough for the driving we did on some mountain dirt roads and the tires held up well. No issues with the truck, like I said it handled all the driving like a champ.

It was an amazing trip and I’d love to head out west again sometime in the future and I would trust my truck to do it again.

74B0A859-753E-4A03-A506-833987659CF9.jpeg

Shafer Trail in Canyonlands

D7840A18-5934-442C-9EC4-BF51400B5FE8.jpeg

Arches NP

DBA1C9B1-D08C-4593-9BC7-FD99580B4AB8.jpeg

Mesa Verde NP

8F651AFB-E7B2-4552-A7EC-C04C26D122C2.jpeg

In the La Sal Mountains above Moab

06435CC5-279B-40D0-8A25-82D8B501B881.jpeg

Colorado River, Moab

4F53553E-FAD2-468B-BA5F-C814D04DE4E2.jpeg

Bryce Canyon

48BA96E9-C23F-42DC-9F38-9EDCD1EED3D9.jpeg

Echo Park Road, Dinosaur NM

5874529B-9533-486C-833D-3611906E872F.jpeg

Dinosour NM

4649BBA1-0093-4071-B972-816C4BA33C15.jpeg

Old Faithful

D97D1151-D956-45C9-97EB-9467ED908459.jpeg

Grand Tetons

7E7DEF37-3046-4EF6-8481-36867DB6930D.jpeg

Lower Falls, Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone
great post and excellent pictures. I just picked my PB from Granger Ford and drove it home to Arizona 1645 miles got 24 mpg, very happy with that. Just curious did you camp or stay in motels
 

Fat Vinnie

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Nice detailed post about your trip. Did you happen to take the dirt road in Hayden Valley while in Yellowstone? Really nice views of the back country with a lot of wildlife viewing opportunities. Also, if you ever get back that way, you might want to include Zion National Park. It has excellent hiking and spectacular views.
 
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Orlando150

Orlando150

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great post and excellent pictures. I just picked my PB from Granger Ford and drove it home to Arizona 1645 miles got 24 mpg, very happy with that. Just curious did you camp or stay in motels
No camping. All hotels.
Nice detailed post about your trip. Did you happen to take the dirt road in Hayden Valley while in Yellowstone? Really nice views of the back country with a lot of wildlife viewing opportunities. Also, if you ever get back that way, you might want to include Zion National Park. It has excellent hiking and spectacular views.
No I wasn't aware of a dirt road in Hayden Valley. We did drive the Blacktail Plateau road which was very pretty.

Zion was on the shortlist for this trip but ultimately we didn't have all the time for everything we wanted and it was dropped.

I would want another trip maybe more Southwest focused. Zion, Death Valley, Joshua Tree, etc.
 

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JJ_Tex

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Great pics and write up. We did a similar trip this summer from Dallas and went to Moab/Arches, Jackson Hole, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Montana.

Here were a couple of my observations:
  • My PB loved the ethanol free gas in Wyoming and Montana. Some days I would get 30+ mpg while going through the parks. At home I never get trips over 25mpg, discounting the very short trips of a mile or two.
  • Blue Cruise was great, but I did not like the 80 mph cap. There were several stretches of highway that were 80 to 85 mph and if I wanted to use BC, I would get run over by everyone else doing 80-90mph.
  • Several spots in Jackson Hole had special hybrid vehicle parking spots. Unfortunately, it is not widely known that Powerboost = Hybrid. I got several snide remarks, including one nice lady mumbling something about Texas not caring about the environment. After a few instances, I just stopped parking in them for fear some justice warrior would key my truck while I wasn't there to explain.
Overall it is a great truck and was a great trip. Looks like you had fun as well.
 

KTM753

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Thanks for sharing. Amazing photos. Schafer Trail is such a cool drive. Last year we did it in my Tacoma. We drove from the bottom all the way back to Moab. Pretty easy trails, watched a Honda pilot make it. The highlight was horseshoe bend, where they shot last scene from Thelma and Louise. Glad you're enjoying your truck and had a great trip.
 

PBXL

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How is the bug deflector? Do you that feel it was effective at deflecting bugs and rocks?
 

mrjspence

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Great pics and write up. We did a similar trip this summer from Dallas and went to Moab/Arches, Jackson Hole, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Montana.

Here were a couple of my observations:
  • My PB loved the ethanol free gas in Wyoming and Montana. Some days I would get 30+ mpg while going through the parks. At home I never get trips over 25mpg, discounting the very short trips of a mile or two.
  • Blue Cruise was great, but I did not like the 80 mph cap. There were several stretches of highway that were 80 to 85 mph and if I wanted to use BC, I would get run over by everyone else doing 80-90mph.
  • Several spots in Jackson Hole had special hybrid vehicle parking spots. Unfortunately, it is not widely known that Powerboost = Hybrid. I got several snide remarks, including one nice lady mumbling something about Texas not caring about the environment. After a few instances, I just stopped parking in them for fear some justice warrior would key my truck while I wasn't there to explain.
Overall it is a great truck and was a great trip. Looks like you had fun as well.
this happened at Denver airport parking. Dedicated hybrid spots. While we have a king ranch PowerBoost F150, I had driven our hybrid Maverick to the airport and got some funny looks parking a little truck in prius lane lol
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