With fuel prices going berserk, one of the goals of our project Trailhugger Hummer H3 Alpha was to improve its off-highway capability and daily function with only a minimal impact on fuel mileage.  Well, so far so good.  Last week we latched Trailhugger to a utility trailer loaded with gear and drove from our northern Illinois base to Door County, Wisconsin for vacation.  Door County is the peninsula of land that juts out from northeastern Wisconsin.  It's bordered on the west by Green Bay and on the east by Lake Michigan.  Scenically, it's as close to the Pacific or Atlantic coast as you're going to get without actually going to the coast.   

On the way up we'd estimate our trailer weight at around 1,000 pounds.  This weight was comprised of the weight of the trailer, five mountain bikes, coolers and a slew of gear and suitcases.  There were five passengers in the truck and the cargo area was loaded with gear as well.  We drove 60 mph and the 5.3L V-8 returned a very acceptable 16.4 mpg.  We're pretty happy with that number and it proves that the low-profile, light weight Gobi roof rack and the other mods haven't killed our H3s mileage.  In the above image you can see Trailhugger towing the trailer with a couple of kayaks.