Tumbleweed and Moo-Cows

Heading out of Rapid City I was a little worried about range, because it’s difficult to judge how hilly our route will be and it’s effect on the range.  I can honestly say the drive today was an absolute joy.  We climbed out of Rapid City towards Lusk, WY and the sunshine and above freezing temperatures provided us with plenty of range without even needing the HVAC.  The entire drive was gorgeous and I found myself itching to pull over and soak it all in numerous times.  The tiny towns and intersections we passed were interesting too and brought to mind a handful of classic rock songs to which we then jammed out.  

In Lusk, the supercharger is located at the Covered Wagon Motel.  This is by far the most remote supercharger location we visited thus far.  We walked across the street to a little diner for lunch and just as we were about to pull out, the motel owners came by to greet us.  Apparently we were the first Customer MS to charge at Lusk and they were just as tickled as we were.  We shared our excitement over Tesla and headed out with a battery packed full of electrons – our fullest charge of the trip.  I made E wait until every last mile was added, because the next portion was going to be a doozy.

Between Lusk, WY and Silverthorne, CO is Cheyenne, WY; however, the Cheyenne Supercharger is (barely) not yet open.  This is the first stroke of bad luck this trip.  Fortunately there are some quick chargers in Fort Collins, just a little further south of Cheyenne.  It would just be a stretch to get there – or so I thought.  The 190 miles we covered is the longest distance thus far this trip, but with the temperatures reaching 50 degrees and the smooth roads, we made it with almost 60 miles to spare.  We actually got our rated range, even driving at 70+ mph.  Yeehaw! 

After a non-functioning charger at Discovery Museum, we ended up in Fort Collins at a Nissan dealership.  We chatted with the Nissan crew about Tesla and EVs in general for a while, then headed to BWW to catch the end of the game and grab some food.  We ate our wings back at Nissan while filling up and headed to Denver, CO for the night.  Of note, Nissan dealerships have always been super accommodating despite the fact that we are clearly not there because of any interest in purchasing one of their vehicles.  Remember my post from February 2013?  When I was in a tight spot with charging, they moved their own vehicles out of the way and put me inside in the showroom where they had another charger.  Good people.

Rapid City, SD to Lusk, WY
Traversed 152.7 miles, using 57.4 kWh at an average of 376 Wh/mi.
Arrived at 2:45pm in 48 degree weather.
Charged for a little over an hour and left at 254 miles of rated range.

Lusk, WY to Fort Collins, CO
Traversed 188 miles and arrived with 58 miles of rated range remaining.
Unfortunately I forgot to record the rest of the stats.

Lusk Supercharger

Soaking up the Scenery

Stone Faces

We awoke this morning, got a little juice at the supercharger and headed up into the Black Hills to see Mount Rushmore.  I’m not sure this is a site we would ever see if we weren’t forced through town on the supercharger route, so we were pretty excited at the opportunity.  The morning was gorgeous.  Blue skies and sunshine followed us into the Black Hills and the sites along the way were interesting.  I can’t imagine trekking up that mountain to carve out four faces for 40 years.  It was a peaceful morning at the memorial and we only passed another couple as we were heading out.

We had arrived to Rapid City with about 50 miles remaining last night before  After the small amount of juicing and then driving to/from Mount Rushmore, we eventually settling into the supercharger (located at a mall - we grabbed a Sub in the food court) for a just-barely-shy-of-full charge of 245 miles rated range.  Time to head south.

Sunrise at Rapid City Supercharger

Quick visit to Mount Rushmore

Mount Rushmore

What the Black Hills looks like from Brewtus' standpoint

Day 2, complete.

At 2:30am today when we were going to bed, I thought for sure we wouldn't make it to Rapid City.  But with the smooth-smooth-sailing today, here we are!  There was also a pleasant time change as we pulled in, which meant we'll get an extra hour of sleep tonight too.  Woot.

We charged in Murdo, SD at the supercharger.  It's located at Range Country Lodging, which was an interesting place.  It's pretty impressive outside and inside there is an exquisite display of stuffed dead animals (yikes).  We moved on fairly quickly.

I'm sure the drive to Rapid City would have been gorgeous if it was day time.  We passed a lot of signs indicating scenic lookout points, but it was pitch-black out.  I would have loved to see some of the Badlands as we were driving through.  Next time.

Mitchell, SD to Murdo, SD
Left at 1810 with 217 R-Range partial charge in 33 degree weather.
Drove 140.1 miles using 54.8 kWh at an average of 391 Wh/mi.
Charged on a supercharger for 53 minutes.
Left with 202 miles rated range.

Murdo, SD to Rapid City, SD
Drove 136.1 miles, using 56 kWh at 412 Wh/mi.

Day two was a success.  Supercharging makes this stuff easy.

The current Supercharger locations.  As you can see there is just one choice for our route form Chicago to Los Angeles.

Supercharger in Murdo, SD

The Coyote State

We've been traveling straight down the same road for about 7 hours now.  South Dakota reminds me of Nebraska, except with a few more trees.  Flat, flat, flat.

I jumped in the back to lie down and slept basically the entire way to Mitchell.  We folded down the back seat.  Combined with the trunk space it provides a pretty significant amount of room and we laid out a sleeping bag for the non-driver to take naps.

Good news -- since we've left Chicago, five more superchargers have opened!  The route after Glenwood Springs, CO has been keeping me up at night and now it looks much more do-able.  I wouldn't be surprised if another one or two open before we even get there.  Thank you, Tesla!

Mitchell didn't have much other than a Dairy Queen in the parking lot.  Luckily we didn't need to stay long.  28 minutes and a Reese blizzard later and we were on our way.  Looking at the stats, E totally schooled me on energy usage.  I'll blame it on the increase in temperature.

Here are the stats:
Worthington, MN to Mitchell, SD
127.8 miles traveled, using 45.8 kWh at an average of 359 Wh/mi.
Left with 222 miles R-Range, arrived with 63 left.
Charged for 28 minutes.
Left with a partial charge of 217 miles.
Temperature is 38*F.

What it looks like with someone lying down in the back.  Boxes/Clothes are stacked up on the passenger side along with our lemon tree.

Supercharging at Mitchell, SD.  Temperatures above 30 degrees feel like a heat-wave! 

Now we're rolling.

About to cross over into South Dakota.  I still can't get used to supercharging.  It's amazing.  My husband keeps having me guess how many miles we have at certain points while we're charging and I'm always way off.  I just guessed 49 and the actual number was 112.  Before we even got out of the car we had gotten 8 miles.  We went inside the restaurant, ordered a cup of soup, ate it and then got our burgers to go since we were already finishing charging.  You may have noticed we only got like 14 miles at the last spot... in 45 minutes.  We had more than that here before we even got inside.

Albert Lea, MN to Worthington, MN
116.5 miles traveled, using 46.5 kWh at an average of 399 Wh/mi.
Left with 176 miles R-Range, arrived with 14 left.
Charged for 45 minutes.
Left with a partial charge of 222 miles R-Range.
Temperature is 31*F.

so fast.

Brewtus is getting lonely at these superchargers.  Eventually we'll have a neighbor.

taste the sunlight.

We stayed out too late having fun with friends and chatting over (delicious) breakfast, so we didn’t get on the road until about 10:20am.  We left the car overnight in a parking garage about a mile away that has a chargepoint J1772. 

We left with a full charge of 245 miles in 24 degree weather.  We’re headed to the Worthington Supercharger, but since our range was cutting it close, we decided to stop and visit what looked like a cool charger at a local community college.  We didn't stay long -- just enough to ease my range anxiety, write this post and use the restroom.  

Rochester, MN to Albert Lea, MN

63 miles traveled, using 23.6 kWh.  Average Energy 374 Wh/mi.

Arrived with 164 miles R-Range

Charged for 45 minutes.

Left with 176 miles R-Range.

Riverland Community College's solar EV charger in Albert Lea, MN providing Brutus with his first taste of sunshine.

not my first rodeo.

Here we go again.  We drove from Chicago to Rochester, MN.  In January.  I must say, this time around was almost too easy.

I'm moving from Chicago to Los Angeles.  We put all of our belongings into a POD, shipped it off and (practically) all that is left is us and Brutus, our Tesla Model S.  We are leaving just a day after the Polar Vortex which has plummeted the temperatures in the midwest to well below zero.  During the days before we left, I would sometimes get close to half of my rated range, trying to keep the cabin at a comfortably warm temperature in negative 15 degree weather and make it to work on the icy, windy roads.  This did not help my last minute range anxiety.  My husband on the other hand is all butterflies and rainbows in regards to our range.  But, he has not really driven Brutus in the winter and he most definitely did not experience my last trip to Minnesota.  Like I said, this is not my first rodeo.

We are basically taking Elon's proposed LA to NY supercharger route, backwards.  We have been watching the supercharger map closely.  The first part of our trip will be pretty straight-forward.  We have one spot around Cheyenne, WY that is a little spotty and a lot of the last bit of the trip after Colorado.  Other than that we're just hoping for good weather and clear roads.

Our first day was an easy day.  We headed to Rochester, MN where we would visit with some friends and spend our first night.  We stopped first at the Rockford Supercharger to top-off and then hit Mauston, WI.  We could have made it from there, but we also stopped to fill-up in Onalaska.  The lesson I've learned is to charge when you can, and give yourself as much of a buffer as possible -- especially when it's ridiculously fast and free!

The superchargers have basically revolutionized driving an EV.  Well, driving a Tesla EV anyway.  We made it to Rochester in just a little over 7 hours, which is almost as fast as an ICE (internal combustion engine).  It was a leisurely drive without any range anxiety.  I actually think I will really enjoy "needing" to stop every 3-ish hours.  It's the perfect amount of time to get out, stretch your legs and not really get bogged down by the drive.  I'm looking forward to the rest of the trip.  Here are the stats so far.  I'm still figuring out what stats I need to write down in order for this to make sense, so bear with me.

		Time	Charger	Temp *F	kWh	Miles	Wh/mi	Charge Time	Drive Time
Elgin, IL	Arrival	1/9/14, 0702	NEMA-1450	-5	start 8477.4	start 22752	373
	Departure
Rockford, IL	Arrival	748	Supercharger	0	15.1	38.6	390		46 min
	Departure					237 r-range
Mauston, WI	Arrival	1108	Supercharger	5	54.6	142.9 mi driven	382
	Departure
Onalaska, WI	Arrival	1241	Supercharger	5	25.3	65.2 mi driven	388
	Departure	137				226 r-range
Rochester, MN	Arrival	247	Chargepoint J1772	16	32.3	76.7	420	8+

Plugged in at Rockford.

Stopped by to check the progress in Madison, WI

"What's Shakin" -- at the supercharger in Mauston, WI

Last charging spot - Onalaska, WI

you may say i'm a dreamer, but i'm not the only one...

I was feeling rather depressed after alla the happenings yesterday.  Sometimes it feels like things have just been in steady decline for our country since around 9-11 time.  Or maybe that was just when I was becoming old enough to pay much attention to it.  I suppose there have been wars, murders, rapes and kidnappings since the beginning of time.  It drives me mad watching the news.  Watching people watch clips of explosions and carnage over and over.  It will just become another notch on a post that all of the politicians and crazies use to try to further their agenda, whatever that may be.  The news stations spend hours showing footage and interviewing people talking about amputations and whatnot, because it will give them more ratings.  Why don't we interview some people who think they know how to stop this?  Why don't we spend hours discussing ways to spread education and love to try to combat all the hatred?  Oh, because we won't watch it.  Not unless it has some outlandish person yelling extremist views.  We just become more divided and sometimes after these events it just makes everything feel really meaningless.  What does it matter if it will eventually all be taken away in an instant?  It makes it more and more difficult to see the beauty and the good.

Today I'm making a conscious choice to grab ahold of the little things.  I'm realizing if I don't cling to them, I will fall into a black hole of depression and that would just make things more difficult for all the people around me that I love.  So today I'm looking at trees that we're going to nurture to bloom and grow delicious fruit.  I'm eating a steaming hot bowl of lugao in a little shop on the corner on a busy Tuesday morning in Chicago.  I'm sipping my coffee making plans to marry the love of my life, whatever that little piece of paper is supposed to signify, and throw a party for all of my friends and family in two weeks.  I'm deciding these things are what are important and are worth living for and being happy and raising children for so that they can experience those little things too.  I'll just choose to be one of those white blood cells, running towards the explosion.  That is what we are here for.  And when I'm feeling down, well... fake it till you make it.

Also, runners are the most hardcore, against all odds type of people there are.  There are hundreds of thousands of people continuing on, going out for their regular run today.  So fuck the bad guys.  I'm putting on my running shoes today, for the first time in months.  I'm going to sweat it out for Boston.  In your face, terrorists.  Distance runners are the most die hard, keep-on-keepin-on, mind-over-matter type people I know.  So lace-up and lets do this.


imagine there's no heaven
it's easy if you try
no hell below us
above us only sky
imagine all the people
living for today.