It’s Getting Easier

Well, sure, toward the Mississippi, but not over it yet. I really wanted to be in Illinois tonight, but Missouri is just too big. On the bright side, today was the first day of driving with no delays or obstructions – just driving and charging from before dawn to after sundown, a total of twelve and a half hours, six recharges, and only 522 miles.

By the way, that “before dawn” stuff: both today and yesterday, the sun rose on a long straight part of the highway, right in my lane. If that happens tomorrow, I’ll know it’s out to get me.

It really is getting easier. There’s a rhythm to it. Also, the chargers are closer together – maybe about 100 miles between them. I now spend the charging time going over the maps, figuring the distance to the next one, and charging only what I need. I double the distance (100 miles to the next one – 200 miles worth of charge) and add ten or fifteen miles of charge for good measure. That shortens the time for charging, and I get to the next one with plenty to spare (which also shortens the charging time). “Plenty to spare” is important, because that extra might be used if I have to do anything but drive directly from charger to charger.

I’ve finally (finally!) found a reliable way to use the onboard navigation system (I’ve always wanted to say “onboard”) to plot a trip right to the next supercharger. The problem – why that’s not simple – is complex, and I’ll go into it in detail if anyone’s interested, but I’ve spent a long time trying to trick the nav system into plotting long routes that have to stop at the next charger, so I can get to the next charger. I have also had to zoom way into the map to see what establishments are around the charger, and that has often been successful. But now I have found the secret handshake that will let the nav system take me right to it. Or close.

Sometimes the “plenty to spare” has to be used to find the charger in the first place. They’re almost always in parking lots, and mapping programs have a hard time with parking lots. Almost half of them have been in Holiday Inn parking lots, so that’s the first thing I look for. But some of them are hard. “Find the hidden Tesla charger!” This morning, in Oklahoma City, I wandered around for a while and finally went into a Whataburger whose parking lot the icon was in, and asked. The first employee asked another, who asked a third, a kid about 14, who knew all about it. The chargers were in a far corner of the adjacent shopping mall.

One of the interesting activities while charging is finding a place to go to the bathroom. When there’s a hotel near by, I go in and find the lobby rest room; tonight it was a BBQ joint in Missouri, and I asked the hostess, who had no problem with it. Earlier today it was a liquor store, which advertised discounts for Tesla owners.

I often have the bank of chargers to myself; sometimes there are one or two others. In Needles, CA, there is just one, at the corner of a combined Subway and Dairy Queen. Today there were three cars and the charger bank outside Tulsa, OK (the ugliest city in the country). The chargers were in the parking lot of the Hard Rock Cafe and Casino, which is ginormous, including a five-story behemoth where you park your car. I went in to find a bathroom, and walked almost all the way through before I found one. Dark, glitzy, cavernous – lots of chrome and carpet, and mirrors. Hundreds – hundreds! – of slot machines. Midmorning weekday, and there were people playing the slots. Just a different world – a different universe. They were playing good music, though (Ramones, Grateful Dead).

So range anxiety, I think, is a thing of the past, but I am still always thinking about range, because the options narrow so precipitously if anything involving off-route traveling occurs. Mostly, though, I just drive and enjoy the view.