Fog

Awoke in Lusk this morning to a fog advisory from here to Cheyenne. Must say staying in the same place as the supercharger is a bonus so there is 100% charge when you wake up! The fog wasn't really so bad after about 30 minutes although not the best for sight-seeing from the road. The landscape reminded me of the old Clint Eastwood "spaghetti westerns". I was waiting to hear the "....boing...." periodically. Got to Cheyenne without trouble and plugged in for a full top-off to get safely to Silverthorne, which although it is only 166 miles away, there is a lot of "uphill" in the formula.

The charger in Cheyenne is fascinating. It is in the parking lot of a mall, like many are, but is in the middle of an outdoor "showroom" for campers / RVs. So there is a little teeny aisle allowing access to the supercharger stations hidden within maybe 50 hulking motor homes....

The Covered Wagon Motel is the home of the Tesla Superchargers in Lusk. All of the other vehicles there were pick up trucks...

Sign in the lobby at the Covered Wagon

drifting fog...

Devil's Tower

Big Day!

After the slow Mitchell charger, nice and fast again in Murdo and in Rapid City (appropriately enough). Of course had to do a drive-by here.....

Never having driven through South Dakota before, I will tell you that although the eastern part is pretty flat a boring (like southern Minnesota) once I crossed the Missouri River it was REALLY PRETTY. I have driven through Nebraska a zillion times on I-80. I would have to highly recommend I-90 instead!!

I found myself consistently using a bit less energy than the EV TripPlanner folks predicted, so I patiently waited through a full-to-the-top charge in Rapid City and headed off to Devil's Tower. It was a little scary since it was driving AWAY FROM the next available super charger. Lovely scenery. I arrived having "burned" about 120 miles of range (150 left in the car) so theoretically I could drive back to Rapid City without a charge, but the lady at the KOA was super nice. The KOA is immediately outside the entrance to the national park. I plugged in at a 50 amp spot and walked through the ranger gate and hiked up Devil's Tower.

Well, actually I hiked up to the BOTTOM of Devil's Tower, which is a very large rock. Very. Once I got up to the Visitor Center there was a paved path which was much easier than the dirt and stick and stone one up the perimeter. There were some crazy people coming down the side of the tower on ropes which looked fun / terrifying. 

the most photographed rock in the world

I did not wait around to see what lived in this hidey-hole

or this one!

Does this look like a Ninja Turtle to anyone besides me?

Their squirrels are very light on their feet. And a different color than I'm used to!

It really is a cool surface. Apparently great for "crack" rock climbing

in case you needed a reference to see how big those "columns" are... 

After a few hours in the park, I hitched a ride back down to the KOA to find my car up to 263 miles (yay!) Curious campers wanted to hear about the car. "How'd you get that thang here all the way from Wisconsin?" "Where's the damn engine?" But mostly friendly, if perhaps lubricated with some distilled beverage...

After my escape, I consulted my maps and decided I could go STRAIGHT TO THE NEXT SUPERCHARGER in Lusk, WY rather than going back to Rapid City to charge. Woo-hoo! Big time saver. Lusk is the county seat of the least-populated county in Wyoming, which is the least populated state in the union. All I know is it was VERY DARK on Hwys 585 and 85 on the way down here, and apparently these roads are frequently closed (presumably for snow) since there were lots of signs and flashing lights and gates at various intersections making sure you didn't get yourself down the wrong rabbit hole. I have never seen so many deer at the edge of the road --- those barb wire fences did a good job of keeping the cattle out of the road, but I saw more than one mule deer leap right over, and probably slowed down 10 times in the 150 miles for deer actually crossing the road )in addition to the ones just standing nearby.) The lumpy pavement was also testament to plenty of smaller critters who had also wandered onto the highway. But the near-full-moon rise over the Black Hills was spectacular. Too bad pictures of the moon never really do it justice...

Murdo

Murdo, South Dakota, population 657 and home to a nice fast supercharger in the lot of the Range Country motel. The motel has a rack of brochures about South Dakota attractions and excellent advice in the rest room...

A nice east wind blowing -- should be helpful today!

South Dakota

The question of the day --- do I try to make it to Devil's Tower? The closest supercharger is in  Rapid City, a mere 104 miles from the monument, and charged to 270 I should be able to make the round trip easily. The elevation change is the wild card... How much more juice will it take to get there compared to the 'rated range'?? I'm leaning towards "do it!", particularly since I looked at the web site for Devil's Tower KOA, which has 14-50 chargers that I could augment my battery while I hike around. The campground seems like a must-visit... they show "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" EVERY NIGHT. Are those 5 notes reverberating through your head right now?

I will note here that the charge rate at the Mitchell supercharger seems slower than those in  Minnesota for some reason. The Southern Minnesota landscape is not as beautiful as western Wisconsin. Apparently the wind blows regularly since there are zillions of wind farm towers. The red lights simultaneously blinking on all of the towers at night is a little bit otherworldly.

On The Road!

I'm off! Left the parking lot at work by 11:15 and headed towards LaCrosse on a perfect autumn day. Last night was a total lunar eclipse which was very beautiful and unusually "visible" --- seems like usually it is cloudy or rainy or otherwise invisible but this one was fabulous. Seemed an auspicious beginning!

Given the sunny skies and trees turning colors I wanted to drive "the back way" to LaCrosse on Hwy 14. The Car, however, had other ideas! It REALLY wanted me on the interstate! Every time I passed a road heading north, it would ask me to turn to Get Back On Track. I made it about half way to LaCrosse, was listening to an audiobook and not watching street signs as much as following the directions the nav system displayed on my dashboard, when I realized it had lured an unsuspecting Me into turning north. Drat!

I must say, however, it was lovely. I went through Hillsboro, saw 3 horse and buggies with beautiful horses, wound through Wildcat Mountain (or some such) park, lots of pretty fall colors, hawks, etc before hitting I-90. Hilly curvy roads were fun to drive. Not one bit of cell service available but the nag system stayed live and got me where I was going!

Charging was easy. I filled up to the top as last winter I had a bad experience between LaCrosse and Albert Lea and got my range to zero and had no desire to repeat. It was windy as heck (of course it was a west wind! It there anything but a headwind possible??) There is a Home Depot close to the LaCrosse supercharger and the route to the restrooms goes through an aisle lined with about 400 white toilets, floor to ceiling. Do they do that on purpose??

Stopped to charge in Albert Lea and starting writing this there when a pretty white Model S with California plates pulled up to charge. A nice couple was driving from San Diego to Chicago and they gave me advice and showed me their maps. Their car was only 1 year old but already 24,000 miles. I asked if he put that many miles on his previous gas cars and got a wry grin in response. "Of course not."

Currently charging in lovely Worthington MN in the back parking lot of The Ground Round. The good news is their wifi reaches out to the superchargers.  :)   It is raining. Staying in Mitchell SD tonight which is the furthest west this car has been. Tomorrow -- The Black Hills.

what a pretty car!!

T minus 3 days

One would think I was leaving the Civilized World for a year with all of the "stuff" I am planning to take along! Probably would be completely fine with a credit card, duct tape, and my sunglasses...

I did do a "test drive" with an electric cooler I was given. It plugs into the 12v socket and can either heat or cool the contents of the "cooler". Interesting concept, and likely would also be nice in the motel rooms. Well, for two reasons that little device will be staying at home! One, the fan is annoyingly loud, even when the cooler is stashed behind the seat. Two, it seemed to increase my energy consumption by 30-40 Wh/mile, according to the dashboard graph. Not worth it! It is about 20 years old so likely there are more efficient things on the market currently, but a zip lock bag full of ice will do the trick for this trip.

I am learning about saving maps to the "cache" so I can look at them when there is no internet signal. I find the area I want on the Google Map app on my iPad, type "OK maps" in the search bar, and magic occurs. I have no idea where they are saved. I am told I will be able to not only look at the map when in the middle of nowhere, but also zoom in, etc as one normally would. Hope it works!

I also created a folder of pages on the desktop of my laptop via "save as webarchive" (in Safari) for each of the superchargers along the route -- from the Tesla web site list of superchargers. I like how each location is up on a single page with a clear map, satellite image, and list of what else is around. Those superchargers can be tucked away behind things and hard to find, particularly when it is dark, and somehow more so when your remaining range is under 5 miles...

This morning there was freezing rain in Madison. This afternoon it was 102 degrees in Palm Desert. No wonder my suitcase has so much in it!

T minus 5 days to departure

I'll be driving the Tesla Model S from Madison WI to Indio CA (and back again) in October 2014 along the Tesla SuperCharger network. Looking forward to mountain and desert driving and lots of National Parks!