Day 1, 5 states!
Good morning! It's now day 2 but I wanted to chat with you about yesterday before we take off. I didn't get it written last night because it was after midnight when we got to our destination & settled in for the night and I had driven all day (except the last 45 mins or so when I just couldn't do it anymore- more later) so I was sacked.
We had a great day, autopilot worked like a champ, and because I was checking the map once and forgot it wasn't on (I drifted JUST a tad) my sister is now a fan after 2 years of saying she didn't trust it/wouldn't use it/didn't like it. Haha, my plan worked! lol
So our first stop was Emporia, KS. This is a new supercharger so it is "V3" and we got ridiculous fast charging times of above 520 mph! We needed only a 10 minute stop but we were both not awake yet so we took a short nap here. We were able to charge to full in about 30 minutes (I set an alarm to wake us right before charging was supposed to end) and thus able to skip stopping in Wichita. I don't usually recommend doing a full charge at a supercharger, but since we were napping & it was mostly empty it was fine. The preconditioning update we got is nice so the battery accepts the charge at the fastest rate, that was a wifi update we got a few months back.
There is a "thing" called "Tesla Caching" that has gotten started where you leave a toy Tesla car behind at a supercharger for others to find, then they register the location found and move it to another supercharger. I received 5 cars to deploy for it, so we left one here since it was our first stop. Hopefully someone finds "Falcor" and carries him on to another spot!
From there we stopped in Perry, OK (yikes- the gas station was "under construction" and the McDonald's had caution tap around all the tables but bathroom was open), Weatherford, OK (Nik & I taught Vanessa how to play Backgammon in his entertainment choices), Shamrock, TX (more in a minute), and Amarillo, TX (safety stop) to use superchargers during the trip.
We also made a stop in Oklahoma City (between Perry and Weatherford) to see a small park & "river walk" that has the "Centennial Land Rush" memorial. It was a really pretty little area and the memorial was nicely done.
Shamrock Texas was basically a ghost town, at least the old Route 66 area. We ate at a FABULOUS place around the corner called Rusty's; they had great burgers but also have pizza and wings. The supercharger is behind a historic R66 Conoco building. If you are ever driving through Texas I highly recommend you stop here. There isn't much else around, but the food is great!
At Tucumcari we stopped at the old R66 Continental Oil Company gas station for the night. This has been converted to an EV charging station, with 2 J1772 universal chargers and 2 Tesla Destination chargers. There was a trailer, a lift truck, and a passenger truck blocking a lot of it, but there was room for us to pull in front of everything to plug in. We had a "friend" who had also plugged in his own Tesla to the other charger for the night. We slept in the car- Vanessa started off in the front seat because she didn't believe we would both fit in the back, but eventually got annoyed by the light on the building and came to the back for the rest of the night. Fun fact- you CAN comfortably fit two adults back here!
I know I usually do comparison info bw gas and electric charging, but we need to get on the road for the day so I will do those in a future update. For now, I just wanted to let you guys know we made it and we had a great time yesterday (minus the storm). For more info on the sites we stopped at, go check out Vanessa's blog, I will link it below. Also I will get a pic of Tucumcari to add here when I get back online. See you again soon!
Be sure to subscribe to the blog (over in the column on the left) to get an email notification when I add a new post. You will need to confirm your email by clicking the link in a message from "feedburner." No spam involved, you should only get an email when a new post is made. :-)
For anyone interested in taking a ride or getting more info on Tesla's (or EVs in general) get in touch and I am happy to help. If you want to buy a Tesla, please use my referral code to get some fabulous bonuses- the program changes, but right now it is 1000 free miles of supercharging for each of us. Tesla Referral code: is valerie50080 or just click this link https://ts.la/valerie50080
We had a great day, autopilot worked like a champ, and because I was checking the map once and forgot it wasn't on (I drifted JUST a tad) my sister is now a fan after 2 years of saying she didn't trust it/wouldn't use it/didn't like it. Haha, my plan worked! lol
So our first stop was Emporia, KS. This is a new supercharger so it is "V3" and we got ridiculous fast charging times of above 520 mph! We needed only a 10 minute stop but we were both not awake yet so we took a short nap here. We were able to charge to full in about 30 minutes (I set an alarm to wake us right before charging was supposed to end) and thus able to skip stopping in Wichita. I don't usually recommend doing a full charge at a supercharger, but since we were napping & it was mostly empty it was fine. The preconditioning update we got is nice so the battery accepts the charge at the fastest rate, that was a wifi update we got a few months back.
There is a "thing" called "Tesla Caching" that has gotten started where you leave a toy Tesla car behind at a supercharger for others to find, then they register the location found and move it to another supercharger. I received 5 cars to deploy for it, so we left one here since it was our first stop. Hopefully someone finds "Falcor" and carries him on to another spot!
From there we stopped in Perry, OK (yikes- the gas station was "under construction" and the McDonald's had caution tap around all the tables but bathroom was open), Weatherford, OK (Nik & I taught Vanessa how to play Backgammon in his entertainment choices), Shamrock, TX (more in a minute), and Amarillo, TX (safety stop) to use superchargers during the trip.
We also made a stop in Oklahoma City (between Perry and Weatherford) to see a small park & "river walk" that has the "Centennial Land Rush" memorial. It was a really pretty little area and the memorial was nicely done.
Shamrock Texas was basically a ghost town, at least the old Route 66 area. We ate at a FABULOUS place around the corner called Rusty's; they had great burgers but also have pizza and wings. The supercharger is behind a historic R66 Conoco building. If you are ever driving through Texas I highly recommend you stop here. There isn't much else around, but the food is great!
When we left Shamrock there was a big storm coming. We drove straight into it on the way to Tucumcari NM, which was our overnight stop. For about 30 minutes it rained hard enough that Nik gave up and said "you take over, I can't see." That was probably the longest 30 minutes of my life, but we made it safely to Amarillo. We were doing 45 mph on the highway and WAY behind schedule, but we got there. We pulled off to wait out the rest of the storm and check the radar so we charged while we waited. It turns out we drove through the worst of it so we were good to go after about 10 minutes. From there it was about 3 hours to Tucumcari, but the last 45 minutes I was struggling to concentrate because driving through the storm took so much out of me. My arms actually hurt today. My sister took over for the last little bit of the drive & got us to Tucumcari (thanks Ness).
At Tucumcari we stopped at the old R66 Continental Oil Company gas station for the night. This has been converted to an EV charging station, with 2 J1772 universal chargers and 2 Tesla Destination chargers. There was a trailer, a lift truck, and a passenger truck blocking a lot of it, but there was room for us to pull in front of everything to plug in. We had a "friend" who had also plugged in his own Tesla to the other charger for the night. We slept in the car- Vanessa started off in the front seat because she didn't believe we would both fit in the back, but eventually got annoyed by the light on the building and came to the back for the rest of the night. Fun fact- you CAN comfortably fit two adults back here!
I know I usually do comparison info bw gas and electric charging, but we need to get on the road for the day so I will do those in a future update. For now, I just wanted to let you guys know we made it and we had a great time yesterday (minus the storm). For more info on the sites we stopped at, go check out Vanessa's blog, I will link it below. Also I will get a pic of Tucumcari to add here when I get back online. See you again soon!
Be sure to subscribe to the blog (over in the column on the left) to get an email notification when I add a new post. You will need to confirm your email by clicking the link in a message from "feedburner." No spam involved, you should only get an email when a new post is made. :-)
Vanessa's blog: Travel the World History
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