Prime road trip!

Okay, here we go on a big road trip from Delaware to the great Southwest. I will be on the hunt for Chargepoint sites as we go. Have the $100 card ready to max my electric driving. First try at blending casual fun driving with locating the chargers and managing to integrate those stops into convenient food/comfort breaks. I feel like a pioneer. May the [electromotive] force be with us.

 

First day on the road...

Late start so we had to try to get to Columbus Ohio around midnight. For the first half of the trip, the DRCC functioned perfectly and got us around D.C. and up the I-270 corridor in the HOV lane stop-and-go traffic like a dream. Nav system ran me up I-70 into the heart of PA, where we ran into unexpected heavy snow. It coated the radar system and bye bye to dynamic range cruise control, lane departure warning, and collision protection. The combination of the wiper noise and defrost noise made a hash of the voice control navigation. We were sandwiched in between semis with no lanes visible and no way to get the nav system to find a hotel. Luckily, my eyeballs still function so I was able to spot the Holiday Inn in Belle Vernon, PA sign and trek through the snow to the motel. Finding plugs was hopeless. Maybe better luck tomorrow. Tonight, happy to be in a warm bed and not fighting my way to Columbus.

I guess there is no easy solution (beyond stopping every few miles to clean off the radar emblem) to this problem. But the real world experience of having key safety systems fail when I needed them most was sobering.

 

Not on the way out. We're in St. Louis tonight. It was almost 70 when we got here. Contrast to last night's disaster. I'm going to sneak out early before Betsy gets up and try plugging into a free charger near our motel in the St. Louis burbs.

That is what the screen was asking me to do, Don. But we were barreling along with no good spots to hop off and clean it. I-70 in PA in a blizzard isn't a good venue for pulling off to deal with cleaning the radar sensor.

 

Salty dog Prime in the Kirkwood, MO community center parking lot. Plugged into a free fast charge on the wall of the building. He got a nice bath after the two hour full charge. Found the charger on PlugShare app. Onward!