Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 05

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the fifth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 4, click here.

Day 5 – Drive on Wednesday, May 6, 2015

Our personal goal today is to get to Chicago and take a picture with “Cloud Gate” aka “The Bean.” Like the previous day, we didn’t book something specifically, but figured we would find a place “on the route.” Additionally, we contacted our friend Cara, in Aurora, IL, to see if she would like to spend some time with us for a meal or coffee (or wine for her, as she isn’t on a long roadtrip) as we decided to charge the car at the Aurora, IL supercharger.

Hampton Inn Rochester

Didn’t take any pictures at Hampton Inn. But this stay was interesting in that the actual rated miles went up to 176 miles in the morning when I moved the car for us to load (we were parked in the back). We had a funny thing happen when I was moving the car. The Model S is so quiet that I started to hear a strange noise as I moved the car from the back of the hotel to the front of the hotel. I started to hear a strange sound, and wondered to myself, “Oh no, what the %*!$ is that!” It took me a few seconds before I realized that it was the Internet Radio and the start of Van Halen’s “Hot for the Teacher.” So, in the future, before you freak out, mute the radio when you hear a “strange sound.”

Additionally, we took advantage of the manual car wash that was adjacent to the property and took the opportunity to clean the car. Rochester, MN is not in a drought and we were collecting quite a few dead bugs on the car.

Believe me, there’s an impressive lake on the other side of the road…

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We just couldn’t get a picture of it before we got to La Crosse, unless you squint past my face.

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Just before La Crosse was some construction. It looks like they’re working on a bridge, or fixing a bridge.

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…and we cross into Wisconsin…

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La Crosse Supercharger

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The La Crosse Supercharger is in a “weird” location. There really isn’t anything around its immediate location. It’s located in a business park and there seems to be two restaurants behind chargers and at the edge of shopping center. It is located across from Home Depot. Beyond Home Depot away from the chargers is a Walmart.

We arrived there as the Tesla Supercharger maintenance guy was working on the Wisconsin SCs. though some of the superchargers looked to have had pieces pulled off, the supercharger was operational. The Tesla Supercharger Maintenance Employee was very friendly. I got to peek at the innards, but wasn’t allowed to take a picture. So, I didn’t take any pictures. It was nice to see someone working on maintaining these superchargers. I thanked him for his work and let him know how happy we were for the work that he and his colleagues are doing to enable our travel.

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Because we were seeking coffee and there was not a convenient place beside the superchargers, we decided to find the nearest Starbucks according to the Model S navigation system (9432 WI-16, Onsalaka, WI) is a drive through and easy to get to or from the superchargers.

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The drive to Mauston is all Interstates. So, the view was

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Mauston Supercharger

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The Mauston Supercharger is located at the parking lot of Culver’s. I noticed that they sold Frozen Custard there, and since I wanted to know what the difference between Frozen Custard and Ice Cream, I decided to try it there.

I’m a BIG fan of Ice Cream, especially Soft Ice Cream. Frozen Custard reminds me of a mix of Soft Ice Cream and Gelato. (And yes, I meant to capitalize all these in this paragraph.)

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Now, as we pulled out of the Mauston Supercharger, the navigation changed our route from the Interstate to alternate highways. It seems that there were some accidents and/or slow-downs on the direct Interstate route so I decided to give the navigation suggestions a try.

The first route actually tried to route us through a closed road. This would be the second time that the navigation tried to direct us to a closed road (remember the drive to Rapid City for a charge at the Mall, the road was closed.)

This redirection would normally have resulted in my taking the direct Interstate, but I decided to zoom out and see if there could be another alternate highway to use, and started to direct myself in that direction and see if the Model S navigation would adjust itself into that direction.

It did… and a new guiding principle popped up from this experience.

“Sometimes you have to get off the Interstate, you’re on vacation, and it makes for a nice drive.”

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So, it was a pleasant detour and we got to Madison, WI within a few minutes of the originally projected time via the more direct Interstate route.

Madison Supercharger

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Another supercharger at a mall. This trip could get expensive with all the shopping versus the gasoline.

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We didn’t really get out of the car here. Took the time to catch up with friends and commiserate about “deflate gate” findings and Tom Brady’s role in it.

I jumped out to go look around and figured to take a photo of the business hours for Buffalo Wild Wings.

If you’re at this charger late, Buffalo Wild Wings is open late.

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So, we’re on our way from Madison to Rockford…

And we’re crossing the border into Illinois.

As we were entering the toll plaza in Illinois, a nice young lady in an ICE car was pacing us and got my wife’s attention. Apparently we got a nice thumbs up and she mouthed the words “Nice Car.” I guess the car wash at the start of the day, helped :-).

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Rockford Supercharger

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The superchargers at Rockford are located at the Cherryvale Mall. It was placed far from the mall crowd to minimize being ICEd and I have to commend Tesla on the strategy. They’ve done well on this plan.

Because I like my “frozen” treats. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that there is a Red Mango Yogurt at the mall, on the side closest to the superchargers.

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Are those windmills that I see on the way to Aurora?

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Have to squint to see…

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They ARE windmills!

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Well, that’s cool. I hope they get pretty windy this close to the Windy City. Regardless, good for you Illinois!

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The Tesla Model S navigation was routing us to a different location. Luckily, we used the Teslarati App for iOS and noted that there is a TEMPORARY supercharger location in Aurora at the Two Brothers Roundhouse.

The food and coffee at the Two Brothers is great. However, this is a temporary location that the car (when using Navigation) does not direct you to, so, use the address on the app (or the website above provides.)

According to our friend, Cara (an Aurora resident,) this part of town is “sketchy”. As a matter of fact, when we were saying goodbye, an inebriated non-customer approached us and was panhandling before security showed up. This experience made us painfully aware of how unaware we are of the locations that we’re driving through and we decided to research locations on teslamotorsclub.com before we plan on stopping there in “odd” hours.

That said, I would only come here in an emergency and only when the restaurant/cafe is open.

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I wonder if these were the same ones that were in Barstow when they upgraded the location

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As we said our goodbyes to our friend and her kids in Aurora, we were determined to get a picture with Cloud Gate.

So we proceeded to go to Chicago.

Chicago

While on our drive to Chicago, we had a nice red Random Model S sighting of a local Model S that slowed down, acknowledged us, and went on his way. Since we were unsure where to get the next charge, we were driving conservatively and at the speed limit. Something locals seem to ignore.

After many days of traveling in rather sparse four lane divided highways, it was comforting to be back in our minimal eight lanes of traffic with buildings surrounding us. No agoraphobia here. Mild claustrophobia, perhaps. 😉

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Cloud Gate AKA The Bean

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Doing my “Finding Nemo” impression of the “Touch the Boat” scene.

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Our reflection on a curved space…

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Selfie with a curved Chicago reflection.

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And another picture of me… (’cause the wife said, that picture of you looks good)

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The view from Millenium Park.

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Decided to stay in South Bend, IN. Using the same theory that netted us the stay at Rochester, MN, we hypothesized South Bend, IN would be an ideal place to stop in the evening. Additionally, South Bend is only a few miles from the next SC for the next morning Mishawaka, IN. When using this theory, it’s important to ensure that there is “nothing” huge going on that weekend, a College Football game, Graduation, that sort of thing. We lucked out in that Notre Dame University’s graduation isn’t until the following week.

On the drive to South Bend, the moon was particularly interesting.

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Hampton Inn South Bend

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With over 500 miles of driving today, dinner with a friend, and achieving the goal of a picture at “Cloud Gate”, I would consider today’s drive a big “win.”

Go on to Day 6. Click here.

05_Rochester to South Bend

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 04

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the fourth in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 3, click here.

Day 4 – Drive on Tuesday, May 5, 2015

The ride’s been good so far, but today’s drive is one of those where we had no real goals, aside from helping our friends at Teslarati fill out the information on the Teslarati App for iOS. Our personal goal is to get to Minnesota, if we can make it to Wisconsin, even better. We didn’t book something specifically, but figured we would find a place “on the route.”

Hilton Garden Inn Rapid City

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The hotel and the accommodations were comfortable. At breakfast, I met a gentleman on a business trip and we spoke about traveling great distances in an EV. He was interested, but was on his way to a meeting.

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We left the hotel at 236 Rated Miles in the morning. That meant that ten miles of range was lost by vampire losses overnight.

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In driving through these areas, one would notice advertisements for Wall Drug. Apparently, one of the things that Wall Drug is known for is its “dinosaur.” Not really something we will be stopping for, but here’s a picture that we took while driving by the Wall Drug dinosaur. They label themselves as “America’s Favorite Roadside Attraction” but we opted to keep on driving.

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There was a sign we saw on this drive, after Wall Drug that was for the Minuteman National Historic Site.

If I had known earlier, we could’ve planned a stop here, but we were planning on using this day for a “drive as far as we can” day, so skipped it. Here’s a link to it, so if you happen to be by this way, you can tell us what you think.

Lots of grassland… Not even trees.

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Not much on the map between Rapid City and Murdo…

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Wait, is that a BLUE Water Tower… You can see how loopy we can get on long “empty” stretches of grassland.

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Murdo Supercharger

Finally got to Murdo!

The superchargers are right there…

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…but if you didn’t spot it from the road as we did, look for the two tall pines.

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Got some great panoramics here.

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The folks at the hotel were very friendly,

The hotel has nice and clean restrooms in the lobby. I was advised that the lobby is open until approximately midnight and may close earlier and may open close to 6am, but could open later. Especially in the winter.

The cell service in Murdo, SD on AT&T iPhone is 1 bar, nonexistent on Virgin/Sprint and T-Mobile is spotty. We don’t have Verizon, so I have no comment on that.

We switched drivers at Murdo, and the better half decided to drive the next leg or two… This freed me up to play with Periscope.

[Click on the image and let it play from the Flickr photostream]

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or play on YouTube –

There were lots of wide open spaces between Murdo, SD and Mitchell, SD.

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Ooh a truck…

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This was not something we expected… a Lake along the highway.

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While we were driving along, we got another signal, so I figured to try another Periscope session…

[Click on the image and let it play from the Flickr photostream]

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or play on YouTube –

We had a random sighting of a Signature Red Model S heading West when we were about fifty miles to Mitchell. We didn’t flash lights because the better half was driving and I forgot to let her know how to do that. But that was exciting.

Then, just like that, we made it to Mitchell, SD

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Mitchell Supercharger

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The Mitchell, SD location is right beside a Goodwill store. So, if you’re here during hours, it’s a good place to just browse through. You never know what you’ll find. I picked up a few books. Sue Grafton hardbound books.

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There is a Dairy Queen next door that is open 10-10 and I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream. Aside from that, there is a County Fair Food Store that is open 24 hours adjacent to these stores as well.

I chose Ice Cream and books.

And then we’re off… Minnesota is next…

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One of our favorite State Line signs…

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You can tell the California traveler, we’re obsessed with water

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You can tell that we’re rEVolutionaries as we get really excited when we see renewable energy sites…

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Good for you Minnesota! Love to see places use what they get power from renewables. Seeing that it was all foggy when we were driving through, wind power might be a better solution there than solar power.

Worthington Supercharger

Next up is Worthington, MN.

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There is a hotel right beside this supercharger, but we still feel like we can keep going, so we took the time while in the car to figure out where to stay for the night. My original plan had us in Madison, WI after staying the night at Rapid City, SD. That’s not going to happen tonight. That drive is just too far. So, we started looking at places to stay near superchargers; however, there were no hotels that really appealed to us.

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So, we figured to look for something where there is either a University or something else on the way and settled on Rochester, MN. Rochester is about sixty to seventy miles past the Albert Lea, MN Supercharger and before the La Crosse, WI Supercharger. Rochester, MN is a good place to shop for hotels because it is located where the Mayo Clinic is located and large, world-class hospitals have to have good lodging for a transient population of patients and their families.

So, we now have a plan of where to go next, and that means going past the Albert Lea, MN Supercharger.

The drive to Albert Lea was in the dark and we didn’t take any pictures, but we got there fine.

Albert Lea Supercharger

If looking for the chargers, look for the hotel sign…

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The superchargers are just on the other side.

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It was late, but as friendly as the inn keepers were at this supercharger location, it was not the type of hotel that we’re used to staying at, and we were determined to get to the Hampton Inn at Rochester, MN.

Besides at sixty-five miles per hour, it’s about an hour to our next hotel.

Now, this should’ve been fine, but we didn’t realize how thick the fog gets in this part of Minnesota. At least it did during our drive. Now, we ordered our Model S with the fog lights and they’ve helped us on our drive down from our factory pickup weekend but the fog was nowhere near the “soup” we found ourselves in.

The drive was a little scary, and the persistent “Deer Crossing” signs are a little rattling for a couple of “city” kids from Southern California where the only wildlife we normally have to watch out for are “party animals”.

This drive also reminded me of my high school drivers’ education courses on why a driver does not use the high beams in fog. And I was glad to have remembered it and turned the fog lights on.

Hampton Inn Rochester

So, the hour estimate was a little off. But, we did arrive in Rochester, MN before midnight.

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We turned in with 175 Miles of Rated Range when we parked the car for the evening.

After 583 miles of driving, it was time to get some rest. Our goal for tomorrow is to get to Chicago. As many times as we’ve visited Chicago, we have yet to take a picture with “Cloud Gate” or as locals call it “The Bean.”

Go on to Day 5. Click here.

04_Rapid City to Rochester