East Bound - Day 1

We left our house with 100% full battery (305 miles) and left at 8:00 on our road trip East. I'll be editing this posting as we move through the day as I get the opportunity.

The first segment of our drive is complete, and we are supercharging at Kettleman City, CA. When we arrived there was one S and one other 3 there. When we told the folks in the S that this was our first supercharging the nice folks showed us around, and how to get the code to get into the lounge. There was a coffee bar, nice restrooms, and snack machines. There was also a display of the Tesla Power wall and a kiddie play area.

We were "scheduled " to go farther, but I guess I drove too fast, so the car suggested we charge here instead... Nice! 

In 31 minutes we went from 36% to 83%!

Next we went to the In-N-Out to get lunch (and beat the lunch rush).

Now we are in Mojave, CA (right on the edge of the Mojave desert). The superchargers are not as nice as the ones in Kettleman City, but there's a mexican restaurant that we can hang out in add some miles.

We were totally amazed at the amount of smoke that was in the air all the way down the central valley...  It didn't clear until we went over the mountains in Tehachapi. Once we got East of the mountain range, the air was MUCH clearer! So many fires!

The drive from Mojave to Needles Arizona was starting to get boring, but at least the speed limit was 70 in Nevada & Arizona. The superchargers were easy to get to, but there were panhandlers and she didn't feel comfortable so we just went to the bathroom and then got back on the road.

The drive to Kingman was even more boring, especially after the sun went down (at 5:30!). But we just cruised along letting the car do all the work and listened to our audiobook (it's "Consider Phlebas" by Iain M. Banks - the first of the Culture series). I highly recommend this series!

We checked in to the hotel, the Suzanne wanted to go to Cracker Barrel...  I was hesitant because I had not had a good experience there (and this was no different). Yuck! Overcooked vegetables, crap salads, lemon pepper trout that was more pepper than trout, and broccoli that smelled like it had gone bad and then they steamed it anyway.

I dropped her off at the hotel and got her settled then drove back 2 exits to the Supercharger and added some miles.

I had heard that going over 80% takes a lot more time, and it's true. When I started the sessions the car was accepting 117-120 kiloWatts of power, by the time the battery was at 80%, it was accepting 32 kW.

Totals for the day:
610.6 miles, 174 kWh, 286 Wh/mi (or 3.5 miles/kWh)
Trip: 08:00 - 20:15 (1 hr of time zone), so 11 hours 15 minutes trip time (so 54.3 miles/hr average including lunch and dinner)

Looks like two Superchargers tomorrow to get us all the way to Tucumcari New Mexico.