Arnie surprised Thrivent colleagues Jeff Ritter and Bill Gibson at their homes off a tributary of Buckeye Lake in Thornville, Ohio.
Sunday, September 15, 2013
Supercharged
To date, the 50-amp hook-ups Arnie used to charge his Tesla Model S,
powered the Battery of the electric luxury sedan at roughly 25-28 miles per hour.
If the Tesla was properly hooked-up for four hours at an RV Park, Arnie added
about one-hundred miles to his driving range. The farthest range of the Battery on
the 2013 Model S was about 269 miles. When embarking on a 3000-mile
coast-to-coast road trip, Arnie’s new toy needed to charge nearly 120 hours
on such hook-ups—that’s five days.
The author suspects Arnie scored near 700 on the math portion of his SAT's as a youth--though neither Reggie nor Arnie could not confirm this suspicion.
Since he was used to waiting over ten hours to fully charge
your Tesla’s Battery, finding a Tesla supercharger was like discovering the
Holy Grail. One such charger existed at the time on the planned route of
Arnie’s Adventure, in Normal, Illinois.
Arnie did not know what to expect: Would there be Tesla’s lined up? Would people leave their cars and go
to lunch?—or leave them overnight? How is it regulated? How many chargers would
be there? Will it take less than an hour?
He exited the highway and drove five miles on back roads
through multiple four-way stops. (Editor’s note: If you want to get Arnie’s
blood boiling, ask his opinion on the four-way stop.)
He and his writer arrived within one hundred feet of the supercharger, according to Miss Navigation System, but they could not find a sign to direct them further. It could be in any one of the two parking garages they passed. So they circled the Uptown Station neighborhood with an 8-mile range left on their Battery to make a second pass.
He and his writer arrived within one hundred feet of the supercharger, according to Miss Navigation System, but they could not find a sign to direct them further. It could be in any one of the two parking garages they passed. So they circled the Uptown Station neighborhood with an 8-mile range left on their Battery to make a second pass.
Arnie turned his attention to the second GPS map on the dash
behind the steering wheel and turned into the second garage. He circled the
Tesla up to the second floor where they saw four Chevy Volts charging stations
and what’s “affectionately known as a WalMart charger,” according to Arnie. Two
of the stations were in use. After circling to the third level of Uptown
Station parking garage they spied four Tesla charging stations—all waiting to
pump volts of energy into the next customer. The time was 4:55 pm on a Friday.
They had a 5-mile driving range on the Battery.
In an hour and fifteen minutes, the Tesla gained 272 miles in its range. The amperage of the charge ranged from about 88-300 and the voltage from about 350-400. The speedy charge allowed Arnie and Reggie to cover the most ground in their trip.
Arnie’s Electric
Car Mileage: Days One through Ten
Wed. Sept. 4:
Portland to
Seaside to
Cascade Rocks, Oregon 270
miles
Thu. Sept. 5:
Cascade Rocks to
Pasco, Washington to
Pomeroy 301
Fri. Sept. 6: Pomeroy to Orofino, Idaho to Missoula, Montana 249
Fri. Sept. 6: Pomeroy to Orofino, Idaho to Missoula, Montana 249
Sat. Sept. 7: Missoula to Virginia City to West Yellowstone 282
Sun. Sept. 8: West Yellowstone to Yellowstone National
Park to
West Yellowstone 191
Mon. Sept. 9: West Yellowstone to Cody, Wyoming to Buffalo 328.7
Tue. Sept 10: Buffalo to Mount Rushmore, South Dakota to Custer 232
Wed. Sept. 11: Custer to Gregory to Yankton 411.8
Thu. Sept. 12: Yankton to Onawa, Iowa to Newton 316.8
Fri. Sept. 13: Newton to Rock Island, Illinois to Normal to Greenfield, Indiana 466.1
Fri. Sept. 13: Newton to Rock Island, Illinois to Normal to Greenfield, Indiana 466.1
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Thriving Down the Road
Usually they arose and departed in the 8 o’clock hour the next morning and drove as far as their
range would take them, re-charging at the next KOA or RV Park. During the
mid-day charge—which took between two and eight hours depending on the distance
traveled—they ate lunch, toured the town, blogged and conversed with the
campground managers. A typical mid-day stop went something like this.
“Hi, we’re wondering if we could charge our car for a few
hours this afternoon.”
“Charge your car?”
“Yes, we have an electric Tesla and our Battery’s range is
low. Other RV parks have been helping us out, charging us anything from three
to ten dollars.” As a frame of reference, ten dollars was usually what a typical
park charged to empty a recreational vehicle’s waste water.
With the exception of the not-so-gentleman from Alder,
Montana, the folks who run such places were very hospitable, allowing Arnie to
use their 50-amp hook-up and Reggie to use the wireless Internet connection.
The Tesla charged without incident until they woke up in
Yankton, South Dakota on Thursday. Arnie noticed the 50-amp circuit tripped for
the first time in his adventure. The electric car tripped a 50-amp breaker four or
five times over three different units. For a full charge, Arnie and Reggie
needed to wait until 10:55 am—to begin their journey.
“Well, I have an 11 o’clock lunch appointment anyhow,” Arnie
told Reggie as he loaded his sleeping gear into the frunk (Clever Tesla and Ford Pinto
owners use this term to refer to the storage space under the hood).
“Cool, who are we meeting?”
“The Thrivent agent in town.”
Thrivent Financial is a not-for-profit fraternal benefit
society that offers insurance and financial investments, products and services.
The fraternal portion supports different community activities, volunteer
efforts and financial support. The company has nearly 2500 reps who serve three
million members nationwide. Thrivent gives out nearly $200 million a year.
Yankton was a town in southeast South Dakota with a
population of 14,000. The Thrivent office was downtown—a short drive from the
KOA—but Miss Navigation System got confused. In addition to a closed road due
to construction, the Tesla circled the block that clear, bright, late-summer morning looking
for a place to park.
The office was newly renovated with the smell of fresh paint
in the air. Sherry sat behind the desk and greeted Arnie and Reggie.
“Yes, I’ve heard about your trip,” she said. “I saw it in
the company newsletter.”
Minutes later Arnie’s colleague W.D. appeared. They greeted
and drove the Tesla to lunch.
W.D. was a jolly man who loved his ten years on the job with
Thrivent. Like Arnie, W.D. grew up in Maryland—but on the western part of the
state in Cumberland. After retiring from the Air Force he moved to South
Dakota, where his wife was raised. He led Arnie and Reggie through the back
door of a bar named The Upper Deck. Sports paraphernalia lined the walls while
billiards, darts and video games surrounded a large wrap-around bar on three
sides. They sat down at a table.
“I love South Dakota,” said W.D. as the waitress greeted him
by name. “There’s a lot of homemade goodness here. It’s common for the farmers
to walk through the back door and drop off tomatoes.”
The trio ordered lunch and W.D. told a story about a house call he did for a German client who served him homemade rhubarb wine and wedding whiskey.
The trio ordered lunch and W.D. told a story about a house call he did for a German client who served him homemade rhubarb wine and wedding whiskey.
“Here we do things a little bit differently,” the waitress
said upon her return. “Desserts before the main course.” She laid two cherry
and custard tarts on the table that looked more at home in a French café than
an American sports bar.
“See Momma here at the bar?” W.D. said motioning behind him.
“She raised $700 making desserts like these.”
W.D. and Arnie talked shop over lunch. W.D. told how he raised
$15,000 in one-day golf tournament. One client roasted a pig and the benefits
went to Yankton-area Special Olympics and other local charities such as Sack-Pack
Bag Weekend. As they finished lunch, the conversation turned back to South
Dakota.
“So have you seen a jack-a-lope around here yet?”
“A what?” Arnie asked.
“They’re real?” Reggie asked. “I thought they were just a
legend.”
“Ahhhh, just pullin’ your chain,” said W.D. with a laugh.
“But our jack rabbits, they get yay high when they’re on their hind legs.” He
raised his hand four feet off the floor. “They’re something!”
South Dakota: Arnie's Adventure final taste of the Wild West.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Old Friends
An under-rated aspect about cross-country road trips is
employing the element of surprise. During life, friends
and family members scatter across the country, rarely to be seen again. One of
Arnie’s friends moved to Fort Wayne, Indiana from Baltimore—with Arnie’s help,
in fact—back in 1987. He later settled in Gregory, South Dakota. His name is
Al Althoff.
Arnie knew Al from the Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Baltimore.
Their relationship went back thirty years. Al was a fifth and sixth grade
school teacher before moving with his wife and two children to attend seminary
school in Fort Wayne. Al convinced Arnie to drive his large, manual
transmission moving truck to Indiana. Arnie had little experience driving a
stick shift automobile, let alone a giant moving van, but was bribed with the
promise of a turkey and ham dinner on the other end.
Recharging the Tesla in Wyoming, Arnie picked up his phone. Riiiiiing…riiiiing…
“Hello?”
“Al? Do you who this is?”
“Uhhhhh…No.”
“It’s Arnie Able…from Baltimore.”
The author could not see the look on Al’s face, but he
imagined his lower jaw dropping to his carpeted living room floor. The old friends have not
seen each other—nor communicated—in twenty-some years. Arnie told his story over
the phone and Al provided his home address. The next day, the sleek black Tesla with a grill loaded with insects
appeared in Al’s rural Gregory, South Dakota driveway.
As Arnie attempted to call Al on the phone from the
driveway, the pastor with the gray beard and glasses gazed from his front porch
with a suspicious smile.
“Why did you get into this project again?”
They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.
“Well, we only have a couple miles left on the battery,” Arnie
said—nine to be exact. “Where’s this RV park?”
Al led Arnie and Reggie to Ace’s RV Park, which is owned and
operated by a family from his congregation—St. John’s Lutheran Church. They
plugged in and went for lunch.
Gregory, South Dakota was a town of 1300 people and no
stoplights. The nearest traffic light was 37 miles away. The nearest WalMart was
over 100 miles away. At 4 o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon the local café was
closed. So where do locals find a meal in such a small town at that hour? The bowling alley,
of course.
As the trio walked in the door of Bubba’s Bar and Bowling, a
table of six old women turned their heads and eyed them as if they stepped out
of a spaceship and their skin was green. No one was bowling. The fellas
continued past the ten lanes of tenpin into the back room and sat at a round table across from the bar. The
local news played on the television behind the beer taps.
“So what did Anita think about your trip?” Al asked in reference to Arnie’s
wife.
“She didn’t want to come.”
“Well obviously!”
“How do you like South Dakota?”
“It’s a great state to live in,” Al said. “The neighbors
look out for each other; we can leave the kids on their own—they learned to
fish and hunt (pheasant and deer). Nobody bothers us here.
“I don’t want people to think I didn’t like Baltimore. My
daughter was born there. I had a good time in Baltimore; I had a good time in
Detroit. But once I moved to the rural areas I found peace,” Al said. “Best
thing is, there’s no income tax.”
Over lunch, Arnie and Al reminisced about old times—about
the time they raised $20,000 at a fundraiser during an Orioles game at Memorial
Stadium for Andrew Carlson, a disabled child. Arnie and Al went on a fishing
trip that day. It rained and they barely made it in time for the game—where Al
was to throw out the first pitch. After all these years he kept the ball, and
recently gave it to his daughter for Christmas.
Living in a small town offered Al the opportunity to embrace
different roles. In addition to his duties as a pastor, Al was an EMT for the
fire department. He helped organize 800 lunches in four hours to support the
police department in their search of a fugitive who murdered a woman. He
followed with a sad story of how he baptized a baby girl, then ministered her
funeral four months later. Al was one of the firefighters called to the rescue
when her family’s home burned to the ground. Three years ago Al retired as a
pastor due to health reasons, but the peace of the country and time with his
wife, children and grandchildren kept his spirits up.
A hot beef sandwich, a chicken burrito and Reuben later,
they drove to the Gregory library where Al’s wife Diane finished work for the
day, and returned home. The Tesla needed about three more hours to charge, so as
Diane prepared coffee cake, Al led Arnie and Reggie to his basement to show
them his pride and joy: A miniature town with enough train tracks to run
through the house, train engines, train cars, a couple hundred miniature
buildings—houses, churches, gas stations, parking garages, a cemetery,
restaurants, water tower, trees, people, you name it and it was probably
there—and 1500 Matchbox and Hot Wheels cars.
“The kids used to buy them for me as a Christmas present
when they were fifty cents,” Al said.
“We should find him a Tesla,” said Reggie.
“Actually, I have a black Tesla somewhere around here.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I found it when it was more of a concept car,” Al
said. “Seems I got a Tesla before you, Arnie.”
The three of them laughed and commenced an all-out search
for the miniature car.
“Here’s a Volt,” Arnie said.
After nearly a half an hour—they had all night—they
abandoned their search and joined Diane for coffee and more stories upstairs in the
kitchen. Al promised to send a photo when he found the mini-Tesla.
Caves & Patriots
Deer pranced and fed amongst the pines.
But there was more than met their sense of sight. For these hills were once a thriving sea. Helping to sustain life during a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Arnie and Reggie took a closer look. What was below?
Arnie parked the Tesla. Reggie strapped on the camera. They descended a flight of stairs. "Let's take a deeper look," said Ranger Melissa. "Welcome to Jewel Caves National Park."
After channeling his inner Batman, Arnie took to the controls of the Tesla. He tapped the icons on the navigation system and he and his writer were off to their next destination. But en route, they sensed trouble in the world.
"Holy buffalo scat, Arnie!" Reggie said.
"What is it, Reggie?"
"Those trees--hundreds, maybe thousands of pine trees are brown!"
"Yes, Reggie. The Black Hills of South Dakota has experienced a pine beetle infestation," Arnie said. "Once infested, a tree will slowly die. The red trees were infested last year and are now dead. To protect from this epidemic, forest rangers embarked on an extensive thinning program to return the forest to a more sustainable condition."
Dead pine tree scattered the scenery, as they drove to their next stop--one of the finest sculptures the world has witnessed: Mount Rushmore.
To date, the National Memorial was protected from the beetles, but will it be in the future?
Arnie and Reggie stayed for the lighting ceremony. The master of ceremonies spoke of liberty--how it was not just a word to be read in a text book, or a word to throw around in debates, but something to show and exercise in daily life. An inspiring video followed, highlighting the character and accomplishments of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. Then military veterans in the crowd were invited to the stage to introduce themselves and be honored with applause.
The night was clear. The quarter moon rose. Patriotism filled the cool mountain air.
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