Our first EV road trip to Savannah 1/25 to 2/5
First, to clarify, the picture above is from the day Chris got her Tesla which was in December and as you can see, no snow When we left for this trip, there was at least 2 feet on the ground.
It has been over 4 years since we took a nice long road trip. Would it be as much fun as before? Would the EV make it better or worse? While Parry has a plan (Parry ALWAYS has a plan) this is our first trip where we can really just go where we want and when we want. Of all our (in)famous family road trips, the only other time we did a trip like this was our "World's Greatest" spring break. In that case, we drove to North Dakota simply to cross ND off our list of states we had not yet visited. As it turned out, we zig-zagged across the upper Midwest seeing as many "world's largest" items and all 4 of us agree it may have been the best of all trips, just because of it's silliness. How many did we see you ask? We will have to go back and count to be sure but at least 15! While this new trip to Savannah may not be as spontaneous, and the boys aren't traveling with us, we will not encounter that many world's largest but we suspect we will find some nice oddities along the way.
Day 1 - A later start time then planned, only by 1 hour, we began our trip with drizzle and melting snow and drove into the fog to begin the journey driving the Y 500 miles to Somerset PA. It only took 3 charging stops and none were over 30 minutes. The car drove great, it was so quite and smooth and stopping every 2 or 3 hours to charge felt easier on our body with more energy at the end of the day. We conversed with other travelers and had zero wait time to charge. The foggy weather came and went throughout the day and we listened to the first 7 chapters of The Ride of Passage podcast - it's great! No sunshine but it did get up to 60 degrees, and you forget how wonderful it is to be outside without a coat. Still had some great views of mist, steam, and yes, fog.
Smoky Mountains in PA - in this case the 'smoke' is fog but it still works!
Getting foggier but yet also prettier.
Day 2 - As we were heading to DC to spend some time with Nathan and Andrea it dawned to us it's been almost 20 years driving these roads. It all started with a family trip and Nathan's desire to live and work in the DC area. It was a great day, the fog gone and partly sunny day. By the time we arrived in DC around noon, it was already 74 and sunny. Eventually, it reached 80 degrees - a first in DC history they reached 80 during the month of January! It was quite lovely. The 3 hour drive to DC went smooth and we were able to easily reach our hotel without stopping to charge. We had a nice dinner with Nate and Andrea at Western Market's Duke's Groceries (British restaurant), went to Nate's office and then to the bar across the street for drinks before we went back to their apartment and had excellent black tea that he was presented from one of his attendees from Azerbaijan.
Day 3 - Billboards, peanuts, attractions, Oh My! Today's drive felt like old time travels with fun sites and great laughs. Sensing it will be tricky finding what we really want to highlight, here are just a few. We knew we were in the "south" when we found boiled peanuts available at a gas station. The snow cone place shaped like a snow cone was great BUT Buc-ee's was definitely #1. It was our last charging stop of the day and visiting the store felt like walking through an amusement park of crazed starving people. Parry, found it was difficult picking what to buy and settled for a chopped brisket sandwich. His description, "melt in your mouth" yum! Thankfully he is a man with a plan, once the car reached it charge we were back on the road. And then there was "South of the Border," a sweet memory for Parry from his childhood and the boys. We took the exit and took pictures but we didn't stop.
Day 4 - Fun, fun, fun with lots and lots of walking. It was an absolutely gorgeous day. Upper 60's and windy, in January! Heard some locals marveling how warm it was. We so wanted to chime in "it's because of climate change," but decided against it. We had one charge stop today and visited with a fellow traveler who had only good things to say about their Tesla, and we agree. It's been fun, smooth, almost like a vacation in itself.
Parry's inner architect comes through whenever we visit a historic town, always drawn to the churches. Charleston has plenty, quite majestic. While the "pineapple fountain" is famous, it isn't a church, so don't be fooled.
We walked over 5 miles AND used the local bus system to travel 2 of 3 of their downtown routes so while we didn't see everything, we didn't miss much!! Strange note: Chris and I walked side by side and yet her watch had 5.75 miles and mine was at 5.0 miles and steps were 13,000+ vs 11,000+. Guess we need to work on their calibration, eh?
Day 5 - Our first day of being carefree and what do we do? Wake up at 6:30 AM, figures. So we decided to start the day off with the Waffle House, a short walk from our hotel. Afterwards we headed to Fort Sumter, a National Monument, the place the first shots were fired to start the Civil War. To see the fort we took a ferry ride and the park ranger provided a bit of history. It was informative, disturbing, and quite windy. It was a bit chilly so no no upper deck site seeing for us.
After the fort we headed to Johns Island to see the 400 year-old Angel Oak (a southern living oak (aka coniferous oak tree) with a 28 foot circumference! From there we checked out Folly Beach and Pier and were lucky enough to see a Double-crested Cormorant, Pelicans, and probably a dolphin. At the end of the day we headed to a charger, which was near a Costco, so of course we had to check it out too.
Day 6 - Savannah!
It only took 38 years to get here. I can honestly say, Savannah is no Macon, GA, it did not disappoint (whereas Macon did) years ago when I tried to convivence Chris they were very similar places. No worries, Chris didn't fall for it, but she did do a lot of eye-rolling.
We had lunch at the Pirate House (it appears in Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island), walked the river front and finished the day off with ice cream from Savannah's own, Leopold's (over 100 years in business!)
Had it been the 70's and we came here as kids, my dad would have been extremely annoyed with our belly-aching. But now, it's retro and cool. The Thunderbird Inn is one of the top ten retro hotels in the country.
It was a great day, turns out Savannah is a better city for walking than Charleston as we walked 4 miles today, took 2 buses around town AND a round trip water taxi across the Savannah River.
Day 7 -My how time flies when we are having fun! We started the day visiting Fort Pulaski and learn that Casimir Pulaski immigrated from Poland to avoid persecution and was the founder of the U.S. Cavalry and monumental in our Revolutionary War. At the fort Parry was able to buy his Senior lifetime National Park Pass so we start our official quest to see as many of the National Parks as we can. Ironically, Fort Pulaski is a National Monument, as was Fort Sumter and not National Parks.
After the fort, we headed to Tybee Island and then to World's Longest live oak-covered road in the world, spanning a mile and a half long with over 400 oak trees on both sides.
Finally back in Savannah, we decided to give the free bus another try and it took some grumbling but we were able to take it to the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist. WOW! From there we headed to a very old cemetery where "famous people" are buried from the 1700's through 1850's. . Not that we knew any of the people, it had a very "spooky" feel with the hanging Spanish moss.
Day 8 National park day. Congaree National Park (our 29th!). Trees, trees, and more trees, this park is famous for the trees and synchronous fireflies. We didn't see any fireflies as they don't come out until spring but we were able to enjoy the trees. This park is an old growth forest with 19 World's largest trees of different species. Not only do we cross off a National Park we also cross off a "world's largest."
In addition to the trees we saw the flooded water of the Congaree and Wateree Rivers and fields of cotton in the process of being harvested.
Speedy McGo (our EV "name") is doing great and making our trip very delightful. Charging has been enjoyable with conversations, playing video games, or taking walks. The most difficult part of charging has been trying to find the chargers. At times they are located in back lots making us drive all around the lot to get to them or, in once case, behind a fast food place making us wait to access the chargers until the drive thru lane cleared a access point!
Day 9 A carefree day of very little planning in Asheville, NC. We arrived into the city a bit before noon and just walked around and discovered they had recently removed a monument which had reference to the Confederates and the Civil War. It appears that the Black Lives Matter Movement was making an impact. There were tourists signs with #blm along with a couple of newer historic signs (2021) referencing lynching s which happened during1880's to the 1950's. We eventually found our way to a nice spot for lunch at the famous Grove Arcade and The Pinball Museum which offered pinball and video game play for $15/person. The museum was open from 2 - 9 PM. We stayed a couple of hours. Parry spent most of his time with the pinball machines, finding the one he could beat the most often was, ironically, The Simpsons. Whereas, Chris spent her time with the video games, enjoying Tempest, Robotron, Centipede and Joust.
We didn't go into the Lunch Box museum, but we did talk about it. Chris commented she didn't think she had a lunchbox growing up but Parry said he definitely did but wanted to check with his Mom to see if he really did have lunch boxes? . Chris got to thinking about it, and even reached out to her siblings for their insights. And her brother said he remembered a plaid lunchbox. How about you?
Day 10 As we wind our way back home we thought it was perfect to visit The Dragon Tail and meander the Smokies. Thus, a perfect opportunity to find the train crash site and dam, Harrison Ford leapt from in the movie The Fugitive, a favorite film of ours - NO, we are not old enough to have watched the T.V. series. (see tunnel, bus/train and dam below)
Next it was the discovery of the Cherokee warrior war hero, Junaluska. A piece of history neither Chris or I ever learned about.
We also discovered the town that Ronnie Milsap was born in, Dillsboro NC, which happens to be near one end the Dragon Tail. Now, the "pièce de résistance", the Dragon Tail. Eleven miles of 318 curves on 1 road between NC and TN. It was a perfect day for this endeavor. We got lucky, we saw some very fancy cars, fast bikes and several renditions of dragons and while we were on it, only two Porsches crashed! (minor crashes but probably not minor $$)
But we couldn't end our day with the Dragon Tail so we sought out The Manhattan Project Historical Site and the Friendship Bell. It turned out that I have been to all three sites responsible for the first atom bombs and Chris has been to two. Los Alamos, NM, Oak RIdge, TN, Hanover, WA. Not sure how great feat that is except to a history buff like me.
Finally, as we left Oak Ridge, our Tesla mapped a "cross country" route to our hotel of about 30 miles of back county roads and we started to talk about how the movie Deliverance seemed more real to us all of sudden! So we discovered a great new feature of our car. All I had to say was "Play Dueling Banjos" and suddenly it was playing, as we were driving the back roads of TN to the great sound of banjos!!! Tomorrow we have several hours of expressway driving and I suspect our play list will shout, PARTY
Day 11 As we were leaving our hotel today there were more clouds then any other day so far, a sure sign we are on our way home. Thankfully the clouds cleared and it made it to 58 degrees in some places but as we neared Indiana we proved what we thought all trip, there are nice "warm" 50's and 60's and there are COLD 50's and 60's. Thus, by Indianapolis, we were talking wind chills and longing for the "hot" and sunny 63 of SC. Today we traveled through the mountains of Tennessee and Kentucky, the horse countryside of Kentucky, and the flat, flat, flat of Indiana. The scenery was good and with the help of Roadside America we stopped by some interesting sights - giant dragon and VR rocket along I-75, Colonel Sanders's wife's chicken restaurant, the 'World's Largest Sausage Roll" and a Civil War site. And to my great joy we encountered another Buc-ee's! Yes, I did get another brisket sandwich and it was just as good as the last one!!
Day 12 - Our last day. :-( Unfortunately, the drive from Indianapolis wasn't quite as fun as we hoped. As it turned out, Chris had some sort of allergic reaction last night which resulted in hives. Nothing that appeared serious but certainly annoying. We grabbed some Benadryl and other meds and drove home. I did my best to distract her from itching. We were able to finish our audio book that we started on this trip and then spent the remaining hours listening to the strangest / funniest songs we could think of. Overall, we had a marvelous time and better weather than we could have hoped. Believe it or not, I forgot to write down the mileage when we started but even so, I know the trip was about 3,000 miles. In other words, a nice hop-skip-and-a-jump type trip! It was great.
Next you ask? The solar eclipse, of course!