Monday, March 11, 2013

A few more glorious gallons of sunshine in my pocket.

We drove to and from Lima, Ohio last weekend without any problems.  Everything went as planned (or better).  It's nice to have an easy successful roadtrip under our belt.  And what fun!  Here's how it went down.

Left Chicago with 240 miles.  Not a full charge, but we decided to risk it.
Drove almost four hours to Van Wert, Ohio, with the heat on at a steady pace (55mph to be safe).
Arrived at a pleasant campground and pulled right into a 50 amp 240 volt plug.
We locked up the car (turning all the lights off), laid the seats flat in the back and made a bed of sleeping bags and pillows, watching the stars through the panaramic roof before we fell asleep (although less tint would have made them more visible).  We both had a restful and surprisingly comfortable night's sleep -- despite lying in the back of a car, parked in 20 degree winter -- so much better than I expected!  The charger fans make a soft whirring I never noticed before that helped lull us to sleep and we kept toasty cuddled in our coccoon.
Woke up and opened the hatch into the fresh winter morning with almost a full charge after just 7 hours.
Spent the weekend with relatives in the Lima area.
Topped off for an hour at the campground on our way out of town and hightailed it on back to Chicago (210 miles) with the heat blasting at 65 miles an hour.  We even had 45 miles to spare on arrival.  They charged us per kW at the campground and the whole roundtrip cost us just about $13.  Not bad.

Went off without a hitch!  Makes for a much shorter and less memorable story, but damn it felt good.