Day 12 - Leaving the Lawyers Behind

Today the pattern changes a little bit as I am doing a lunch date with one person and staying somewhere else.  My Aunt Connie, the last living relative in that generation on my father’s side,  lives in Ocala which is a perfect distance to stop on the way from Tallahassee to Miami.  So it worked out beautifully that I was able to on short notice get her to go out to lunch with me in Ocala on my way down.  We had a nice lunch. I heard about my Aunt's friends who I have almost grown to know over my annual trips to Ocala.  Of course I also got all the news about my cousins Ralph and Suzanne and her grandkids.  We spent too much time together to get me to Miami at a reasonble time but it was worth it.

Floridians must not mind eating late as although I pulled in at my now usual 9:30 Peter had waited to go out for dinner and there were restaurants that were still open.  I chose Cuban food thinking that was the right choice for the area and in fact we had a good dinner with the expected fun observations about life that Peter is so adept at.

Driving in South Florida are at least as scary as Washington was and maybe more so.  The interstate has a wide range of drivers who drive at a wide range of speeds.  There are people in any lane going 40 and then there are some who do not want to drop below 90 so weave in and out of very tight openings to accomplish their goals.  It was pretty insane and I felt that Hobson could not really handle the unpredictable maneuvers I was seeing.  I may rename the car Spock as it drives always in a logical manner which makes the car actually unpredictable to the humans driving around us.  We humans can better predict the stupid things our fellow humans will do much better than computers and until we can make the computers understand that there will always be a gap in our understanding of each other.

Look at the back window of the Prius and tell me where this traffic jam is

Charging stops

Ocala FL - This was at a very nice outdoor mall with some eating establishments but as I was going to lunch with my Aunt I did not try any of them.  It is still not completely occupied yet.

Turkey Lake FL - This is in a rest area on Florida's turnpike.  Like Newark DE the rest stop is in the middle of the north and south lanes so picks up Teslas from both directions.  It also picked up an interested bystander who came over to ask about the car while he was taking a smoking break.  We talked about the Tesla and VW diesels and got along fine until he noticed the MA plates at which point he asked how I could stand living with all those liberals.  He explained that he left CA because they would not let him buy the guns he wanted.  At that point I decided to cut the charging session short and for the first time I remember the car refused to unhook.  I had to go and stop the charging with the touchscreen in the car.  Having to keep the conversation going as I had to walk past him I did point out that you cannot hunt with those kinds of guns and he responded that protection is important in this crazy world.  My thoughts ran in that direction too as I pulled away.

West Palm Beach FL  - Despite my hasty exit from Turkey Lake I did make it to West Palm Beach.  there were actually two other chargers I could have baled to but the West Palm charger was interesting.  It was attached to the service center so had a gazillion Teslas including two roadsters and one with a really odd paint job.  There was also a group chatting and one of them was asking a lot of questions as she had bought the car just two days before and was already doing an Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale road trip with here mother and 3 kids.  One brave women by my estimation.

Day 11- Finally get to use the largest piece of luggage

I have been carting around my bicycle all trip and finally got to use it today.  Bob and I took a nice twelve mile ride down to a lighthouse on the gulf.  There were plenty of interesting birds that we could not name but did enjoy watching and a few we could name and still enjoyed watching.  The wind was in our faces on the way out and slowed us down considerably in that direction.  We agreed that the wind must have died on the way back as we could riding as fast as we did back was our usual pace :).

The lighthouse

View along the Bike path with a bird I can identify

From there we went to a great waterside seafood restaurant and bar to make sure we replaced the calories we burned so our waistlines would continue to make us look prosperous.  The food was delicious and sitting by the water watching the plants move in the wind and the birds looking for handouts was the perfect setting for eating it. 

Then it was off to Tallahassee center where most of the buildings are state government ones  Bob had been a lawyer for the state and was a great tour guide.  The old state capital building is now a museum having been replaced by a boring white skyscraper some years ago.  Preservationists had to fight to keep them from tearing it down.  I don not know about now but the legislators who were around then had no aesthetic sense at all.  There we saw a display about the election in 2000 and I learned that there was more than the hanging chad problem.   The ballot was set up in a confusing manner besides and it turns out many people punched the ticket for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore by mistake, a fact that I did not know.   We then went to the top of the skyscraper which afforded views in all directions for a great distance, Florida being so flat.  Bob was able to point out his college dorms from up there.

By the time we got back to the house Cheryl had returned from her haircut appointment and was trying to get a dinner group together.  Using her best texting she did manage to convince her brother-in-law Richard to accompany us.  Bob has been reading this blog mostly I think to see if he should bar the door rather than let me in but he did take to heart my early observation that with the great hospitality I have received so far all that any host would have to have their A-game.  Bob and Cheryl certainly did, picking an excellent restaurant near the Tesla chargers in Tallahassee, so that I could drop the car there and have a head start in the morning for Miami.

Richard was great company and told good travel stories to compliment all the information that the well-travelled Bob and Cheryl had been giving me.  It was a fun, we then got to go back and pick up a fully charged Hobson ready to go further south than he had ever ventured before.

All in all this was another great day.  We had wide ranging interesting discussions that went from the cave cities dug by the Turkish Christians to the aborted attempt to make a trans-Florida canal.  We had a nice, scenic bike ride and great food besides.  What more could a traveler want?  Every place and every day I stop are top notch even if three of the stops have been with lawyers, the sworn enemies of the medical field.

Charging stops

Tallahassee FL This is one of the best stations with a big Publix in the parking lot and lots of restaurants close by.  There were also no other Teslas there.   We did not pick up the car within the time limit set by Tesla to unhook and move your car after the charge was complete.  This is being done in response to congestion at the chargers which this charger did not have so I am curious as to whether I will be charged for my overtime stay even though there was no problem leaving it there.

Day 10 - Twelve hours of bonding with Hobson

Today started very late compared to my planned 7am departure thanks to the basketball game ending so late last night.  It certainly is a good thing they did not have to go into overtime.  I left about 9:30 and the car gave me an arrival estimate of 9:05.  I figured I could beat that by cutting out a couple of charging stops but alas the car seemed to have a leak in the electricity tank today running very high in the kW/mile category and thus I had to make every stop the car wanted.  

I learned something new today about one of our upgrades that ws downloaded after the trip this summer.  Tesla has instituted tougher sanctions in the software for people who are not following the instructions to keep your hands on the wheel when in the auto driving mode.  After three warnings are ignored it will shut off the auto-driving for the remainder of your trip.  I knew that when you pass 90mph the car shuts off the suto-driving as this had happened to me in Montana this summer.   What I did not know as I accelerated past 90 to pass some guy who was on his phone and not driving very well as quickly as possible is that now when it turns off past 90 you are turned off for the rest of the trip.  Luckily it was only 15 miles from the next charge so I did not have to drive long.

It was a long day of driving and I did not get to Bob and Cheryl’s  until almost exactly 12 hours after the start of the day.  They were very patient and not only were welcoming but actually held up dinner to wait for me.  We ended up having a great dinner of chicken marsala at 10pm.  All is well that ends well. 

As I entered Bob and Cheryl's house I was greeted with my signature in Bob's yearbook.  Bob had to explain what I wrote as I had forgotten I was the Tough Guy Award winner in Cross Country.  This was a great touch and a tribute to Bob's incredible memory.

Charging stops

Columbia SC- This one was in the parking lot of a motel and no sooner did I pull in and 4 other people pulled in.  The first couple that showed up was from New Jersey and were very nice.  They were snowbirds on their way back north but visiting grandchildren at their respective colleges along the way.  I spent too long here talking and justified it by thinking I could skip the Augusta charger by getting some extra juice but….

Augusta GA – Second one in a motel parking lot with virtually nothing around it for food.  I gave up on getting food completely until dinner.  Luckily as the Masters is this week the charger was in the exact opposite direction of the golf course.  How did I know that?  There was a sign that had an arrow that pointed left and said golf traffic.  Stopped at the corner with my right blinker on I found the sign was right.

Macon GA – The most interesting of the stops for the day it was in the heart of the city which looks like it is about 40 years behind the rest of the country.  They had just celebrated the cherry blossom festival despite the cherry trees not having blossoms.  The stores were all decked out though and even the sheriff’s office had painted cherry blossoms in the window.  There were a couple of large museums one named Tubman and dedicated to African-American art and culture and the other being the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame. 

On the streets of Macon. I commented on the dog's color and he responded "Cheery Blossoms"

There were plenty of bars in Macon.  At least this one has a sense of humor.

Tifton GA – This is the one I should have found at lunch time with plenty of food options but alas I was planning a short stop just to get enough juice to get to Tallahassee on what has been a very poor day for electricity use.  

Day 9- Lunch dominates early, UNC late

Today got off to a scary start as my cell phone went missing early which would have complicated the trip significantly had Rene not found it late in the afternoon.  It did keep me from taking the bike ride I wanted to take between rainstorms as I was hesitant to wander off in an unfamiliar city with neither a map or a phone to call for rescuing me from wherever I ended up.  That was sad as Tom had showed me a nice network of bike paths only a few blocks from his house the night before.  Oh well.

However to make up for it Rene and I went out to a cool burger place called of all things The Burger Place.  There we had a very big lunch with an Elk burger with Duck bacon as the main course for me.  Interesting burger!  We also had poutine which I have avoided most of my life in deference to my arterial health.  However I am in the land of fatback and Rene said it was good and it was much better than the only other time I had it.  Oddly enough the other time was with Tom's roommate from Amherst who lives in Boston now.

After that huge, delicious lunch we went down into town to visit the International Civil Rights Museum which is located at the location of the Woolworth store where the whole lunch counter sit-in movement started.  They still have the original lunch counter intact.  The original four students were freshman from the local A&T college who came up with a creative, brave and ultimately effective method to chip away at the Jim Crow laws.  The counter itself was surprising large as the one I was accustomed to in Smithtown where I grew up was just a single row of about a dozen stools and this was L-shaped and had at least 20 stools in each direction.  The one in Smithtown is long gone but this one being historically more important has survived to teach about the courageous folks who sought to change the status quo.  The battle still continues so many young people have the feeling that those pioneers in civil rights were not really successful so it is important to see that there has been significant change in just my lifetime.

We came home after that and then Tom and I met his son and daughter-in-law for pizza.  The Pizza place was in a mill complex that is being converted to a multi-use property.  Tom's family owned the mill and Tom's father was the mill superintendent at that site.  Tom said he had only been there a couple of times but the second time was as a young teenager after a flood in the mill.  He told the story like this: Cone Mills was the supplier of denim which in the 60's was a very hot commodity.  This being the old days before just in time manufacturing there was a lot of denim stored at the plant and it was wet and covered with mud after the flood.  Even having cleaned it they would have to sell it as seconds for pennies on the dollar.  A salesman in New York upon hearing about this catastrophe suggested that they should just bleach it a little as all the hippies around Greenwich Village had bleach spots and dirt on theirs.  So they dropped some bleach on it and ended up selling it for a premium price starting the distressed jeans business that is the standard look today.

We returned home in time to catch UNC beat Gonzaga in the NCAA finals.  Right until the end I was worried that driving out of the state I would have to dodge UNC fans throwing themselves off highway bridges.  So looking at it purely from a selfish perspective it is probably a good thing that they won although as Gonzaga has never won it before and UNC has a long history of winning I could have lived with the alternative even if the Carolinians could not.

Day 8 - Only perfect practice makes perfect

Today was a day that proved what I have always told the wrestlers I coached and the students I teach.  Practice make perfect but only if you practice perfectly.  Since I have no idea what a perfect golf swing is my practice does not lead to a perfect game of golf.  In fact today it did not even lead to a good round of golf, maybe not even a fair round.  However in the great scheme of things despite the fact I had a much higher total score than yesterday, I lost the same number of golf balls, so depending on the scoring system you use I could be even with the day before.  Actually the fact that I only lost one ball each round means that I wasted money at Dick's Sporting Goods buying balls I did not need to play the three rounds I have played.

After the disastrous round all but Gary had we decided to go for a beer before the New Yorkers set out for  their plane, Gary went home and I set out for my next stop on the Couch Surfing tour.  Gary in the lead car drove right through a downtown section where there were no doubt some places to imbibe but instead and drove out into the country turning at last into a rundown converted Pizza Hut labeled Bruce's Tavern although I think they forgot the apostrophe at the sign place.  It did not look like the kind of place we normally get beer but we went in anyway after doing a quick survey revealed that only a third of the vehicles in the parking lot were pickups.  Once opening the door we were in a smoky bar were about ten men and one women were drinking at 1:30 in the afternoon,   It turns out not all rednecks drive pickups.  They had their money on the bar in front of them and all were smoking cigarettes.  While I have frequented local dives in the past notably the long gone Hammond in Boston, it is in the long past.

The folks were friendly enough.  The women who was seated at the corner of bar immediately asked us, "How y'all golfer doin' today?"  We said fine and made a little small talk then Roger went up to order beers.  I wanted iced tea as I had a couple of hours to drive yet.  They did not have iced tea for me, and they did not take credit cards so it turned out that I had the most cash, so had to pay for their beers, not that it set me back much.  One big advantage of a dive is the price of drinks is low.

Once have finished the beers and with the NASCAR race under yellow we left to say our goodbyes to each other in the parking lot.  Roger and Vin left for the airport, Gary back to his house and I set out for Tom Cone's house in Greensboro.  This is the first time Hobson was getting plugged into some other Tesla's charger and Tom's red Tesla was magnanimously sitting outside with the garage door to let Hobson in.  Teslas are very wide cars and I have always been a little nervous about pulling into my garage as I thought it was tight.  Tom's is much tighter and I admire him for going in with his mirrors out and never getting any house paint on them.  I folded mine in.  I plugged in and had a very nice time talking to Tom and Rene.

Of course this is the cushiest couch surfing trip in the history of them as I once again have my own room, with my own bath and for the third straight time one of those racks that you put you suitcase on in motels.  I am so spoiled by all this but now I am learning how to equip our guest room.  I also got to meet Tom and Rene's grandson for just a short period.  Tom lives on Country Club Lane so we were able to just walk over to his club for a great dinner.  He unfortunately still works so we turned in early although I could have talked all night with them.

Charging:
Hobson got plugged into Tom's garage plug which unlike mine delivers a consistent 40 amps.  It was great being able to show up without having to stop and charge first and it will be great to leave with a full charge right from the house.

Day 7 - We see if the golf practice helped

Golf looks like a dying sport in America today.  There are nothing but old men down here playing golf in the Pinehurst area.  Once this group of players dies off I can see lots of courses folding.  The one we played today, Legends, was not very crowded at all and this should be a popular time for people to play before it gets really hot down here.  I am not a big fan of golf anyway as it takes a long time to play and if you do not play a lot you cannot play well and if you play a lot you cannot get anything done because you do not have the time to do it.  However as I am on vacation spending the time is fine and I have enjoyed the round I played with Jim and the round today with Gary, Roger and Vinny.  Hopefully it will find a group to appeal to in the future and survive in some form as it has been a fun way to spend time with friends and family over the years.  Some people become quite addicted to it though I cannot get that excited about it.

The practice did seem to work as I did break 100 by a couple of strokes and certainly could have improved that a bit with some better decisions along the way.  Just like life one bad decision can set one trying to scramble to recover.  At least in golf the scramble ends eventually as the hole does not continue forever.  Some folks have to work to overcome bad decisions for years.  My trying to sneak through the trees only added a couple of strokes to one hole.   Trying to sneak money out of a bank can screw up your life forever.

Only golfers enjoy talking about their rounds so I will not bore you with a shot by shot accounting of the round.  The hearts game also had less drama than last night as Gary won the game going away so I will sign off now.

Charging:
We drove around in a big SUV rented by the guys from NY as Hobson has barely enough juice to sneak to my next stop and those electrons cannot be wasted.

Day 6 - Back to the Past

Today is the day the Big Five reunion begins.  This meeting was on the calendar already and actually is the event the entire trip was built around.  To explain for the uninitiated the Big Five are five friends that have been hanging together since elementary school.  Unfortunately after 50+ years of friendship we have not beat the actuarial tables and Bill Belair is no longer with us so we are currently the Big Four.  We have been getting together for a golf outing for a number of years now and tonight is the night we all get together.  As I am staying with one of the Big Five just a couple of hours away and we cannot check in until 3:00 we lazed through the morning.

Very little of the ride down was on main roads so it was nice to get a sense of the area.  There were a couple of cool looking junkyards with some really old cars right at the fence line.  There was also a yard along the way that would have driven the "American Pickers" insane with desire to go in.  There were all manner of old signs, vehicles and various other machinery strewn about the property and hanging from the buildings.

More carefully kept than the junkyards were the numerous churches, mostly Baptist by denomination, that dotted the landscape sometimes in solitude and sometimes in town.  Unadorned, unlike the churches especially in Spain or Italy, they create a feeling that is different and in some ways more powerful than the glided, intricate Catholic churches. The flat facades with the single steeple reaching to the sky as a pointer towards heaven gives the observer the same sense of reaching towards God that one gets entering a Gothic cathedral and having your gaze immediately drawn skyward.

Once we decided to leave Gary's house we did a couple of errands and then hooked up to the Tesla charger while Gary and I got sandwiches.  Once lunch was finished we wandered back to the cars and set off for Southern Pines and a meeting with Roger and Vinny who arrived in due course.  Dinner eventually was completed so we gathered around the table and competed in the annual Hearts game.  It was a close one going into the last hand with one person at 83 and three of us at 90.  Roger won on the last hand after being far behind most of the game.

Afterwards we watched the last portion of the NCAA women's game between Mississippi State and UConn.  The last second shot that Mississippi State made to end UConn's winning streak of 111 games.  As this is my wife's alma mater I was sad to see that but you have to love an underdog pulling off such a win.


Charging Stops:
Charlotte - It is always fun to go back to a charger you have been to already especially when there are good places to go while you wait.