April 2024 Road Trip, Day 7

8 April 2024

Today was another short day, 254 miles, but it included driving through totality although it was almost totally overcast at the time. I was a bit concerned about traffic due to the eclipse — there were dire warnings everywhere — but traffic was actually quite light. Even though all the interstates I’d be on were showing green on Google Maps this morning, I opted to completely bypass the Cleveland area only because I do get tired of that route. I was on secondary roads until I picked up I-90 near Ashtabula OH.

My plan had been to charge at the Electrify America in Erie but 3 of the 4 stalls were occupied and the 4th wasn’t working. To add insult to injury, the Walmart bathroom was closed, so I decided to change my route and stay on I-90 to Fredonia and go to the same charger I’d been at on the way west. That worked out well — I was the only car there to start with and enjoyed another session of 175kW on a 150kW charger.

As I took the exit from I-90 and was waiting to turn left onto a main road, a tractor-trailer was turning in to head onto I-90. The guy had missed the turn lane which would have given him an easy access via a gentle curve, so he tried to make a sharp right and didn’t plan it right. The right end of his trailer got hung up on a gate that could be closed to block access to the highway and the more he tried to free it, the worse it got. He was actually spinning his drive wheels trying to pull the trailer free! Just then, a state trooper pulled up, walked up to the cab, and said, “So, what’s going on?” I wish I could have stayed to hear that interaction but the light had turned green. Somebody was definitely having a bad day …

After charging and stopping at a brewpub for a couple of pints and some food, I headed to my hotel on mostly back roads; it was about an hour and twenty minutes away. The eclipse occurred while I was on that drive. Even with the overcast, there was a slight break in the clouds minutes before totality and I was able to see a very thin sliver of the sun through the sun roof and cloud cover. It was very strange driving through darkness while seeing blue skies in the distance through the clouds!

I’d picked my hotel because it had EV Charging but I couldn’t find the charger so went to the front desk where I was told someone had backed into and destroyed the charger, and they hadn’t replaced it. When I pointed out that the only reason I had stayed here was for the charging and that the website should NOT say they have it available, the guy just shrugged. Small towns. Ugh. Fortunately, there was an Electrify America charging station not far away so I headed there and added as much charge as I could in the 30 minutes of free time I had available. That got me to 90% which will be fine for tomorrow as I’ll need to stop a couple of times on the way home anyway.

Here is where I’m at right now: