Summer Trip 2026 Day 24

14 August 2026

This isn’t exactly the route I took for the last third or so of the trip but it’s close enough. Today’s drive was an easy 272 miles with just one charging stop, thanks to having charged to 100% at the hotel last night.

I wish I’d had my camera ready on the I-80 portion of the drive first thing in the morning — there was one area where the clouds were low and the hills were beautifully wrapped in fog and lit by sun. But that was gone quickly and I turned from I-80 onto I-81 through Wilkes-Barre and Scranton to get up to I-84. This part of I-81 is a disaster area — it’s been under construction for a solid 15 years at this point with no end in sight!

My charging stop was in Newburgh NY at the Newburgh Mall, a typical urban mall that has seen better days. However, it has sixteen V3 Superchargers plus sixteen Tesla Destination Chargers! That’s a lot of capacity, and it’s just a minute off of I-84. I charged from 51-80% in 14 minutes, adding 28.597 kWh for $11.72.

After Newburgh, I continued on I-84 only as far as the Taconic State Parkway which I took north for a few miles before I let Apple Maps take me on an interesting route to Thomaston CT and my Second Meal™️ of the day at Clocktown Brewing. I couldn’t get photos on this route because of the twisty and narrow roads that required full attention, but it was certainly scenic! Not long after crossing into Connecticut, I was suddenly in line to cross a one-lane covered bridge; apologies for the poor photo quality but the sun was shining right at me:

This bridge, named for Jacob and Isaac Bull who built a crossing here in 1760 to support the iron trade, spans the Housatonic River in Kent CT. The current bridge dates to 1842 and was originally a toll bridge; tolls ended in 1867. It was substantially reinforced in 1969 with steel beams to support modern vehicle traffic and is one of only three surviving public-highway covered bridges in the state.

After leaving Thomaston, I continued on backroads to get home, about an hour and a quarter of driving. The skies were beautiful for the first part of this but switched to all clouds.

This route took me along the eastern shore of the Barkhamsted Reservoir, a beautiful drive but a winding road with no good spot to get a photo of the water. Finally, there was a stop sign and I captured this poor-quality photo of a structure at the reservoir dam that I’ve seen many times and always loved:

I charged the car back to 80% after getting home, going from 46-80% and adding 31.961 kWh for $10.54 (yes, our electricity is very expensive … but we have solar panels to help offset the cost).

See the next post for the final statistics from this trip!