Fall Trip 2025 Day 1

13 September 2025

This was my only all-interstate day until the end of next week and it wasn’t horrible, although it always amazes me how insane some of the drivers are — 85-90 miles per hour? Sometimes in a 50 mph zone??

The worst part of the drive was I-81 south of the junction with I-84 where traffic came to a stop and just crawled from there for the next half hour. It’s bad enough that the road goes down to two lanes, but there were signs for miles saying that the left lane was closed so all the trucks were trying to merge right, totally screwing everything up. Eventually, we discovered a road crew TAKING DOWN THOSE SIGNS — there was no lane closure anywhere. Ugh.

This was also my longest single driving day of the trip and the most charging stops in one day (thanks in part to the way they are spread out in Pennsylvania). I was happy to have access to Tesla superchargers at last and stopped at two of them today; they’re slower than most fast chargers due to being 400V — my car has to step that up to 800V — but at least I can maintain a fairly constant charge rate for the session.

My first stop was at a Tesla Supercharger in Matamoras PA, the first exit in PA heading west on I-84. At this point, I had just driven through 90 minutes or so of fog so I was happy for clearer air! There were 16 chargers and I was the only car at 9am, plus there was a Hardee’s right next door for a bathroom and a coffee. I charged from 41-80% in 21 minutes.

Stop #2 was at an Electrify America located at a Sheetz gas station in Bloomsburg PA. Once again, I was the only car to be using one of the four chargers when I arrived at 11:30. It only took 12 minutes to go from 40-80% because of the 800V chargers, and I like Sheetz stations for their clean bathrooms and well-stocked convenience stores.

Stop #3 was at another Tesla Supercharger; this one was in Clearfield PA across a parking lot from a Burger King. I was back to slow charging, going from 33-80% in 24 minutes, and there were 10 chargers with 1-2 other vehicles while I was there.

That left me just about an hour to go to Clarion PA where I was having Second Meal™️ at Clarion River Brewing and staying at a Spark by Hilton. This hotel doesn’t have charging, but there is an Electrify America at a Walmart practically across the street so I charged up there on the way to the hotel. One of the four chargers was in use when I arrived and I charged from 56-80% in 8 minutes but forgot to take a photo of the chargers — they look like the EA chargers from earlier in the day, though, just not in such nice surroundings.

I’m 447 miles into this trip which should end up near 3,300 miles, and for a day on the interstate, I’m quite happy with that 3.4 miles/kWh efficiency. Tomorrow, I’ll drive on I-80 just over an hour to Youngstown OH, then I’ll be on secondary roads for the next several days with what I expect will be a dramatic increase in efficiency.