Fall Trip 2025 Day 8

20 September 2025

Today was a relatively short day by distance, just 166 miles, but as I was traveling on back roads through the Chicago metro area, it did take me a while. I was in and out of rain the entire time so I didn’t stop anywhere (not that the route I took offered any interesting or even particularly safe spots to stop). The dark blue line on the map was my route today:

The odd bit at the right was me going into Michigan — changing time zones — to have Second Meal™️, then returning to Indiana — changing time zones again — to charge the car and get to my hotel.

I was in grad school about a half hour from here and all I can say is that Michigan City has really gone downhill in the last years. My hotel — a Comfort Inn & Suites — has weeds growing up from cracks in the parking lot and the A/C in my room barely works; the bathroom plumbing is messed up to with the sink hot/cold lines swapped. I almost hate to try the shower in the morning … It will be good to leave here and get to Grand Rapids.

My charging plan for today was to use the Electrify America chargers at a Meijer store here. I knew from photos that they’re the latest gen chargers, and I knew from experience that Meijer stores are great places to stop. Well, 4 of the 6 EA chargers were occupied and the other 2 were out of service, so I opted for one of the Tesla Superchargers right next to them. There were 20 superchargers, all working, with only 3 cars using them. I charged from 39-80% in 21 minutes at a constant 96kW rate, for a cost of $12.52.

The amazing thing about today was that I hit 4.3 miles/kWh efficiency for those 166 miles! I’m still at 3.8 for the trip overall, but perhaps that will bump up to 3.9 in the next few days as I will continue on back roads until a week from today. Here’s where I am after today’s drive: