[2022 EV Roadtrip – Post #4]

It has been awhile since we last spoke. A lot has happened, but not so much that we cannot write about it. This morning I sit in a hotel lobby located in the sweaty and sweet Nashville suburbs. The temperature is a decent 75 degrees but feels more like 85 with the 95% hovering humidity. The vegetation is lush here, and I’ll choose to admire it from the air-conditioned lobby instead of a bench in the parking lot.

I’d prefer I were typing this out on my laptop instead of my phone. I have a fervent wish that all hotels had private balconies for all of the people who need a minute of peace time. For all of the mothers out there longing for ten minutes of silence in the morning before the kids, dogs, and husbands wake up to inquire of the whereabouts of their belongings, which they should have been keeping track of the entire time, but who needs to remember when we’ve got a mom around? Alas, hotels do not care about us mothers. They know we are creative and can make a secluded space out of a used Kleenex and a reusable straw if we had to, but we believe we deserve better.

Get Yourself a Good Hotel Balcony

I once had a balcony at a hotel in Moab. It was an anniversary trip, and bonus points, it was Mother’s Day. A Mother’s Day without my children, with a foliage-drenched balcony, sunshine, coffee, and one of the books from the Dark Tower series. Ask me what the my most comfy spot is and that, my friends, is your answer. But eventually I started to miss my kids, and after some time I was hoping my husband would wake up so we could go explore. All good things must come to and end, right?

I digress. Thank you for letting me vent about the things I enjoy out of life.

The drive to Nashville was shorter for me than for Frank as he drove 80% of the way. I have acquired a new skill set—sleeping in cars without pillows. I’d like to think I’ve gotten quite good at it. I slept around five hours before he asked me to take the wheel. Five hours of half shuteye, with sprinklings of little events taking place mid-sleep. Lobbing back bottles and snacks to the gremlins whenever they rustled, jolting awake whenever the streetlights that shine as bright as those pesky dental chair spotlights shone in my direction as we landed at a charging station to “fill up,” opening one eye whenever I heard the car ride over the rumble strips. Sweet, interrupted snoozing. Nothing quite like it.

Some things that were pleasant:

—Kansas and Missouri scenery > Nebraska and Iowa scenery (for now)

—No manure smell while driving (see aforementioned reference about Nebraska)

—Driving in the twilight = Decreased traffic, minimal road rage, cooler weather (I brought three different jackets, all of different layers and warmth, and I’ve used all three. Thank goodness I did, because it was hard to justify bringing all three until just now.)

—Staying hydrated. Since you have to stop every two hours, you are guaranteed a bathroom break, so drink away my friends! Be that lush we all know you can be.

Some ways the car helped us out:

—Automatic windshield wipers that adjust to the intensity of the rain.

—Heated and cooled seats to accompany all of your hot and cold flashes.

—Bitchin’ stereo, that you are unable to blare when driving since your crew is sleeping during your turn to drive. (Frank connects his headphones when driving so we can sleep, pretty snazzy stuff)

—Built-in sound machine that can play rain or nature sounds. No joke, we used this to calm down the girls, and it worked like a charm.

—Hands-free driving. When you put the cruise control on, the car literally drives itself. It hollers at you if you have your hands off of the steering wheel for over ten seconds or so, but I was able to take my braids out and put my hair up safely while driving (and watching the road). It was delightful. The possibilities with this are endless.

I have no cons, this trip has been amazing so far.

The Dirty Details

Total money spent on “fuel”: Less than $40. We are not able to calculate our travel costs in a precise manner because we got 2,000 free miles of charging from Kia when we bought this car (yet another incentive in addition to the $10,000 we will receive next year on our tax return). We are using free miles here and there, some chargers have been free to use, etc., but we think it has been around $40 all together.

Current national average gas price is $4.52 a gallon. If your car goes 25 miles to a gallon, which more than likely it doesn’t if you drive anything bigger than a sedan, and you drove 1,100 miles, you would have used about 44 gallons of gas, and this trip would already cost you around $200 in fuel. AND, lest we forget, you have contributed to stretching out that ozone hole like putting a small sweater over a large head.

I will return in future blogs to go over what we saw on our journey through the lower Midwest. We have seen things that cannot be unseen.

For now, I must go back to my hotel room. This lobby is played-out.