Thursday – May 4 – Travel Day

There are a lot of road trippin’ songs I could reference here – however, none of them really fit the bill – the live action of moving from one place to another across miles and miles of nothingness along seemingly inhabitable countryside can be mind numbing. I did have occasion to sit and ponder – So here are a few pictures from the passenger side window to highlight our fourteen hour road trip.

The quest for energy was astounding – first miles and miles of windmills – quite majestic but I did wonder what might happen if one of them were to pop off – now I know that probably would never happen – but that doesn’t mean my mind didn’t go there. Images of these giant blades taking flight filled my fancy for a few miles.

After majestic windmills were fields and fields of these dinosaurs of extracting energy – the PUMPJACKS – they look like a T-Rex to me. However, they have been a reliable pump delivering oil through a simple counter-balance system since 1800’s. I read a bit more about them and then I began to think about those windmills again and got to wondering how they perform in high winds. It’s all about lift and drag and translating aerodynamic force into energy – enough of that – my brain started to hurt. Bottom line, I would rather look at fields of windmills than fields of pumpjacks – just saying.

Just flipped open to a page in my journal to April 18th and the first line struck me. Travelers or Tourists – there’s a distinction because to travel in an EV means embracing the travel itself – not just the destination. Which means you could end up finding a random Sons of Confederate Veterans museum in Columbia, TN! Also, there are all of those seemingly random historical markers. Here’s one….

Back to the “trip ticket”- First stop to charge in Eastland, TX at 10am then to our second stop in Sweetwater, Texas – no issues – now it is around 1pm and we are starting to notice how a steady headwind is impacting the efficiency of our travel. Our next charge in Midland, TX was somewhat problematic in that there was maintenance being done on the power grid, and it was slow but free. At this point with over 300 miles under us, we are optimistic that we will make it into New Mexico since it is just after 4pm, and we have a full range of over 270 miles.

We are feeling the wind after this stop and we need to get to Artesia, NM for our fourth charge of the day. We are literally watching the miles tick away at a much faster pace than we anticipated. It is the WIND!

It is important to note here that there are very few charging stations in New Mexico – so we definitely did take the long way round. We found a new company to us – Francis Energy – and I downloaded the app ahead of time, and I was just so darn proud of myself – check out the photo I made Rob take below.

Note the time is 6:37 pm and we are hoping to make it to Carrizozo by 8:00 – Spoiler alert – we didn’t make it until more like 10:00.

Remember that headwind I noted earlier – well winds were gusting up to 50 miles an hour! Who knew – well those veteran long haul truckers knew – that’s who!

I have a new appreciation for the miles to go, 76 mi noted on the navigation screen showing the travel time of 1hr 20 min, and the estimated miles upon arrival showing 106 mi. Piece of cake right?

Well, with the wind – we arrived in the specified amount of time; however, upon arrival our estimated upon arrival miles was depleted to 18 miles!

Friday May 5 –We made it!

We had a zero mile day in the truck but several miles by foot through the Valley of Fires! I’ll let the pictures tell the story for now – I’ll be back at it tomorrow to write about our hike on May 6, which is an anniversary for this park now managed by the Bureau of Land Management. But for now – enjoy some of the pictures that capture some of the highlights of May 5 – Cinco de Mayo!

Keeping the rubber side down, Julie and Rob