Saturday morning, I woke up super early (5am?) to get my time lapse set up. I had a rig involving an ironing board, and Molly reinforced it with some tape.
Here’s the result. Its actually two timelapses, and I stitched them together. What happened is my alarm starting going off on the phone, and that killed the first one, so we had to restart:
While that was going, I went up the hill to get another coffee. While up there, I chatted with an interesting local named Gabriel. 71 years old.. lived around Phoenix most his life, possibly sleeping in a tent on a hillside by choice. He said something about starting to walk down the mountain at about 3am .. I saw him at 6am. I asked him if he had stories he would like to share. He invited me to sit with him. He asked me my opinions on the Bill of Rights. We had a brief discussion about many things video editing, and I gave him some of my opinions on economic polarization. He took my email. He may send me one of his stories. It is a story about a search and rescue he was involved in, and it spotlights the resilience of some of the younger generations.
Then it was time to go. We checked out of the resort early, and headed up Canyon Rd SR89A to Flagstaff, where I needed to charge up to 90% or more. As our guide the day before warned us: It was super beautiful. There was a scenic viewplace towards the end of the drive:
But don’t ask about the sanitation smell at the bathrooms there. We did what we had to.
Now, let me load up the ABRP Trip Profile I was working with for reference:
In Flagstaff, I needed to get the car all the way up to 95%, 100%, in order to make the trip east to Winslow and then south to Payson. It was going to take an hour.
We walked over to the Walmart while the car was charging, and then walked over to “Over Easy”, a breakfast place. There was a 40 minute wait. No problem, we hung out there, I went back to get the car at the right time..
The car was only at 90%! Food was ready. I stopped charging and took the car back to the restaurant. Delicious food. But inconvenient charging.
Then across the desert on I40, which is part of Route 66 there. At a nice slow 60mph to conserve charge. I easily made it at like 85% charge. Meteor Crater!
 |  |
And then it was time to go.
Winslow AZ. We chatted with several couples there – one set from Bakersfield CA (who turned out owned a Model Y), and another couple from Altoona IA (where I used to live!)
We stopped at small café to get some coffee, and turns out they had the same Safe that my wife has at her office! There was some safe geeking out there.
(resume ornamentation here)
Then down Hwy ___ back towards Phoenix. Our next stop to charge was Payson AZ. We drove through desert, and then there was a forest, and then there were hills and then (after Payson) mountain descent and rolling hills. We had no service for a while. There was a beautiful sunset. We drove through some really cute towns that we would like to go back to .. Strawberry and ___. We stopped at a small gas station with broken potties, they had portapotties instead. The gas station’s business: A sanitation company. Hmm. Molly remarked: 10 years avoiding a PortaPotty, and today we had two of them. But that place did have the good tea: ____. We got two cans.
We ended up back in Phoenix at the In-n-Out, where I tried Animal Style for the first time. I’ll do that again. And then drop Molly at the Aloft, and then time for a small Sunny adventure.<
I went to visit my long time friend Steve Ekholm whom I hadn’t hung out with in.. something like 20 years? We did a facetime with his kid, who is responsible for introducing me to Harry Potter when they were 7. They are 30 now.
And then the other yawny long charging session. I needed to get the car, turns out I should have aimed for 100% so that I could return it over 85%, but I only had the patience to get it up to 85%. I had 45 minutes at that charger. I tried to nap, but that didn’t happen. It was weird.. there were at least 5 chargers there that lit up but didn’t work. Lots of disgusted Tesla owners who didn’t look for the blue tape X in the corner, and thew the chargers to the ground in disgust.. then the next person would pick up the charger, try it, and get disgusted.. nobody talked to anybody. I tried to tell people, but they were too absorbed in their world to hear me. I guess it’s a polite “I will ignore you” protocol at a charger. Very different from what my friend Dan says that he experiences.
I guess I could have gone in to Cold Beers and Cheeseburgers, and I eventually did, to get my wife a Tea and use the restroom. I tried to pay for the drink, the lady said “no need!” and bid me on my way. Bless her heart.
And then back to the room, final night of vacation.
