Sixty-seven days. Five provinces. Ten states. Fourteen thousand kilometres. I’m guessing about 160 hours driving my all-electric Nissan Leaf.
Thousands of photographs which I will spend the summer and fall processing.
Scores of podcasts. Four audio books. Lots of stations on Sirius radio. Eventually, I got sick of both the sad-girl station and the complicated-man station. (Also, a whole station just for Dave Matthews?) Many hours of listening to BBC in the car, and some MSNBC, CNN and CBC. Quite a few hours of radio silence.
Twenty-seven hotels, motels and AirBNBs. Ten stays with friends and family. An amazing amount of hospitality and generosity, in some cases from people I barely knew.
Many hikes, but many more walks in circles around Walmart parking lots.
I don’t even know how many Walmart parking lots I charged my car in. A lot.
Quite a few crappy meals at restaurants near to the chargers at the Walmarts. But McDonald’s and Starbucks: love your reliable wifi.
Dozens of old friendships renewed. Several new friends made.
I saw my first wife for the first time in 30 years. It was lovely. She is lovely.
Given my age, and therefore the ages of many of my friends, I encountered sickness and sadness. Those are things I have reflected upon, along with the joy and excitement of the trip, and have to consider whether I have a way of writing about.
One cracked windshield. One case of Covid (me). One day I momentarily worried about freezing to death.
One laptop computer lost—then recovered after a few hours.
One packing cube of underwear lost—then recovered more than a month later.
One little girl who thought it was fun to tie my shoelaces.
One little boy who cried when I left. (Bless you, Taym.)
One long ride on an e-bike.
One evening out to dinner with friends for their wedding anniversary. Not coincidentally, one ride in a gull-winged Tesla X. Smooth.
One “steak on a stone”—a steak cooking on lava rock as you eat it—at a friend’s bar across the street from the Pittsburgh Pirates’ stadium. Scrumptious.
Zero accidents. Zero flat tires. Zero problems with the car, other than those I wrote about here, because it’s a new technology sustained by a less-than-robust charging network.
Zero episodes of Succession once I got to the States. Catching up now. No spoilers!
A near-empty fridge when I got home. (Somehow The Boy survived while I was gone.) Lots and lots of mail to go through.
Twenty-six Substack posts, including this one.
I’ll let you know if I end up writing up a larger piece for publication about the hope and reality of driving EVs in North America based on my experience. Otherwise, I expect this Substack to be mostly quiet for a while, at least until I hit the road again.
Thanks for coming along for the ride.
Thanks for your many insightful observations about travel and life. It was fun to be along for the ride. Have a restful summer. Looking forward to your next instalment.
Sounds like a trip of a lifetime with lots of great experiences. Thank you for sharing it with us.