The LONG Drive

 We had decided to leave Friday morning around 10:00 am for Gulf Shores which gave me time to run over to the barn to do last minute cleaning. Mark did a lot of the packing of the Tesla and we left just a few minutes before 10:00 am. The self driving function is interesting and we were glad to have it.

We set our destination and the car told us where and when we would be stopping to charge. We decided to camp over night at a private campground just past Meridian as it was full hookups for just $25.00 but when I next looked up the car was going a different route. Evidently it found we would not be able to make it to the next stop. Since we were not sure what route the car would take us we gave up the idea of camping at a campground. One of the Tesla Charging stations the car was trying to take us to was into St. Louis then down I 44 then back up I 44 to I 55. We thought that was a waste of time so decided to find a super charger not from Tesla to stay on our route. That was near Columbia but when we got to the charger station the adapter Tesla sold us would not work on the other brand. 

The traffic going North was stop and go for miles.

We got to a Tesla station but another route was now our way down.

The bad with long distance traveling with a Tesla is every 1.5 or 2 hours we stopped to charge and each charge took 12 to 15 minutes. Plus you must let the car direct the route. The good was it was a no stress job. I could sit back and not worry about anything as long as I was keeping an eye on the road most of the time.

We stopped at a Loves gas station around 10:30 pm but it was so crowded after driving around for about 15 minutes finally chose to keep on going. By 1:00 pm I needed to get horizontal we found a Loves near Hattiesburg, MO that had room. Mark put the made to order front shade on while I put on the windows and back and soon we were both laying down ready for some sleep.

Above we are starting on the window shades and below we are both ready to sleep.

That is when we found the next problem. The Tesla has a glass roof and Loves have VERY bright lights. 

We decided if we try this again we will need a tarp or something to put on the roof to block the light. The Tesla has a camping mode and that keeps the sleeper comfortable and once that was on it even changed to computer screen to a camp scene with a tent and camp fire.

I slept until 3:30 then got up to go into the gas station where I bought some food and a big coffee. Mark was ready to get up when I got back so we decided to keep driving. The sky was getting lighter as we got closer to Mobile.

The sun started breaking through as we arrived at Mobile.

The car took us through the tunnel.

I took the video below as we were going through.

I also snapped a picture of the battle ship after we got out of the tunnel.

We had the car take us directly to the Waffle House in Gulf Shores and made it there around 7:30 am. Almost 20 hours since we left Hanna City. After eating a good breakfast we stopped at Walmart, bought a few groceries then drove to the condo where David and Stephanie are staying. They gave us an upstairs bedroom where we crashed for a few hours. Israel and Crew went to Beth's to play basketball while Elisabet went with her mom to the beach and found sand dollars.

I know Elisabet's is sideways. I'll fix it later.

Right now I'm feeling desperate for a shower and to crash in a 'real' bed. 

We were finally able to get into the condo we rented around 4:30 pm and got everything carried up and organized. The condo is nice but smells musty. David thought it was because it hasn't been used for while. So very thankful to have made it safely.