Same Road Trip, Slightly Different Plan

I have a plan! (Really it’s still only kind of a plan, but it’s progress!)

For those of you who are new here, I’m embarking on a semi-crazy summer-of-Covid adventure to the West Coast and back. (You can read more about it and my preliminary plans here!)

My new and significantly improved plan has two exciting changes.

First off, I decided to take the Tesla on this cross-country road trip in lieu of the WRX. While I absolutely love my WRX and am all about driving it, the Tesla just makes so much more sense for so many reasons.

We currently have a Tesla Model 3 that my husband uses on his 100+ mile round-trip commute to work each day. For the next few months, we will be essentially swapping cars and he’ll get to revisit (ish) his Mustang days with a sporty car again, while I’ll be cruising to the next supercharger in Autosteer mode so I can actually enjoy the view around me instead of only focusing on the road.

Before you ask, our Tesla does not have full self-driving capabilities. This very pricey upgrade would allow you to type in an address into the on-board navigation system and sit back and relax as your car drives itself, changes lanes and signals (on it’s own!) on the highway, takes the proper exit and handles the off-ramp, and can even help you parallel park once you reach your destination.

The standard autopilot mode, which our Model 3 currently has, only (I realize this is a serious first world problem here) uses traffic-aware cruise control to keep the car perfectly centered in marked lanes while maintaining appropriate distance from the cars in front of you. It will point out and correct for other cars driving by if they are inching too close into your lane and will even bring the car to a stop in sudden gridlock traffic jam situations. This means that while I still need to be awake and alert to drive the car, I technically can let my eyes wander knowing that the car will at least most likely (anyone know the odds on this?) let me know if something crazy is happening on the road around me.

Planning a road trip with a Tesla takes on a whole new level of complexity, however. Good news: as long as I stick to major highways (think I-80 and I-90) I will not have a problem making my way across the country and back. Bad news: if somehow the charging station I thought was there happens to not be there, and I run out of charge on a road in the middle of nowhere, my only option is to literally tow the car to a place where it can be charged. That latter scenario sounds like zero fun to me.

The next (but definitely more exciting) big improvement to the plan is that my husband is going to meet me along the way for part of the journey! We will get to cover seven states (the tail end of South Dakota, the coolest parts of Wyoming, a corner of Montana, Idaho, Utah aka a quick pass through Salt Lake City, a full traversal of Nevada, and a touch of California) in just about five days if all goes according to plan.

Sound like a lot of states to cover in five days? You’d be right, but at least we can split up the driving between us to cover more ground in less time. This portion of the journey will be approximately 1,584 miles depending on how many stops and detours we end up taking. We should be able to see everything from Mount Rushmore (yes, even though I’ve heard it’s kind of lame) to Yellowstone (which will most definitely be the opposite of lame) and even spend some time in Lake Tahoe.

If you notice, he’ll (intentionally and smartly) be joining in for all the ‘fun’ states (except maybe Idaho?) on this cross-country adventure. I don’t mean to generalize, but with a few exceptions, the rest of South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, which I will be experiencing solo, sound like they will pale in comparison to those other states further out West. But then again, I will finally get to check Chicago off my list of places to visit. (Here’s to hoping attempt number three of visiting this city is successful.)

Any recommendations for things to do in any of these more-Eastern states that otherwise seem like ‘drive-through’ states (looking at you, southern Minnesota) are much appreciated.