Sunday (April 6) I slept in. Saturday had been a long day and it was only five and a half hours to my next stop in Austin, TX. The weather app was showing snow south and west of Moore so I was in no hurry to get going. Better to let it warm up a little before hitting the road. I spent some time writing and went downstairs to check out the hotel breakfast.

La Quinta is a clean and sturdy place to lay your head, but their breakfast is pretty depressing even by the depressing standards of hotel breakfasts. Reconstituted sausage and powdered scrambled eggs. The coffee reminds one of the glory days of Folger and Percolators back in the 70s. Biscuit technology though has arrived at a point where even the biscuits in hotel breakfasts are not bad. Nevertheless, I’m not one to pass up a freebie so I dove in.

After a shower, shit, and shave, I was feeling revived and ready to roll. So I went downstairs to rouse Nell. There was a wall outlet mounted on a light pole next to her parking space so I had plugged her in the night before to let her trickle charge. I was curious how much juice she could pull overnight. Welp. They don’t call it trickle charging for nothing. Over ten hours, her charge had gone from 21 percent to 29 percent. About 6.5 kWh. But, hey, free gas is free gas. That’s a few bucks that will never line the trousers of a Saudi princeling.

Instead, I crossed the road to the Electrify America charger in a Wal-Mart parking lot and gave Nell 55.2 kWh while catching up on news on my phone. This charger was a little slower than some of the other ones that I’ve used so my thirty minutes ran out and I ended paying $5.40 for my charge. Hyundai kicked in $24.86. If I had paid for it all with an EA Plus membership, my damage would have been $22.38.

The skies were still gray and little pellets of ice peppered my face as I unplugged Nell and wangled the charging hose back into its holster. I was not looking forward to a day of poor driving conditions, but hoped that as things warmed up and I drove south they would improve.

A word about Oklahoma and Texas drivers. They are terrible. They really do not give a shit. The speed limits are 75 mph and aside from the pros driving semi-trucks, there is no one driving 75 mph. There is no one doing traffic enforcement and you get the sense that authorities are pretty blase about speed and accidents. In Illinois, they make you slow down to 45 mph in work zones. With lots of signs shaming speeders for endangering workers and threatening big fines. They might slow you down even more if the road is particularly swervy or rough. In Okytexas, they slow you down too. To 65 mph. And that’s pretty much it. No matter how swervy or rough the pavement is. Also there is no one driving 65 mph. It’s enough to make me feel like one of those old grandpa drivers.

As I drove down into the Chickasaw Nation (this was now an international car trip!), the weather did warm up and skies started to clear The rolling forests of Southwest Missouri had given way to rolling pastures with Angus beef. The trees changed. They weren’t bushes exactly, but they didn’t tower along the road either. There were vistas.

I soon crossed into Texas and after 177 miles stopped at an Electrify America charger located in Presidio Junction, a posh mall. While Nell charged, I trooped into Madeleine’s, a chic french cafe with an open fire place. Hah! This is more like it. No more scavenging for plastic wrapped sandwiches at Wally World. I was going to dine like the refined and debonair gentleman that I know myself to be! I approached the counter and surveyed their offerings under the glass. A helpful bepimpled teenager asked if he could take my order. There was a chocolate croissant labeled “Pain au Chocolat.” Yum! So I said, “I’d like the Pain au Chocolat.”

He said, “Whut?”

“I’d like the Pain au Chocolat!”

“Whut?”

I was a little non-plussed. I’d pronounced it right. Pan, not pain. What gives? Finally, I essayed “Chocolate Croissant?”

“Oh! Right! Yeah, I haven’t learned all the french words yet.”

I felt a little embarrassed at my pretension, but that chocolate croissant was a damn good chocolate croissant and I enjoyed every goddamn crumb. So I got over it.

When I got back to Nell, she had slurped up 64 kWh and my cost was $4.42. Hyundai kicked in another $31.97 so a retail customer would have paid $36.06 or $27.05 with an EA Plus membership.

Back on the road, it had turned into a cool, but sunny day. I pulled up OK Go on iTunes and enjoyed the drive down to Austin. As I drove, the vegetation became less and less treelike and more and more bushlike. The warming weather agreed with Nell and her range improved. When we got to Round Rock, I had to make a decision. My Airbnb in Austin was supposed to have Level 2 Charger and I was pretty sure that I had enough charge to get there, BUT you don’t want to miscalculate these things. What if the charger was malfunctioning or turned out to have an incompatible plug? Better to just go ahead and fill ‘er up.

So after 179 miles, I pulled into the Electrify America charger at the Premium Outlet Mall to top up. It was a pretty swank charging setup. There were 10 charging stalls and they were filled with every kind of EV you could imagine: VWs, Kias, Hyundais, a Rivian, and even a couple of teenagers in an EV Hummer (hey, this IS Texas).

While I used the facilities, Nell hoovered up 61 kWh of juice and she did it in 28 minutes so it didn’t cost me a dime (although Hyundai chipped in $33.99). A customer with an EA Plus membership would have spent $25.49.

As the sun set, Austin’s famous violet crown circling the horizon appeared. I had a good feeling about Travis County, Texas.

It was 21 miles to my Airbnb at the cosy Crestview Casita:

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/1285723087657139810?check_in=2025-05-12&check_out=2025-05-17&guests=1&adults=1&s=67&unique_share_id=237c09df-002c-47b3-9deb-8c5b1a104569

After stowing my luggage in the casita, it was off to meet my nephew D and his lovely wife K for a dinner of fish and chips and chatting until midnight at a British pub.

Day 1: 688 miles traveled. $12.01 Spent on “gas”. $51.08 in “gas” money contributed by Hyundai. Cost of “gas” with an Electrify America membership: $47.32.

Day 2: 377 miles traveled. $9.82 spent on “gas”. $90.82 in “gas” money contributed by Hyundai. Cost of “gas” with an Electrify America membership: $68.12.

Trip Total: 1065 miles traveled. $21.83 spent on “gas”. $141.90 in “gas” contributed by Hyundai. Cost of “gas” with an Electrify America membership: $106.43.