So here I am starting this blog series on New Year's Eve as I eat potato chips and Cheerios and drink a bottle of chardonnay in my hotel room because the hotel restaurant isn't open tonight. It's actually the perfect way to start the trip.
I started my day early this morning. I left on my weekday alarm of 6:00 a.m. fully expecting to be up before then but wanting to have a backup. I'm pretty sure I was actually pulling out of the parking garage by or before 6am. It was a cold morning, in the 20s and my first "tank" of electricity really reflected that. I was a bit horrified to see around 320 Wh/mi. My car average is just under 250 Wh/mi (lower numbers are better) to give you a comparison. But it all got so much better from there. At one of the charging stops it was around 230 Wh/mi.
I ran into one charger that was limiting charging to 70 kW. It was a 150 kW charger that I usually see 110+ kW when the battery percentage is low. So I'm sure this stop took just a little longer than normal.
And then at my last stop, just a few miles from my hotel (which doesn't have overnight charging so I wanted to be ready to explore the next day), I actually waited for a charger. This is the first time I've ever waited. I was really impressed with how orderly the line was formed and how people paid attention to who was next.
But it was a really good travel day even with those slow downs. I had about 9 hours of pure driving time and I just went in with the mindset that I wasn't in a hurry. And since the divorce, I'm finding a peace and sanctuary in my car that I had not expected. For reasons I won't get into here, road trips were always stressful and now all that chaos is gone. It's just me and the quiet.
And I enjoyed the quiet for several of those hours and then I put on an audiobook I had checked out of the library using the Libby app. It's the classic 1984 by George Orwell which is just fascinating to listen to given so much of what I have experienced in real life over the last few years. What struck me most is all the discussion about rewriting history. But anyways, this blog isn't really about the books I'm consuming.
So I got to the hotel a little before 6pm ET. My app notified me that my room was ready about 5:15 so when I arrived, I was able to walk right past the line at the front desk and head straight to my room with my digital key. I'm staying at the Hilton Garden Inn Tampa North. It's about walking distance from Lettuce Lake Park one of my two targeted birdwatching areas in Tampa. But first, tomorrow I'm headed to Fort De Soto Park on the south side of Tampa. It has seven miles of beaches and is known for the Reddish Egrets that often dance as they fish in the water just off the beach. We'll see what luck I have in finding shorebirds. Today's eBird sightings only had one reddish egret but lots of other birds I haven't seen before or don't see regularly, including a Roseate Spoonbill! I always try to go in with no expectations so I can just enjoy whatever I encounter.
After two nights in the Tampa area, I'm headed to the Atlanta coast to spend some time at Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.
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