Written by Hank Bonutti
Tim Berg from Crankshaft Motors came by the hotel for us at 7:00AM Sunday. Snow was falling when we arrived at the hotel only hours earlier, so we weren’t sure what to expect when we woke up. We found about 3 inches of snow on the ground as we drove from the hotel to the Crankshaft Motors garage where 750 had been plugged in for the holiday weekend. We found 750 charged and ready to take on the snow. Many thanks to Tim and the Crankshaft crew.
Since I had the experience in harsh weather driving, Ben didn’t complain in the slightest when I took the first turn at the wheel. We carefully pulled out onto the fresh snow not knowing what to expect but the car felt sure-footed. We fell into the groove with other traffic on US highway 65 north – it wasn’t really plowed or salted yet. There were 230 miles of road ahead and we needed to get going and started experimenting with passing other cars and semis. Every 10 miles or so we saw overturned trucks and cars spun off the road. It was pretty treacherous (lots of semis pulled over on freeway ramps waiting out the conditions) but the car performed great and thankfully conditions cleared up as we got closer to Rolla.
Our first destination for the day was Ladybug RV Park, off I44 just outside Cuba, MO – we arrived at 11:30 AM. Mitch and Charlotte, the owners at Ladybug, were great hosts and welcomed us enthusiastically as we waited for the car to pull in electrons from the 50 Amp outlet. The car charged until 2 PM, which was our deadline to continue on to St. Louis. We didn’t have a full charge, but the Touch Screen indicated that we had enough of a charge to get to our destination. So, we disconnected from Ladybug’s outlet and headed out to meet the Gateway EV club that would be waiting for us. While we were charging, the roads cleared up and Ben took the wheel. Ben drove carefully and we arrived with charge to spare.
We parked the dirty, snowy car right in front of Schalfly’s Tap Room. We had hardly opened the doors before members of the Gateway EV Club began to greet us. Some of the people who spilled out of Schlafly’s front door to meet us had driven over 200 miles to see the car. Despite the cold weather (18F!), the EV Club turnout was enthusiastic and Ben and I had a great time answering questions. To our further surprise, Marc and Theresa Clemente pulled up in their Roadster Sport, No. 675.
Once everyone had a chance to look over both Roadsters, people moved inside to talk about their various EV projects… EV motorcycles, Xprise cars, conversions of conventional pick-up trucks to battery power, etc. Channel 5 KSDK from St. Louis was there to film the event for the 11PM news.
As the evening wound down and it was time to leave, the two Tesla Roadster Sports caravanned to the Clemente’s house in Clayton – probably a first for St. Louis.
Both cars were parked in the Clemente’s garage and we plugged 750 into their Home Connector for the night. We all agreed that there probably aren’t too many personal garages around with two new Tesla Roadster Sport’s parked in it. Thanks Mark and Terry for hosting 750 for the night!
Ben and I both learned a lot on today’s trip and it was such a special treat to spend time with two excited and knowledgeable Tesla Roadster owners. As our car charged in their garage overnight, it made us appreciate the role of early adopters like Mark and Theresa in making new technology more available to the rest of us.