Day #3: A Screeching Halt in Erie, PA
Dry Run Road Trip - Entry #6
A hit-and-run accident in a Walmart parking lot, and lazy police work by the Pennsylvania State Police, leave us stuck in Erie for another day, and end the rest of our road trip plans…
As agreed, Ben and I decided to look for a sleep spot for the overnight hours, with plans to return to Presque Isle the next morning. We’d continue on to our next stop - a city in OH, which one still TBD based on our schedule. The end goal was still Holland, MI but I worried now that it wouldn’t be as nice as Presque.
I’d made some calls to campgrounds along our route in the weeks leading up to the trip - but none to campgrounds in Erie, since we weren’t supposed to be here overnight according to any of the early trip planning models. What were the chances of finding a site last minute, tonight?
I suspected that they’d be about the same as finding a site a week or two in advance, once the campground heard that the mode of camping was #TeslaCamping: zero. That’s because I’d called campgrounds in a number of cities already, inquiring, and each time had gotten a variation of “no”.
Campgrounds, it seems, haven’t yet seen too many people sleeping in Teslas… at least, not the campgrounds in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, or Michigan.
“So you’re planning to sleep in your car?” they’d say.
“Yes. In a Tesla.”
“We don’t allow people to sleep in their cars, sir…”
“It’s not a normal car. It’s a Tesla. So there’s no engine. So no risk of carbon monoxide poi - “
“So you’re going to sleep in a car that doesn’t have an engine?”
“Yes. A Tesla.”
“Not at our campground.”
“What if I brought a tent, too?” I’d ask.
“Sorry, we’re full up.”
The SORRY, WE’RE FULL UP was a refrain I heard several times. And when I called Sara’s campground, at the entryway to Presque Isle, this evening, the gentleman was just as curious - and just as full up.
Although, to be fair, I believe he really was full up. It was about an hour before sundown.
I tried a second one - Lampe Campground - but they didn’t answer their phone. I even texted them, hoping for a miracle. No response.
Next up, I went online to one of the many websites that acts as an Air BnB for campers. One of them had a catchy headline, a la “The 10 Best Places To Camp in Erie, PA!” Sara’s was there, and Lampe too. And a bunch of people trying to rent out their pastures and back yards for tent camping, pickup truck camper camping, and what have you. They’d literally have names like “Mike’s Piece of Land” - and usually a photo of a piece of land. I found one among them all that looked hospitable - I could picture us backing up to the side of Mary’s pond and falling asleep under the light of the full moon. But the website wanted me to book without providing Mary’s pond location - not even the exact township was provided. How did I know that this wasn’t an hour outside of Erie? I didn’t want to take the chance.
So Ben and I did what thousands of American campers, truckers, and homeless people do every single day: we headed for the nearest Walmart, found a spot off to the side of the main lot, and set up camp.
I’d called ahead and asked if it was allowed.
“We won’t bother you nothin’,” the woman at the customer service counter had said. “We just ask that you pull off to the side where it’s safe.”
“A night in a Walmart parking lot - it could be way worse,” Ben told me after I told him the plan. I was admittedly feeling a bit discouraged after my last-ditch camping reservations pleas had failed. “We don’t have this in Europe.” He seemed excited. Plus, we needed supplies - we could shop, then sleep.
“This is definitely an American thing, I think,” I told him. “And some don’t even allow it anymore. I guess we’re lucky to find one that does.”
Lucky, indeed…
I wanted to park off to the side of the building, where it was darker. I’d hoped that we’d be able to see that beautiful full moon through the glass roof. Ben, though, insisted that we park next to a tree.
“It just seems safer,” he told me. “Plus we can see the moon from anywhere, if we pick the right tree…”
We circled the lot, and then pulled in to our selected spot. Behind us was a giant big rig. Behind that, another. To our left, a white van that read “Escort Vehicle” on the side. To our right, some sort of SUV I suspected was electric, or at least a plug-in hybrid, as it had come from the Electrify America chargers just a hundred feet or so away. I wondered if they were spending the night, too. Maybe #TeslaCamping was turning into #EVCamping?
My friend got straight to work - typical Ben - putting the back seats down, moving our possessions from the trunk to the front seats and floors for overnight storage, and making the bed with the new bedding Amazon had just delivered. (We’d gone with a space theme, hoping we’d be able to see the stars at night on this trip - but the full moon would end any chance of stargazing).
If I’m being honest, I didn’t really have to do much - before I knew what had happened Benjamin had my CPAP machine set up, the bed made complete with fitted sheet, and our water bottles set aside where we could easily reach them as we slept.
Ben had gotten to work on the privacy screen when I realized that the escort van was occupied. It had blackout shades in all of the windows, and I hadn’t noticed - I just assumed someone was inside shopping. I whispered to Ben that I was pretty sure our loud talking and banging things around in the trunk was probably disturbing someone’s sleep - not to mention the number of times we’d opened and closed the doors, the trunk, and the frunk - it must have been in the dozens.
Ben began arguing with me, certain that the vehicle was empty, but as he got a closer look he agreed: we were in the sleep section of the parking lot, and most others were already sleeping. We resolved to be quieter. And slam the doors less.
The privacy screen proved to be a challenge - its hooks didn’t quite fit over the visors as they should have, and neither of us had brought extra credit cards to tuck the windshield portion of the screen into the corners of the dashboard, as the instructional video had suggested. Oops! Instead we were forced to let it hang down, where we suspected it was getting in the way of the air conditioning vents and the air that should be coming through the car.
Also, in the back, the privacy screen suctioned to the rear window as intended, but we had to place objects on the back ledge to keep it from falling down and letting light in. This wasn’t a major hurdle, but we kept forgetting and moving the objects, and the privacy screen would need to be pushed back again… just a bit annoying.
Still, it definitely offered privacy… and a darker environment.
Once we were done it was time to put our setup to the test.
Would this bed be comfortable?
Would my CPAP drain the Tesla of all of its juice?
We did the math, calculating the distance to the nearest Supercharger. I took screenshots of the battery in the charging screen of the app, so we’d know what % we started at. We resolved to wake up every hour or two to check the progress. If it drained to below 20% the owner’s manual declared that ‘Camp Mode’ would shut down. Still, we weren’t sure that we could trust it.
Camp Mode is Tesla’s feature that allows people to sleep in the back of the car in air conditioned, or heated, comfort. It literally keeps the climate control on to the set temperature while you sleep. Tesla owners have slept in their cars in snowstorms and lived to tell the tale. They’ve slept in their cars in the desert, as well, and survived. This car is amazing. Most vehicles will keep the engine running and allow you to stay warm or keep cool, but Tesla manages to do this without the loudness of the internal combustion engine, and thus does it without risk of carbon monoxide poisoning.
This was our first night sleeping in the car. We both climbed in to the sleeping area through the trunk - logical, I thought. For Ben, this was easy: he’s in good shape and limber. And not claustrophobic. For me, on the other hand, this proved to be a challenge. I had to psych myself up… even the idea of climbing into a trunk seemed scary to me - too many mob movies growing up, I guess.
It didn’t help that Ben kept making jokes.
“Think of this as a trip through the birth canal, but in reverse,” he told me. “Climb in… squeeze your way through the birth canal… come into the womb.”
“Stop it!” I told him more than once.
The sleeping area was pitch black, save for some light allowed in through the glass roof.
“Lay back and enjoy the light of the full moon as it illuminates our airtight compartment,” Ben intoned. I looked closer - that was a fucking parking lot lamp. The moon was somewhere else.
“That’s parking lot lights,” I retorted. “Wow…”
“Lay back and enjoy the light of our artificial moon as it illuminates - “
“Shut up,” I told Ben.
He finally obliged.
We’d been laying there for a few minutes when I realized that I couldn’t hear any air. Or feel it. And it was getting warmer.
“What happened to the A/C?” I asked.
“I turned it off,” Ben told me.
“You don’t turn it off… you turn on Camp Mode. That keeps the climate at one temperature…”
“I did turn on Camp Mode. Then I turned off the A/C.”
“You don’t touch the A/C. Camp Mode controls the A/C.” I was getting anxious.
“I thought we should see how much battery your CPAP machine takes up before we start up with the A/C,” Ben explained. “We don’t want to get to zero. The air conditioner running all night gets it to zero.”
“No, that’s not how it works,” I told him. I was beginning to feel annoyed. I’d already squeezed my ass into this tiny space. Now I was having to question what I’d thought I’d read about Camp Mode. I pulled out my phone and began researching.
“Check the app,” Ben instructed. “Where are we with the battery?”
“It’s down 2mph,” I told him.
“See?” he replied. “That’s without the a/c on. Imagine the a/c on…”
I wasn’t convinced, but Ben suggested that we use the app to ‘vent’ the windows - roll them down an inch or so all around - and I agreed to try that. We lay in semi-silence for a while until I reminded him about the bugs from the night before.
“I don’t want to get bugs inside the car,” I told him.
“I don’t either.”
We agreed to close the windows, turn on the a/c, and just set the alarm and wake up in an hour to see how things were going.
An hour later, I set the alarm for another hour.
An hour after that, I did it again.
I hadn’t been able to fall asleep yet. Claustrophobia was hitting hard. Ben was asleep off and on, but he could sense my panic, and he would wake up, give a sigh, turn over, and try to go back to sleep.
For me… no such luck.
At one point I realized I had to go to the bathroom. I figured my absence from the vehicle would give Ben some times to fall asleep asleep, so I shimmied back out through the trunk feet first, praying that the person in the big rig was fully asleep, since I was pretty sure my shorts were falling down. I put my shoes on - we’d left them on the ground under the car to give us more room inside the vehicle - and began the long walk over to the gas station across the street. (Since COVID, most Walmarts are no longer open 24/7).
I would estimate that it took me 30 minutes to walk to the gas station, wait for the attendant to come back from a cigarette break and unlock the door, use the toilet, and then make it back to the vehicle.
I took my shoes off, popped the trunk, and quietly climbed inside. I was feeling better, now, and I took my place next to Ben, put on my CPAP mask, and began to breathe deeply, letting the air flow into my nose.
“Did you actually just walk all the way over to the gas station?” Ben was awake now, and it startled me. I reached over and turned off my machine, since I can’t speak when it’s blowing air into my nose.
“Yes. I figured you’d get some time to try to fall asleep.”
“Thank you, Chris. But you didn’t have to do that,” Ben replied. “I don’t like thinking of you walking across this parking lot, and that roadway, at 4 a.m. If you need to go again, let me know so I can take down the privacy screen and we can drive.”
“I don’t want you to have to take the screen down every time,” I told him. “Plus, there are nights I have to use the bathroom a lot.” I’d just gotten my monthly Sandostatin injection five days prior, and that usually resulted in additional bathroom trips for a week or so afterward. This weekend had been a little on the rough side. I might have to go again.
“I don’t care,” Ben told me. “Wake me up next time.”
I agreed, and we both went back to bed. I would estimate we were both asleep in less than five minutes this time…
Less than an hour later we were awoken by one of the loudest screeches I’ve ever heard.
It sounded like a big rig had put on all the brakes. We were so startled that Benjamin immediately began trying to pull away the privacy screen. The sound continued, and we realized it wasn’t brakes, but acceleration - someone was peeling out, probably on the road outside the parking lot.
We both laughed at how scary it had been to hear that when you’re in a car fast asleep. Just to be safe, I exited the vehicle to see if I could see where the sound was coming from, but there were no vehicles in the roadway whatsoever. We surmised that whoever it was must have peeled out of the store parking lot and driven away.
Just for fun, I snapped a pic of the car with its privacy screen in. The windows looked even darker than usual, and I figured it would be a cool shot. The pic below was taken at 4:58 a.m.
I’d climbed back into the car for yet another attempt at sleep when we heard the screeching tires resume again. It seemed closer, this time. Ben went back to trying to tear away the privacy screen, and I was feeling around for my iPhone, ready to pop the trunk and get out.
Then, out of nowhere, something made contact with the driver’s side of the car.
Hard.
At the same time we heard a crash. It had definitely come from the area just outside the car.
Next, we heard and felt a shower of debris rain down. We couldn’t tell if it was hitting the car or just the area behind us, but we could feel it falling.
That was followed by screaming. Ben and I looked at each other in a panic. What the fuck was going on outside?
Ben had crawled up into the front seats and lifted the privacy screen up on the windshield and peered out.
“Holy fuck, Chris - they’ve hit the tree.”
I was confused - it seemed inconceivable that someone in this nearly-empty parking lot could have driven into a tree, on a curb, directly between vehicles on each side.
“What do you mean they’ve hit the tree?”
“There’s been an accident… someone literally just ran into the tree.”
I pulled up my privacy screen and saw it: a car had literally come wedged to a stop around the tree just feet from the car. I wondered if the trunk would even open. I clicked the button in the app and was relieved when it did. Ben had been in his pajamas, but I was sleeping in shorts, so I got out of the car first, giving Ben time to change into clothing more appropriate for a Walmart parking lot at 5 a.m.
“You’re a right dickhead, mate!” I heard immediately as I exited the vehicle.
Outside, it was bedlam.
Escort Vehicle turned out to be a gentleman from Australia or New Zealand. He’d been standing next to his van, watching what he said was a group of teens do donuts in an SUV, when they plowed directly into the tree next to his vehicle. He’d almost been hit. My car, he told me, surely had.
“Oh, you’re not going anywhere! You’re going to jail, mate!” he was still yelling at the other party.
“I watched the garbage can lid ricochet off of your car, mate,” he told me. Ben was exiting the vehicle by this time.
“That thing hit it?” I asked him, pointing in the direction of the lid. It was huge.
“Oh, you most definitely got hit, mate. By that thing, by the debris from the car. We both got hit by the debris.”
The teenaged driver, meanwhile, was running around in a panic. Alternately he assured us that the car was borrowed from the mother of a friend, and told us that the car had been stolen. All he needed was to borrow one of our cell phones to call 911. He came toward me, begging for mine.
“No way,” I told him. I knew this kid was likely going to run away with the first phone he could get his hands on. He was trying to call his friends - who’d all abandoned him, according to Australia/New Zealand - for a ride. “Trust me… the police have already been called. They’re on their way now.”
“Good, good,” Baby Driver replied, but the panic on his face gave his fear away. Walmart employees began walking up, adding to the confusion. Somewhere a man who’d been charging his VW at the chargers came up holding a phone, taking a video of the entire scene that later turned out to be garbage quality.
I had walked around my entire car, meanwhile, and was unable to find any damage. How had we been struck so hard but had no visible damage? It didn’t make sense. The gentleman with the van surmised that perhaps it had been the tire that had been struck. That seemed impossible, yet… no dents, no scrapes, no scratches.
“I can’t believe how lucky we got,” I told the Walmart employees looking over the car with me. “I mean, no damage?”
“You are lucky you are alive,” an employee interrupted. “If you look at the tire tracks, that car was going in a circle. Without the curb and the tree, they would have slammed right into your car…”
“We were sleeping in the back,” I told her. I was just beginning to realize how close we’d come to a direct hit. “I’m not sure if we’d have been able to open the trunk to get out…”
“You were sleeping in there?” another employee said in surprise. “Wow, you really did get lucky, then. That tree might have saved your life…”
The escort driver from Down Under was still going back and forth with the driver when the driver’s friends returned to the scene. They promised everyone that they weren’t going to hit and run, and then almost immediately began running. I wanted to follow them in the Tesla, but Ben talked me out of it, reasoning that they might be afraid of the police, what with the current climate of mistrust between black males and law enforcement. Still, we could just follow them…
When the police pulled up, it quickly became clear that the runners had little to fear from law enforcement here.
I didn’t know it until tonight, but in Pennsylvania townships don’t have police departments - they rely on the Pennsylvania State Police to leave the highway, where they are normally perched watching for speeders, and drive down into the township to ‘investigate’. To whatever degree they feel necessary.
That is why, the Walmart employees explained at the scene, reckless driving in their parking lots was a common occurrence.
This was, they thought, the second night in a row for the same kids who’d collided with the tree.
It was the third night in a row for reckless driving in general - maybe the same kids, maybe some other kids.
It happened a lot, and there was little they could do about it.
The state troopers on the scene appeared to be half asleep. Ben whispered that the night shift might not be the best and brightest that the Pennsylvania State Police had to offer. We quietly likened them to zombies - the most expression that they showed was a look of annoyance they gave each other when VW EV returned to the scene and exclaimed that he’d tracked the teens to a nearby parking lot and all the police officers needed to do was follow him…
We waited for the police to return, then drove down a few blocks when they didn’t, where we saw them speaking with what we assumed was the owner of the “stolen” vehicle.
We returned to the parking lot to wait, and when they returned I drove up to them, letting one know that, while we couldn’t spot any damage to the car, I wanted the Tesla Service Center to look it over, since we’d been hit hard and I wasn’t sure if there would be tire damage, alignment issues, etc.
The officer did not make any attempt to take my information, but I asked him for his and he provided it, advising me to contact them if damage was found so that it could be added to the police report.
It all seemed so matter-of-fact…
At our next stop - the beach - we got out to plug the car in and I almost immediately spotted it: a dent in the sheet metal just over the tire.
In the shadows it hadn’t appeared visible, but in the sunlight, it was easy to see.
(My insurance adjuster would later spot a second one).
I called my insurance broker back in New York and let him know what had transpired. He suggested that I meet with the officer and have my damage added to the police report before I left Erie.
I called the Pennsylvania State Police barracks, asking for the Trooper Krahe, but learned that he wouldn’t be back in until midnight that night.
Damn.
“You know what this means, don’t you?” Ben asked me, sounding kind of excited.
“What?”
“Now we have a reason to stay in Presque Isle… our trip came crashing to a halt in Erie when some teenagers with no fear of the law smashed into a tree, and when the police zombies went off shift before bothering to get your contact information.”
He was right. We had no choice… we’d have to stay in Erie another day.
Might as well spend it as Presque Isle!
I made a call to the campground that hadn’t answered their after-hours phone or returned my texts the night before. This time, someone answered. I began with the usual questions but this time, instead of trying to explain the premise behind #TeslaCamping, I simply explained that, asleep in the parking lot at Walmart the night before, we’d had vehicular damage due to a reckless teenage driver.
“Oh, sweetie - let me see if we have anything available for you for tonight.” The woman on the phone couldn’t be any more kind. I didn’t even have to explain what kind of vehicle it was - they were able to find us a space. Turns out it was for a Class A Motorhome. So what? That just meant we’d have a lot of room.
We were excited. The campground we’d reserved a site at was in a gated area. There were little knolls between each site. And there was so much space! Safety and security? Sign us up! I paid the $37.00 fee with a credit card, and we were booked for the night…
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READ ALL ABOUT THE ‘DRY RUN’ ROAD TRIP!
[Dry Run Road Trip] [Outfitting The Tesla] [Day 1: Niagara Falls] [Day 2: Route 5] [Day 2: Presque Isle] [Day 3: A Screeching Halt in Erie, PA] [Day 3: Just Another Day in Paradise!] [Day 4: Time to Go…] [NYC & Post-Trip Wrap-Up]