Tired of the Northern Freeze, Headed for the Florida Keys…

Stage I of my road trip began on January 10th, 2022 as I embarked on what I decided to call “Operation Snowbird.”

It would be a trip from north to south, starting at my home in the Finger Lakes region of New York and meandering down the coast to what I hoped would be a turnaround point in Key West, Florida.

I’d spend 21 days and 20 nights on the road, traveling (and, for the most part, sleeping) in my 2021 Tesla Model 3.

I would endeavor to spend as little money as possible, as I traveled “cheaply and cleanly” through the eastern United States.

Some of my goals for the trip included experiencing a few of the country’s iconic scenic drives, like the Outer Banks National Scenic Byway, the Overseas Highway, and A1A, Beachfront Avenue! - Route 1 through Florida. (I hit one of these goals, and parts of the others, as you’ll see).

Besides reuniting with family and friends, and seeing some ‘bucket list’-type stuff, I had a few goals in mind with this trip.

• I wanted my trip to show that #vanlife doesn’t require a van. A Tesla Model 3 - or any EV, really - is a safe alternative to the internal combustion road trips that are all the rage among travel bloggers these days.

• I wanted to map out possible routes for future #EVRoadTrip-pers. These routes can be a challenge. Where to sleep? Where to charge? I wanted to leave behind enough information so that my fellow Tesla owners and would-be EV road trippers might decide to make the leap that much sooner, and perhaps even use my experiences in their travel planning.

• I wanted to do my part to leave a good impression with campground operators and #TeslaCamp-ers. Far too many campgrounds are EV-resistant; they don’t understand the benefits of hosting Tesla/EV campers yet. I woke up on a North Carolina beach and, when the sun came up, I spotted oil and gas in the sand where my car sat. Want to know who’s car doesn’t leak oil or gas? That would be my car. But some campgrounds still prefer a nice, sloppy oil and gas mixture and consider the Tesla to be “unsuitable equipment” for camping. Wherever I could, I wanted to introduce myself and my vehicle - an emissions-free, climate controlled sleeping pod on wheels - and at least let them see that there’s a new travel category coming up. Hopefully they’ll get on board.

On this trip I would travel through eight states: New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Truthfully, this road trip was probably as cliche as they come - who doesn’t want to flee New York and head straight for Key West this time of year? Still, I met some friends, saw some amazing scenery, experienced national monuments and parks, and had an overall great time.

Then I headed home. Monthly cancer injections and scans won’t allow me to do a ‘true’ coast-to-coast road trip, so my ‘bucket list trip’ will need to be completed in ‘stages’.( I’m still working out the particulars on how I can do the next few stages without a return drive every time.)

Future trips should see me head from the Florida Panhandle out west [Stage II: Head West, Young Man!]… up the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington [Stage III: The Left Coast]… and across the Pacific Northwest and a yet-to-be-finalized itinerary of middle America [Stage IV: Driveover Country].

I’m also hoping to do a few regional road trips, including The Great Lakes - all five lakes in one trip… the Adirondack Mountains… the Finger Lakes region of New York (my home)… and a few others. I’d get to experience even more of those famous scenic drives, including the Blue Ridge Parkway/Skyline Drive… the Pacific Coast Highway… the Tail of the Dragon (318 curves in 11 miles!)… Utah’s Salt Flats… and so many more.

If all goes well I’ll stargaze and #avgeek my way across the USA, and maybe even delve into Canada and Mexico a little bit. As I drive I’l do my best to share the benefits of battery-powered travel and zero-emission, climate-controlled sleeping pod overnights.

Up first… Operation Snowbird.

THE OUTER BANKS

Of all of the parts of my road trip I was excited about, the Outer Banks was by far the part I was most excited about as I put together the details for this trip.

At first I hadn’t even planned to include OBX on the route. I’d envisioned going from Virginia Beach and my visit with John to Charleston, SC, including some part of North Carolina in between. (I planned to do the Blue Ridge Mountains later in the year, and would see more of the state then).

The Outer Banks? In January? Nah, fam.

As I researched campgrounds and budgeted for the trip, though, I couldn’t help notice that several campgrounds on National Park lands were open year-round.

And they were affordable - in the $30 range for a night, and then 50% off that with my National Parks Access Pass.

It felt like I almost couldn’t afford not to pass through this part of the country.

Surely most of the tourist attractions would be closed in the dead of winter, though, right?

Imagine my surprise when I learned that two of the major attractions for road trippers - the Cape Hatteras Light and the Wright Brothers National Monument - are also open year-round. (And, with your National Parks Pass or National Parks Senior/Access Pass, completely free!)

Other attractions, like the aquariums and the maritime museum, would also be open.

The ferries wouldn’t run year-round, though, right? It must be freezing off of the coast… if Virginia Beach just a little ways up the map was closed for business, things like the NC Ferries probably were as well?

They weren’t closed, I found when I called. In fact, by the rushed tone in the voice of the person who answered their 1-800-NC-FERRY hotline, it appeared they were quite busy. I got some of the basic info on which ferries I would need to plan to be on to get all the way through the ‘scenic byway’, hung up even more confused than when I’d called, and realized I could make a day of NC - maybe even two!

I’d booked two days/nights at Oregon Inlet Campground - at an average rate of $21/night - and I was on my way…

OREGON INLET CAMPGROUND

12001 NC-12 Nags Head, NC 27959

Website | Reservations

$21.00/night (including National Parks Access Pass discount)

Oregon Inlet was formed when a hurricane hit the Outer Banks in 1846, separating Bodie Island from Pea Island. One ship that rode out that storm  was named the Oregon. After the storm the crew members of this ship were the first to tell those on the mainland about the inlet's formation. Hence, it has been known as Oregon Inlet ever since. As one of the few access points to the ocean along this stretch of coast, Oregon Inlet is a major departure point for charter fishing trips, with a nearby harbor serving as the base for many large boats that travel miles out towards the Gulf Stream of the Atlantic. 

Oregon Inlet Campground is the northernmost of four federal campgrounds on Cape Hatteras National Seashore. It is 11.9 miles south of Nags Head, NC, and just 14.9 miles from the nearest Tesla Supercharger (Kill Devil Hills), which is itself located in a grocery store parking lot (Harris Teeter). The campground itself is located on the east side of the barrier island, just a short walk through the dunes to the beaches of the Atlantic. 

I arrived at Cape Hatteras National Seashore on a beautiful night featuring a clear sky and a sunset that rival any other I saw during the entirety of my trip.

The ‘after-hours’ procedures were again in place, since I arrived in the evening well after the park office had closed. Campsites were well-marked with signage, but an odd numbering pattern lead to me missing mine and going the long way around twice before finally realizing my error and locating it.

In that time I got to see the entire campground, and its very few inhabitants - just a few RVs, all fairly well spaced out, took up other sites, with many vacant sites in between each. The park’s reservation website lets you see each campground on a map, and shows which are occupied, so I’d picked one that appeared to be far from other sites and hoped for the best. It worked!

To my chagrin, I walked to the closest bathhouse, through the sand and up the ramp, before realizing that it was locked up tight. Oh no… was there a key I was supposed to get? I hadn’t read anything about that. Would I have to drive the 11 miles back into town to find a bathroom? I hoped not! I was walking back to my car when the lights came on at the bath house further away. I walked to that one, and found it to be unlocked. Whew! The showers, though, appeared to be nailed closed - I was sure the website had said that they were open year-round? Upon speaking to the park manager the next day I learned that the website includes that error - the showers are actually closed ‘for winter’ - which, in this part of North Carolina appears to include January and February, at least. (The manager told me that they often close them even earlier, but unseasonably warm weather had allowed them to keep the showers open longer this year). He vowed to have the website corrected.

No big deal… I could go one or two days without a shower, right?

John had told me that he’d stayed in the Outer Banks years before, and the one thing that he remembered was how dark the skies were - perfect for stargazing. I was excited about that, but by 11 p.m. wispy clouds had begun to roll in, obscuring anything celestial that might have been out there.

Waking up to a panoramic view of the outer banks sky felt amazing. Just a few days earlier I’d been under the dreary, grey skies of upstate New York in winter. Now it was blue sky as far as the eye could see. I lay in my little ‘sleeping pod’ for a bit before I finally roused myself out of ‘bed’.

The second night was colder and clearer than the first. Several cyclists on a cross-country tour arrived after dark, and pitched tents. They were already packed up and gone by the time I woke up around 9. Most of the RVs I’d seen the night before were gone early, as well; I spotted a few of them at attractions around the area, but the rest appeared to be moving on. I get the impression that this campground is probably more of a ‘road trip’ stop than a campground this time of year. Perfect for #Teslacamping!

WRIGHT BROTHERS NATIONAL MEMORIAL

I love aviation. I’m what’s known as an #avgeek - I enjoy planespotting and plane photography. You’ll notice on this trip I made time for #avgeekery in several of the cities that I visited. (I look forward to much, much more of it during future stages of the trip). It makes sense that, before numerous planespotting stops and aviation museum visits, I take some time to visit the place where it all started: Kitty Hawk, NC, at the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

Authorized as Kill Devil Hill Monument on March 2, 1927, this property was transferred to the National Park Service in 1933. Congress gave it its current name and designated it a national memorial in December 4, 1953. The national memorial - and all national memorials - were listed on the National Registry of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. The visitor center itself was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 3, 2001

Wind, sand, and a dream of flight brought Wilbur and Orville Wright to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina where, after four years of scientific experimentation, they achieved the first successful airplane flights on December 17, 1903. They came here because the National Weather Service promised strong and steady winds, and because the area was somewhat desolate back in that time period, offering privacy for what they hoped to achieve. What they found was locals who were willing to join them and help them pull their fledgling planes back up the hills between flights…

Markers here actually denote the locations of their first flights - where they took flight and where they landed. There are also reconstructed hangars and living quarters, an airplane sculpture of their 1903 first flight aircraft - you are invited to touch it - and a visitor center featuring a museum and gift shop. 

I visited the bathroom first, and then the museum and gift shop. The museum is small, but is packed with relics from the early days of flight. Then I took a brief walk out to the hangars, drove around to the back to see the sculpture, and parked and walked up the lowest-grade walk (shout out to the museum volunteer for that suggestion) to the top of the memorial. You can see all the way to the ocean from it.

Standing at the exact spot where the Wright Brothers first ran downhill with their flight machine, and seeing what they saw from that site, was quite a feeling. My fear of heights would never.

You can purchase a 7-day entry pass for $10, or an annual pass for $35. Admission is free with your National Parks Pass or National Parks Senior/Access pass. Visit their website for more details.

Note: I liked the fact that they had special parking spaces for EV/hybrid vehicles. Sadly, no car charging spaces.

THE CAPE HATTERAS LIGHT

46379 Lighthouse Road Buxton, North Carolina 27920

Website

The Outer Banks are a group of barrier islands on the North Carolina coast that separate the Atlantic Ocean from North Carolina’s coast. Nearby, the warm gulf stream’s ocean current collides with colder ocean currents in an area known as the Diamond Shoals, creating ideal conditions for powerful ocean storms and sea swells. The large number of ships that ran aground because of these shifting sandbars gave this area the nickname the Graveyard of the Atlantic. 

Enter: the Cape Hatteras Light. 

At 210 feet tall, it is the tallest brick lighthouse structure in the U.S., and 2nd tallest in the world. (The first, located in Poland, is a mere two feet taller). It has protected ships traversing the waters off of the Outer Banks since 1870. (It replaces the original, built in the late 1700s, judged inefficient for protecting ships). 

In 1999, with the sea encroaching Cape Hatteras Light, the lighthouse had to be moved from its original location at the edge of the ocean to safer ground. Due to erosion of the shore, the lighthouse was just 15 feet from the water's edge and was adjudged to be in danger. 

After much controversy - many believed that the iconic structure wouldn’t survive the move - the lighthouse was moved 2,900 feet to the southwest, placing the lighthouse 1,500 feet from the current shoreline. All other support buildings at the site were also moved at the same time. The move was covered in the media around the world, making the lighthouse even more recognizable than it had been before. 

I’ve always had a deep appreciation for everything nautical, and during my college days - which ended in 2000 - I went through a bit of a lighthouse phase. People who knew me then will likely recognize the Cape Hatteras Light from decor and artwork displayed in my apartment at the time. 

I’ve visited lighthouses in other parts of the country, including a number of Maine and several in Florida, but although I’d passed through North Carolina on a number of occasions I had never made it as far east as the Outer Banks until this trip. This one being my favorite, I’d always hoped to see it, making this a real ‘bucket list’ item for the road trip. 

The Hatteras Light is about an hour from the Tesla Supercharger in Kill Devil Hills, a total trip of 54.9 miles each way. As my Tesla Model 3 SR+ range was reduced by the unseasonably cool temperatures North Carolina experienced during my visit, I thought it best to head out that way with a full charge. Following my visit to the Wright Brothers Memorial I headed to the charger, then headed south on NC-12, also known as Cape Hatteras National Park Road. A left turn onto Lighthouse Road 46.8 miles later and I was there. 

Of course, I saw the lighthouse way before I arrived. With its enormity, it towers above almost everything around it, and can be seen from miles away. That made the visit even more special, I think. It really is an awe-inspiring structure - pictures don’t do it justice. The structure is lit at night, and its 800,000-candlepower beacon shines brightly, making it visible to be seen from all around. 

I visited the gift shop, then walked out onto the grounds to stand underneath the lighthouse. A little disappointing: a nearby wireless tower is even taller than the lighthouse, making its construction with more than 1.25 million bricks seem inefficient, considering the steel structure more recently placed nearby. 

With my health and weight issues I wasn’t exactly planning to climb the 257 steps to get to the top of the lighthouse. Fortunately for me - but unfortunately for most of the rest of the 175,000 visitors to this lighthouse every year - the interior is closed for renovations for at least the rest of 2022. 

Be sure to catch the museum on the back of the property - it’s a small museum but gives visitors lots more information on the move, which I think was pretty fascinating in that it pitted factions of lighthouse fans and the area around the lighthouse against each other. 

Want to visit Cape Hatteras? Be sure to catch the other, lesser-known lighthouses of the Outer Banks as well: Bodie Island Lighthouse - you can’t miss it if you camp at Oregon Inlet, and climbing is allowed there - as well as Currituck Beach Lighthouse, Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse, and Ocracoke Island Lighthouse. Check out the OuterBanks.com website for more information. 

On the way back out I stopped at one of many, many beaches that span the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the one just north of the light. It was far too cold to swim, but cool to see the lighthouse towering over everything. 

The Outer Banks Scenic Byway spans approximately 131 miles and takes about 6 hours to drive. It includes two ferries operated by the North Carolina Department of Transportation - both of which I had reservations for during my trip. In the end, I’d drive every mile of the Outer Banks Scenic Byway that I could, mostly along my trip on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore on my way out to the Cape Hatteras Light.

My first foray into the ‘scenic byway’ was a little bit disappointing. I drove south into NC-12 at Kitty Hawk, excited to see what was so ‘scenic’ about this byway. I expected to see beaches, the Atlantic raging behind them - and instead saw little but the back ends of private property. Houses, most built on pilings so as to not be knocked away by storms, blocked my view in its entirety. Properties almost touched in the middle, and where there might have been a waterfront view in between there were instead fences blocking said view. On the side of the street opposite the ocean, more houses stood, built on ever-higher pilings, their owners probably hoping to catch a view of the ocean wherever they could. This was an American Scenic Byway? Really?

The byway began to redeem itself during my drive out to Hatteras. Huge sand dunes, piles of sands much higher than my vehicle, blocked much of the view in many parts - but in others, the ocean could be seen. A series of beaches with free beach parking made it clear that, even if it couldn’t all be seen from the road, it could be seen by anyone willing to take the time to pull over.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore takes up 70 miles of the 131-mile byway. The seashore was authorized by Congress on August 17, 1937. The funds to purchase much of the land for Cape Hatteras National Seashore were donated by multi-millionaire philanthropist Paul Mellon. The portion of seashore managed by the National Park Service stretches 70 miles from Bodie Island to Ocracoke Island. Areas outside of that, including the communities of Buxton, Rodanthe, and Ocracoke, also make up what most understand to be the National Seashore. 

Oregon Inlet Campground is located within the first miles of the National Seashore. Cape Hatteras Light is 40 miles south of that. So, during my trek to see the lighthouse, I got to drive 40 miles of the National Seashore. It looked exactly like every painting I’ve seen of North Carolina’s seashore over the years, including one that hung in the living room of the home I grew up in: ocean, sand, sand dunes, and barriers to stop erosion. And, every once in a while, a bridge over the water. After a while you realize how much sand there truly is, and it’s kind of awe-inspiring.

My initial hope was to visit the lighthouse in the morning of my departure date, and then take two ferries to traverse the remainder of the byway on my way to South Carolina. The day before I was to leave, however, I got a call from someone at the ferry terminal; the earliest ferry I’d booked a space on had been canceled - it seemed all of the ferry captains had tested positive for COVID. They’d notify me if any ferries ran that day - it all depended on the testing. Disappointed, I decided it best to backtrack, heading out from the Outer Banks the same way I’d come in. Perhaps I’d get to revisit this area on my way home later in the trip…

DIRTY DICK’S CRAB HOUSE

2407 S. Croatan Hwy. Nags Head, NC 27959

Website

“You just have to eat some local seafood while you’re in the Outer Banks!” I heard that so many times in the planning stages of this trip. Everyone who’s been here seems to have a favorite seafood restaurant, and every restaurant I heard about seems to offer the most freshest of catches right off the boat!

One thing about going through the Outer Banks in January, though, is that most of the touristy places are closed for the winter. (The winter is January - March here).

And many of the business owners appeared to have forgotten to take down the signs that say OPEN.

So finding in Outer Banks seafood place that was actually open - not closed for the season, not closed temporarily for COVID-19 - was not easy. I spent the better part of the evening visiting Yelp, websites, making phone calls, and even knocking on doors.

Servers at first restaurant I tried that was still open, Oceania, attempted to direct me to the bar. The bar area was overcrowded, packed with loud-talking, no mask-wearing fellas. A hot debate about politics appeared to be going on. Not my scene. I left there fast, disappointed, and, as I was headed toward my car, I noticed that a competing seafood place had bought the billboard right next to this one’s parking lot.

That’s kinda dirty, no?

Turns out ‘dirty’ is just how Dick is, but the restaurant was clean and the seafood… Louisianan?!

Oh well… can’t win them all. Delicious meal, wherever it came from, and they appeared to seat me in the 'COVID-uptight New Yorker section’, which I appreciated - lots of space in between tables, and the folks around me were all mask-wearing, as opposed to most of the rest of the restaurant.

Road tripping with cancer can make breaking plans an unfortunate necessity sometimes. I decided before I even left home that, on this trip and all future stages, I would do whatever I could, and would skip what I couldn’t muster up the energy for. Broken plans wouldn’t ruin this trip for me. I decided not to get bogged down in cancellation policies and fees, either - if I had to skip something, and lost money as a result, oh well - shrug emoji - and, now that that’s over, the trip continues! (This road trip was going to be fun, no matter what)! Other things I would skip due to COVID-19 and crowds, high expenses, and a number of other reasons. For those who are road tripping and are in better health and/or with bigger budgets, you may want to consider the following in your planning… 

NORTH CAROLINA AQUARIUM ROANOKE. Located on Roanoke Island, 3 miles North of Manteo, you’ll find the North Carolina Aquarium and their pier. In addition to the usual aquatic creature exhibits they offer a number of additional, including Aquarist for a Day, a Shark Exhibit Tour - a short visit behind the 285,000-gallon Graveyard of the Atlantic Exhibit allowing you to peek into the dive locker, learn about an out-of-site holding area, and get an overhead view of the largest exhibit in the Aquarium - and a behind-the-scenes tour. 

This facility is open 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. every day, but they often sell out - advance tickets are required, at a cost of $12.95 for adults, $10.95 for children, $11.95 for seniors 62 and up and with military ID. They offer discounts for those on EBT and members of aquariums with reciprocal memberships. Special exhibits, above, have additional costs. 

I’d looked forward to this for a while, but foolishly didn’t purchase a ticket - I was prepared to do it the day before but an intrusive phone call threw me off my game and by the time I remembered they’d sold out for the day. 

For more details and tickets, visit their website. 

I’m not ashamed to admit it… on that second night on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, when I was hunkered down in my Tesla with the climate turned up just trying to stay warm, I enjoyed a beautiful sunset, followed by a few episodes of… the Outer Banks in the Outer Banks. I spent time looking for something I might recognize. Anything, really.

I’m not sure where this show was filmed, but it doesn’t seem to have been filmed here.

I thought I might save Ozark for the part of the road trip that takes me through the Lake of the Ozark, but the new season dropped on Netflix a week or so later, and I wound up binging that on some of my last nights of the trip. Oh well. I love my Tesla and its infotainment options, especially when I’m on the road.

INLAND NORTH CAROLINA

I’d spent hours mapping my route from Ocracoke to Charleston, including a stint that took me as close to the coast as possible, so close that I’d likely be forced to stop at a shopping mall offering Tesla Destination Charging since I’d have to go further inland to find a Supercharger.

My initial plan had been to wake up by 5 a.m. and head straight for the ferries. Two ferries and some driving later, I’d wind up in Charleston, SC. I was originally booked two nights at a hotel in Charleston, as I’d planned to meet Paulie there - you may remember my helping out with Paulies Push last summer. I’d planned to help him get ready for an event he and his cart were making an appearance at. That meant I’d have a hotel home-base for my two days in Charleston. I’d planned to meet him in time for dinner on Friday. Then the event canceled due to COVID, and different plans would need to be made.

Looking back, I don’t know what I was thinking…

Once the ferry cancellations were announced, I decided to skip all of that and simply let the Tesla navigation be my guide. I slept in a bit, and then entered “Charleston” into the navigation and sat back to see where we were headed.

It took me back out of OBX the same way I’d come in, and directed me inland quite a ways - we charged at Plymouth, NC and later, Wallace, NC.

Even though we were backtracking, and going a little further inland, this route would actually save time - one of those ferries was 90 minutes!

Still, I was annoyed - I’d wanted to follow the coast all the way down to Florida, and this would take me way away from the water.

One thing I would like to say about the Tesla navigation is - it’s not as good as some places as it is in others. I found that out the hard way on this trip, and that became very clear on this part of the journey. Often, the system would become confused about the road we were on. At one point it had me stopping and turning around several times as it continuously told me to “turn left on Prison City Road”; only after my third reversal did I realize we’d been on Prison City Road the entire time. Several times it told me to “turn left” - but there was no left turn! The system saw a slight veer to the left - so slight I didn’t even notice it - and for some reasons called for a turn. So confusing!

By the time I got to the Fuel Warehouse in New Bern - they very helpfully informed me they don’t carry “your kind of fuel” lol - I was beat.

It wasn’t the traffic - although I won’t lie, throughout most of this leg it seemed like I had a gigantic truck right on my rear bumper. It was the constant misdirection from the nav - I was just over it by the time the evening began rolling around.

It was getting dark by the time I hit South Carolina, and I realized that, no matter which route I took, I’d never have made it in time for dinner with Paulie. It was probably a silver lining that the event wound up being canceled the week before.

By the time I was nearing Myrtle Beach I knew I wouldn’t make it to Charleston. I was exhausted. I didn’t want to roll in to a new campground after dark and try to find my way to my site in the blackness.

I’d already scouted out Tesla Destination Charges around Myrtle Beach - it was on my planned route to Charleston all along, and I believe in having a backup plan. I knew which hotels had them, and I’d checked rates and availability on the travel apps on my second charge of the day.

I went online and booked. I’d be spending the night in Myrtle Beach…

MYRTLE BEACH, SC PIT STOP

I arrived in Myrtle Beach after dark. I was tired, cranky, and ready to plug in and go up to bed. 

Unfortunately, I arrived at North Myrtle Beach first. The address for the hotel, when plugged in to the Tesla nav, defaults to the same address for “N. Myrtle” first, something I didn’t notice. I sat at the side of the road, blocking a driveway to a condominium, for several minutes before I understood the error that had occurred. 

The drive to the same address in Not North Myrtle would take another 40 minutes. Needless to say I was… displeased. 

That drive is, for lack of a better description, a dazzling display of speed bathed in neon. Myrtle Beach has more neon lights than anywhere I’ve ever been. It was touristy and tacky as fuck, but I saw so many spots that would have bathed my Model 3 in beautiful lights and made for some amazing pictures - I kicked myself for not stopping, but I was tired as hell and just wanted to go to bed. 

At one point traffic appeared to be moving 55 in a 35, and that was just the people who weren’t speeding. I was too fatigued for this. I stopped at a light and a Ford Mustang pulled up next to me seconds later, revving its engine. Its tint was even darker than my 20%, so I couldn’t tell if they saw me roll my eyes - I’m an old man, and I don’t race. Plus, as I’m reminded so often in the Tesla groups on Facebook - it’s just an SR+. Zero to sixty in 5.3 seconds isn’t “fast” right?

The light turned green and the Mustang took off. I didn’t. My mistake - moments later I found myself being directed to turn right - another kink in the Tesla Nav software, those last-second directions - but I was still in the center lane and couldn’t get over in time. Damn… missed my turn. Exasperated I took the left a few blocks up, then did an illegal U-turn hoping to cut through traffic. With everyone going 55 from both directions I just couldn’t risk it, so I turned right, hoping to take a left later. No such luck - nothing but parking lots for a minute or more. Where was that turn?! My nav was spitting out all kinds of gibberish, now, announcing street names that didn’t appear to exist. I finally spotted a spacing in oncoming traffic and took a chance, doing a crazy u-turn, hitting zero to sixty in mere seconds to avoid being hit from behind. Horns honked, middle fingers probably went up, but I didn’t care in that moment - I just wanted to take my next right and find my way to this hotel.

Seconds later I noticed it: a Myrtle Beach police car sitting in a parking lot in full view of my turn. He pulled to the exitway and sped out, racing up to get behind me. Except, he didn’t - an identical Model 3 flew past me far in excess of the speed limit and, by the time the officer rolled up to where I was he already appeared to be in pursuit of that Model 3. Good thing I got the free color! There are so many of us…

As I neared my hotel I passed police, lights list up, with a Mustang pulled over at the side of the road. Another driver in a black Tesla was pulled over just in front of him. I was sure it was the Mustang that had challenged me at the light - and surprised to see it had police lights strobing through the windows. Damn, Myrtle Beach police sure are sneaky. Good thing I hadn’t dragged raced him down the strip…

BEST WESTERN GRAND STRAND MYRTLE BEACH

1804 S Ocean Blvd. Myrtle Beach, SC 29577

Website

$91.96 (plus they never returned my $15 hold)

I arrived at the hotel and drove around a few times looking for the Tesla destination charger I’d been promised was “on the back of the building.” The back of the building was literally the back of the building - no windows, no doors, just a gigantic wall and a bunch of utility boxes. What did they consider the “back” of the building? 

I parked outside the lobby. An electric scooter occupied a prime spot right in front. I wondered if that person might leave soon, so I could plug my car there instead. Looking up at the hotel I spotted several people dressed in work clothes smoking marijuana on the balcony that ran along the front. They went inside when we made eye contact, but not before a couple of teens on the balcony above them tossed a lit cigarette but down to the ground. I wasn’t sure about this place - this looked like the kind of hotel people stayed in long-term, not a touristy overnight stop. Maybe I had the wrong motel.

The night manager checked me in and assured me that, if I drove around again, I’d see the Tesla charger on the “back”. She told me to look for the “cut-through.” I told her all I’d seen before was some electrical boxes and a woman who appeared to be living in the lot across the street with a bunch of cats.

“It’s right by there, sir,” she told me. I got a sense that the Cat Lady was there a lot. 

My next pass revealed that the woman with the cats was crouching in some undergrowth watching me. A man walked by talking to himself fairly loudly. Beach towns can be crazy at night. I finally spotted the boxes, but decided to skip the charge - this place seemed sketchy and I didn’t want my Tesla to be the only vehicle on the back of a building. Instead I found a spot in the front, careful not to park just under a balcony - no weed or cigarette butts on my Model 3, please. I  unloaded the car, hauled my stuff up to my room, took a bath in the jacuzzi tub, and went to sleep, hoping for the best. 

The next morning when I woke up I felt a little foolish. The hotel had a much less sketchy vibe in the light of day. I pictured it crowded with tourists during the summer - they most certainly parked all around the building when the hotel was full during the in-season, and that charger was probably in high demand. I moved the car back to the charger and plugged in, then walked to the lobby for the advertised continental breakfast. It was very good, and the folks who walked in and sat down near me were friendly, including the pot-smoking contractors I’d seen the night before.

Beach towns have a sketchy vibe any night, but especially during the winter, I think. And driving a Tesla, especially entire states from home and loaded with so many important possessions, lends to a fair bit of paranoia. It pays to be safe… but it costs you, too. I finished breakfast, packed the car, and headed to the Supercharger to top off before the next part of the drive, wishing I’d just plugged in the night before and skipped this step. 

NOTE: It turns out I may have been robbed - by the hotel, who have yet to release my $15 hold. (All of the other four hotels already have). I’ll update here if/when that happens. In the meantime, if you choose to stay here, check your credit card statement!

NOTE: The last two photos above show some of the unique challenges with this road trip.

Second row, middle: a line outside of a local urgent care that wraps around the building quite a ways - presumably locals waiting to get tested for COVID. I noticed, the further south I went, the less likely people were to take COVID seriously - and, judging from this photo, the more likely they were to feel the consequences.

Second row, right: a sign calling out those who hope to sleep in their RVs - or, for the first time on my trip, cars. No overnights here, keep it moving!

CHARLESTON, SC

I first visited Charleston with my parents in the summer of 2006. I was considering making a major life change and moving south. I’d done some research into career transitions and hiring hotspots, and areas on the water - I just knew I wanted to live somewhere on the water. We decided to make a vacation of it, heading to areas like Wilmington NC, Charleston SC, and Savannah GA. They all had lots to offer, but I fell in love with Charleston. Its historic downtown… seafood restaurants of every kind across the region… and so much water.

By now you’ve figured out that I didn’t move to Charleston back in 2006. It was my top choice, but the company I eventually spent nearly a decade with scheduled me for an interview but forgot to schedule an interviewer. They suggested I drive to Atlanta, which was another stop on my road trip that year, so I did, interviewing in their world headquarters downtown. A week later I got a job offer - in Orlando, FL. I’d spend the next nine years there landlocked in Theme Park Country.

If I’d had my way I would have moved to Charleston. Before my cancer diagnosis I always saw it as a retirement plan of sorts - sailing back and forth under the Ravanel Bridge, and around Fort Sumpter, as I’d watched so many others do on each of my visits there. But things change; I live on a cabin cruiser up north half the year and try to get away from the cold the other half. I’ll just have to settle for visits to Charleston, now.

Still, whenever I return, I feel like it’s a second home.

In my opinion, no road trip along the Atlantic coast should be attempted without a visit to the Ravenel Bridge.

My initial plans had called for two nights worth of lodging to be provided by the organization behind Paulie’s Push. (You may recall my Tesla Model 3 being used as a ‘support vehicle’ for Paulie’s Push to Ground Zero this past summer). I’d help Paulie get ready for the event, and have a hotel for two days during my visit to Charleston. It seemed perfect - right up until the event, a 5K race, was canceled due to staffing issues caused by COVID. 

That plan kiboshed, it was time to find some alternatives. I had a number of camping options, and some boondocking possibilities, to choose from during my time in Charleston. 

I considered a campground closer to Charleston that many describe as a ‘hidden gem’: James Island County Park. It’s part of the Charleston County Parks system. It had RV availability for one of the nights I planned to stay, and tent availability for the other night. When I called to explain my situation, the employee I spoke with cut me off to advise me they “don’t allow car camping.” I began to explain the Tesla and its ‘camp mode’ feature, and I was interrupted again. (Their website also specifies no car camping). I decided that this would be a good excuse to write a letter after the trip… I wasn’t looking to fight a battle I could avoid during it.) Hopefully they’ll one day welcome EV campers, because they’re only 6.3 miles out of Charleston. 

I also considered several state parks, including Edisto Beach State Park, which often comes up in searches of campgrounds related to Charleston. This park looked beautiful - but it was a 62-mile drive. That’s not even close to being adjacent to Charleston. So many of the camping spots listed are an hour outside of Charleston or Mount Pleasant… 

With so little time between making my reservation and the start of my trip, I crossed off most of the privately-owned campgrounds like Kampgrounds of America (KOA) - I’d had very little luck even hearing back from KOAs, and most didn’t allow “automobile” reservations to go any further. “We have 0 sites that fit your selections.” Sigh… 

I looked at boondocking spots, as well. One such place was Remley’s Point Public Boat Landing, a boat launch with a large parking lot. (See photos above). I’d seen it listed in several places, such as FreeCampsites.net - an invaluable source if you’re traveling and looking to spend as little money as possible. (Cheaply, cleanly.) The reviews boasted that this spot had a sweeping view of the Ravenel bridge, was open 24-hours, and that nobody would bother you overnight - sounded like a great place to stay, so long as you didn’t mind the road of boat engines starting up at 5 a.m.

I decided that wasn’t for me, but I wanted to check it out. Sure enough, it had an awesome view, albeit with a large dock in the way. This boat launch had a few dozen trucks, and a dozen or so cars in one corner, and it seemed loud and busy to me. I considered returning at night to see if conditions improved, but found myself occupied with other things so did not. Still, it made a chill spot to snap a few pictures of the bridge and a few pictures of the Tesla with the bridge as a backdrop. I also took the time to answer a man’s questions about my Tesla’s towing capacity (zero) and to confirm that, indeed, it would not tow even a small fishing boat.

Federal land was, too - I even heard back from the folks at Santee Coastal Reserve, a frequent spot cited in the free campground community (Santee Gun Club Rd, McClellanville, SC 29458). They advised that they had eight campsites and all were first-come-first-serve. This was even further away from Charleston than the campsite I eventually chose, and Santee Coastal Reserve did not offer bathrooms or running water, either. Eek! 

I finally settled on Buck Hall Recreation Area - you can read more about that below.

But first…

RAVENEL BRIDGE

The Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge over the Cooper River that connects downtown Charleston to Mount Pleasant. The bridge has a main span of 1,546 feet. Completed the year before our first visit in 2006, it was brand new at the time, and the jewel of Charleston. It was, at that time, the largest cable-spanned bridge in the Western Hemisphere - it’s third today - and it was the talk of the city. If you Googled “what to do”, seeing the Ravenel was right at the top of the list. 

I visited it again the next time I visited Charleston, during my move there later that same year. My next visit wouldn’t be until July 2016, when I was considering moving back to New York. A friend, Bill, and I did a ‘road trip’ from Orlando back home, and the Ravenel was one of our stops. We watched several July 4th fireworks displays at once from the top of that bridge, and it felt amazing to go back. 

A few facts about the bridge: 

• Tower Height: 575 feet (175 m)

• Total Length: 13,200 feet (4,000 m) - about 2.5 miles

• Main Span Length: 1,546 feet (471 m) 

• Deck Height: 186 feet (57 m) above the river 

• Number of Cables: 128 

• Roadway: Eight 12-foot (3.7 m) lanes, four in each direction 

The bridge was built to withstand wind gusts up to 300 mph (480 km/h), as well as to withstand an earthquake of approximately 7.4 on the Richter Scale. To protect the bridge from errant ships, the towers are flanked by one-acre (0.40 ha) rock islands; ships will run aground on the islands before colliding with the towers. As of 2018, the bridge was carrying an average of 96,300 vehicles per day. 

The bridge also incorporates a bicycle–pedestrian path, Wonders' Way, in memory of Garrett Wonders, a US Navy ensign stationed in Charleston who was in training for the 2004 Olympics before he died in a bicycle–vehicle collision. The path was included in design of the new bridge because of grassroots efforts by a number of local groups. That is the path that I take every time I visit Charleston. 

Every year, the Ravenel is home to the annual USA Track & Field 10,000 metres (6.2 mi) Cooper River Bridge Run on the first weekend of April. This event attracts up to 50,000 people. The route starts in Mount Pleasant and finishes in downtown Charleston at Marion Square. Visit BridgeRun.com for more details. 

In looking for parking I first headed for Patriot’s Point, on the Mount Pleasant side, where Mount Pleasant’s Memorial Park offers restrooms and drinking fountains, free parking under the bridge, and a playground. The playground was crowded and the parking lot was filled with little kids running around, so I kept it moving and headed for the CITGO station at the base of the bridge - they’ve allowed bridge walkers and runners to park there for free since the bridge was built, and though its a bit further away the walking distance winds up being about the same.

I’ve walked as far as the halfway point, which is about three miles. Most of the time I’ve walked it, including this time, I went as far as the first tower. Each tower offers an extended observation area that juts out. They used to offer benches, but those appear to have been removed since my last visit.

The bridge obversation area stands about 185 feet high and looks out over the area where the Cooper River meets the Ashley River. Turn around and you can see where it meets the Wando, as well. To the north, you can see the Wando River Bridge and the Don Holt Bridge. To the south you can see almost as far as the Battery, a historic area that served as a defense system of sorts during the Civil War. On clear days you can see Fort Sumter and the Atlantic. On warmer days, come in the evening and watch one of the most spectacular sunsets around.

The day I walked it was unseasonably cool. I almost didn’t even walk the bridge, but realized I’d regret it for along time if I skipped it on this visit. I walked up, finding myself alone during most of the walk - not many people out when it gets cool, it seems. I walked to the first observation area, then stopped and spent some time taking pictures and video. Clouds dominated the landscape - no beautiful sunsets happening tonight, I figured. I was in the middle of snapping some selfies when a woman taking her own pictures nearby offered to take a picture of me. She took several, and then I returned the favor, snapping some photos on her phone of her and another woman she was biking with.

I considered walking a little further, but my exploration schedule had been pushed behind by the unscripted overnight in Myrtle Beach, and I was on a mission to find some local fare for dinner.

For my ride in to Mount Pleasant I’d set up my Fat Gecko camera mount, and as I drove over the Ravenel I had the spare iPhone rolling video. Later in the trip I put it, and some Sentry dash cam video, to music.

BUCK HALL RECREATION AREA

999 Buckhall Landing Rd. McClellanville, SC 29458

Website

$18/night (with National Parks Access Pass discount)

Buck Hall Recreation Area is run by the United State Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service. The recreation area itself is home to a boat launch on the Intracoastal Waterway. It is located on the site of the old Buck Hall plantation. Its location on the Intracoastal Waterway provides a boat launch with access to Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge, as well as 65,000 acres of marsh, tidal creeks and beaches, and Bulls Bay, considered the best area for shrimp baiting on the coast. Reviews of the campground show that it is very popular with boaters; sleeping in isn’t an option, thanks to their loud motors revving up even before the sun goes up. 

That worked for me, because I planned to use it as little more than an overnight sleep stop - rising early would give me more time to explore the area. I’d selected a spot that appeared to be situated equidistant from the bathhouse and the banks of the Intracoastal. It looked beautiful in pictures, and I was excited to see it in person - but just as excited to head out and into Charleston and Mount Pleasant for the day.

I arrived the morning of the second day of my reserved stay. The campground host was at her camper, and she greeted me with a friendly “You must be Mr. Henderson.” She’d noted the vehicle on the registration I’d filled out and had wondered about my missing my planned stop the day before. 

“You need power to charge your car, right? It’s all making sense now.” 

I love it when campground employees already understand the concept behind EV camping and I don’t even have to explain it! She pointed out the amenities - bathroom/shower, dumpsters, and access to the boat launch - and told me to let her know if I needed anything. 

I love simplicity. 

I’ve noticed that, where private campground owners often try to dissuade EV campers from even coming, and city parks/county parks are sometimes hung up on the ‘rules’, state parks on up tend to welcome anyone. Virginia had even re-tweeted my tweet. Oregon Inlet and Buck Hall had welcomed me and both acknowledged my need for power being related to the car. Why couldn’t every campground be like that? 

I made use of the facilities - I will say that the infrastructure is older and, while they obviously work hard to keep it clean - it was clear that rust and decay were winning the battle over time. But the water was hot, the dumpsters were accessible, and overall I was quite pleased with my selection. 

The one thing I’ll warn folks is this: this campground is a ways out of Charleston - a 40-minute drive into the city, for example - and there’s not a lot in the way of grocery stores nearby. I drove all the way out at night figuring I’d find a gas station or convenience store nearby, and the closest one was already closed at 9 p.m. Stock up before you go, so that you can enjoy your stay with all of the essentials. 

THE AVIAN CONSERVATION CENTER

CENTER FOR BIRDS OF PREY | SC OILED BIRD RESPONSE FACILITY

4719 N Hwy 17 Awendaw, SC 29429

Website

During my research of Buck Hall I read a bunch of the reviews. Several of them mentioned a ‘birds of prey’ rehabilitation center nearby, and all that did said that it was well worth making the trip. I’d never been to a ‘birds of prey’ exhibit, and I figured if I had time I’d swing in. I had no idea what I was in store for.

First of all, the operation is massive. I had pictured a building with some cages, pet store style, inside. Maybe a guide dressed up like a conservationist inside, talking to a small crowd of people about raptors. That’s not what I found. After driving what seemed like a mile down a seemingly-deserted dirt road - your Tesla will bounce around a bit, fair warning - I drove into a parking area and parked my car. There was one other vehicle there - another EV, go figure - and I thought I was about to hang out with a few other environmental nerds and listen to a talk about birds. As I got out of my car I noticed the other parking area to the left - it was full. I was in overflow parking. Vehicles began to pull in behind me and I realized: this place was a thing.

After a discussion at the ticket area - mostly about how Teslas perform in winter, oddly - I learned that the admission fee was $24. The proceeds were applied to birds of prey rehabilitation and other expenses. I paid my money and wandered in. A flight demonstration was just breaking up, and I was sad to learn that it was the last for the day. No matter, I hoped to see a few eagles on my own, so I headed over in the direction everyone else seemed to be going.

There were two buildings lined with cages - and not the portable pet store kind. The cages here were huge - easily 20 feet wide and probably 12 or more feet tall, I’d guess. And there were multiple buildings - rows of these. I tried to estimate how many birds they held, but it was easily over 100. Even an employee I asked wasn’t sure. I walked along each row, stopping to take pictures at many. It was clear that those around me were in as much awe as I was at the sheer number of species on display.

Back home, my puppy Trojan is at war with birds. She despises everything about them, and she lets them know it with lunges and a volume of barking she saves just for them. It probably started when she was a puppy and several bald eagles made a nest near her little puppy enclosure. They’d fly around and around, eyeing her - she is a Westie, and was very small as a puppy, and I always wondered if they were looking at her as a possible meal? When I’d see them fly low and slow, watching her, I’d run outside and scoop her up. She probably learned to fear birds from my fear of birds carrying her off. My father and brother put up a tarp over the enclosure, and I hung shiny bird-repellant things I bought on Amazon. Anyway, she was never eaten, but she hates eagles, and seagulls, and cormorants, and most other birds to this day. Maybe it’s a characteristic of the breed? I don’t know. I will say it’s especially challenging driving a car with a full glass roof, because she loves to go on rides with me, but that roof lets her see all of the birds, all around us.

I’d briefly considered bringing Trojan on this trip, but several factors, including pet-unfriendly campgrounds and my health issues and the ever-present possibility of a need for hospitalization resulted in her being left at home. I was especially glad, today, because I can’t even imagine how she’d react at the sight of her mortal enemies.

I don't know how many dozens of different breeds I’d seen when I realized I’d been there for nearly two hours. I had dinner plans in Charleston and had to go. A volunteer saw me walking toward the exit and asked if I had seen the owl exhibit yet.

“There’s another whole exhibit?”

“It’s smaller,” she replied, trying to tempt me. “But yes, you definitely don’t want to leave without seeing the owls…”

I’d just have to come back another day, I told her.

If you visit this area on a future road trip, be sure to include this on your list of attractions - whether you love birds or hate them, I’m betting you’ll be glad you did.

WATER’S EDGE RESTAURANT

1407 Shrimp Boat Ln. Mt Pleasant, SC 29464

Website

I had She-Crab Soup the first time I visited Charleston with my parents during our trip of southern coastal cities in 2006. I was hooked, and have caught myself looking for it hopefully on restaurant menus in other cities ever since.

To be precise, I had first had it in Mount Pleasant - the city directly across from Charleston, connected by several bridges, including the Ravenel. I also had it in Charleston. And in Savannah, GA - although I felt like it didn’t taste the same there. Then, when I returned to Mount Pleasant in 2016, I had some again. It’s on my must-do list anytime I return to Charleston, to the point that a number of my family members and friends asked for updates as to whether I’d had a bowl of She-Crab Soup on this trip.

She-Crab Soup is delicious. It is an especially rich soup, similar to a bisque, made with crab (or fish) stock, Atlantic blue crab meat, heavy cream, and dry sherry. Traditionally, it also included crab ‘roe’ - the fully ripe internal egg masses in the ovaries. Though the dish was invented in South Carolina by a chef who souped up a turtle soup recipe to impress the President, William Howard Taft, SC state law now makes the taking of mature female crab roe illegal. That’s lead to lots of messing with recipes with substitutions that true she-crab soup connoisseurs believe to be inferior. Some buy the roe elsewhere. Others simply substitute other ingredients. Or include no substitute at all, and just lean on the heavy cream and the sherry to give it its richness…

I was surprised to realize that I couldn’t pick the restaurant where I’d had it last out in any of the restaurant review apps or websites. Instead I Googled “best she-crab soup in Charleston”. A number of lists came up.

The first one included a restaurant called Toast All Day! That seemed odd - why would what I presumed was a breakfast restaurant serve She-Crab Soup? Just in case, I scanned their menu quickly, hoping to find it. I didn’t. I’d keep looking.

A restaurant in the Historic District of Charleston was near the top of the list: Hyman’s Seafood. My family and I had eaten there before, and it was delicious. It was also expensive and, I imagined, required reservations. I called to check, and sure enough, they were booked solid until 9. I try to eat at the odd, off-hours times, like 4:00 p.m. - avoid crowds and, hopefully, COVID-19. That wouldn’t work. Plus, I was hungry now. I hoped to be in bed by 9…

Another restaurant on the list was the Charleston Crab House. I thought we’d eaten there, once, also, but couldn’t be sure. The reviews for the soup weren’t stellar, despite the restaurant winning top billing in a local newspaper poll. Unsure, I called to see what their availability was. They allowed walk-ins, but there could be a wait.

“It’s Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, so there’s that,” the woman on the phone told me. “It’s also Chef’s Weekend. Lots of crowds at restaurants in the city all weekend…”

Damn. Would I have to do take-out?

Where would I be able to eat my soup before it got cold? It was a 45-minute drive back to the campground.

Another restaurant on the list was Water’s Edge, located on the banks of Shem Creek, and according to their website, “just minutes from Historic Downtown Charleston.” The website also boasted a wine list of more than 450 wines from all over the world, and touted its status as “the only restaurant in Mt. Pleasant to be awarded the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence every year it has been open.” That sounded good, and I liked that they offered “dock space just off of Marker 130 on the Intracoastal Waterway.” If I’d come in my boat, instead of my car, I could have boated straight here from the campsite!

I called ahead and asked about reservations, and the hostess almost giggled. They were seating now, she told me. I asked how crowded they were and explained that I was trying to avoid crowds because of health risk related to COVID-19.

“Do you have a pre-existing condition or something?” she asked. (The term she was looking for was probably ‘co-morbidity’, but I answered “cancer” anyway.) “Well, we’ll just put you in your own area, then,” she replied. “Or outside. No worries. Come anytime.”

I was practically already there - I’d pulled over in that area to make these calls. I put the address in the GPS and realized I’d be at Shem Creek in eight minutes. I parked, paid what I thought was a very steep $20 to park, and went in.

The price I’d pay for She-Crab Soup…

I was, indeed, put in my own area: the main dining room. Only one other family were present, and they were seated all the way across the room. A number of tables were seated on a lower area, a porch-type structure closer to the water. I didn’t see them at the time, but a number of other tables were seated in other dining rooms off to the side and in the back.

I ordered my beloved She-Crab soup, as well as an appetizer - crab and spinach dip - and, as an entree, the seafood pasta. My servers - they were working in a team of two - remained masked the entire time. Service was ridiculously attentive - I lost count of the number of times they returned to the table to check and see if things were okay, and when I told them they could bring the she-crab soup out anytime - I was already working on the dip - they brought it within a minute.

I always try to tip extra when I am a table of one, because I sometimes feel like servers get shortchanged - you’re ordering one meal, as opposed to the two or more that most tables at restaurants consist of. A former co-worker who worked as a hostess has recounted stories of punishing servers she didn’t like with all of the tables of one, in fact. I don't want to be someone’s punishment. So I tip a little extra. It annoys me that I have to do that, but there it is. So I did it tonight.

I was pleasantly surprised when I left and the hostess asked if I’d paid for parking. I told her that I had, and it turns out that they can validate that. I got a charge, and a refund, on the same day.

TOAST ALL DAY!

1150 Hungry Neck Blvd. Mt Pleasant, SC 29464

Website

The next morning, as I prepared to head out of Charleston for a ride into the Low Country and then past the border into Georgia, I stopped by a Dunkin’ Donuts for my morning coffee and breakfast. An old high school friend, Chris, had given me a $100 digital gift card at the start of the trip, and it was basically paying for breakfast each morning, and keeping my coffee mug filled. I’d ordered my coffee and was attempting to order a bagel when the employee announced “We can’t do food at this one.” I was surprised - and wanted to know why, but didn’t want to ask. I pulled up, paid for the coffee, and poured it into my Yeti mug to keep it warm for the duration of the ride. I was a bit annoyed - what was I going to do about breakfast, now?

Then I spotted it: Toast All Day! It was right across the street. And it was open.

Only problem was, Mount Pleasant was getting hit by a horrendous downpour right at that very moment. Did I want to get soaked? Was toast worthy of spending the rest of the day soggy in my car? I wasn’t sure. I drove into the parking lot and pulled up the Toast All Day! website, sipping my coffee and scrolling through it to see. As I scrolled, I noticed people who’d already eaten running from the restaurant, trying to make it to their cars in the rain. They all looked ecstatically happy - nobody looked cross, or sour, or annoyed. That was all the proof I needed - plus I was hungry. I got out of the car and ran in the opposite direction, into the building. I asked for a table for one.

My waitress had no issues at all waiting on a table for one - she was very peppy, and seemed to love her job. During our conversation we talked about my road trip, and she confided that she’d never been outside of Mountpleasant. Later I mentioned something I’d seen in Charleston and she leaned in and whispered that she doesn’t go to Charleston much, either. We were only a half-mile from the Ravenel, and I wanted to ask if she had a phobia of bridges or something. But maybe Mount Pleasant, SC just has everything anyone could ever need? Who knows…

The menu was expansive - although no she-crab soup - and I settled on double-stuffed French toast, eggs, and toast. And coffee. I’m not sure if I got a double order of the stuffed French toast, or a single order of the double-stuffed French toast, but there were two gigantic pieces of toast. I took one to go, and enjoyed it once I got to my next stop.

As I mentioned above, road tripping with cancer can make breaking plans an unfortunate necessity sometimes. I decided before I even left home that, on this trip and all future stages, I would do whatever I could, and would skip what I couldn’t muster up the energy for. Broken plans wouldn’t ruin this trip for me. I decided not to get bogged down in cancellation policies and fees, either - if I had to skip something, and lost money as a result, oh well - shrug emoji - and, now that that’s over, the trip continues! (This road trip was going to be fun, no matter what)! Other things I would skip due to COVID-19 and crowds, high expenses, and a number of other reasons. For those who are road tripping and are in better health and/or with bigger budgets, you may want to consider the following in your planning… 

I had originally considered adding two attractions to my days in Charleston. These ‘bucket list’ items are among the things Charleston is known for, and I figured, why not add them in? But I’d done them before, on a trip with my parents back in 2006, and with both time and my budget being tight on this trip, decided to skip them. If you’re visiting Charleston, though, do not miss the following:

SOUTH CAROLINA AQUARIUM

While you’re in Charleston don’t miss the South Carolina Aquarium, located near the base of the Ravenel on the Charleston side. There you’ll find a sea turtle hospital and a 35,000 tank featuring fish that live just off the Carolinas coast. For the kids there’s a ‘touch tank’ and a stingray petting exhibit. The center attraction is a two-story, 385,000-gallon Great Ocean tank featuring sharks, a gigantic sea turtle, and many of the fish you’d find in the sea. During the holidays they offer Aquarium Aglow, which I’ve heard is absolutely magical. For more details and tickets, visit their website.

FORT SUMPTER

Charleston is rich with history, and nowhere is that on better display than Fort Sumpter and Fort Moultrie National Historic Park. Originally built during the War of 1812 and intended to protect Charleston from foreign invasion, it’s where the Civil War was believed to have begun, when Confederate soldiers took the fort from the military by force. The fort and its artificial island have a view of the entire bay, and the boat ride out to it includes views of The Battery - a seawall and promenade in Charleston, South Carolina, known for its enormous antebellum homes - and the Ravanel. For more tour details and tickets, visit their website or the National Parks Service page here.

THE BATTERY

I regret not driving out to the Battery for some shots of the ol’ Model 3 alongside the waterfront. Make sure to include a local tour of Charleston, or at least a drive past these points on your own, during your visit.

JEKKYL ISLAND, GA

I made Jekkyl Island, GA a stop on the ‘tour’ at the recommendation of a number of members of various Tesla groups on Facebook. Folks in both the ‘Tesla Road Trips' group, and the ‘Tesla Camping’ group, recommended Jekkyl Island highly.

I could have simply driven from Charleston to Jacksonville after staying in Charleston a third night - well, a second night, really, since the first night intended for Charleston had been spent in Myrtle Beach instead. It bothered me, though, that I’d be hitting all of the coastal states in the southeast on this trip and I had, for some reason, left Georgia out. Why not make a quick overnight stop and see what all of the buzz was about?

The area known as Jekkyl Island was initially managed as part of the Georgia State Parks system. By 1950, as costs associated with getting the island ready for tourists began to mount, the island was taken out of the state park system and instead organized as a separate authority with a goal of its becoming self-sustaining, considered achievable because of its resources and attractions. I’d say they’ve easily met their goal…

Black residents in the 1940s petitioned the state for access to what would become Jekyll Island‚ and in 1950 a portion of the island would be renamed St. Andrews Beach and become the first public beach in Georgia accessible to African Americans. Five years later the state erected the Colored Beach House, now a historic landmark at Camp Jekyll. The authority placed a convict camp on the island in 1951, and the mostly African-American prisoners performed the manual labor needed to prepare the island for public use, planting landscaping for drainage, digging and building the foundations of motels and neighborhoods, and constructing the perimeter road. From September 1951 to December 1954, the island was primarily closed to the public, and upon completion of the six-year causeway project and erection of the drawbridge on December 11, 1954, Jekyll Island officially re-opened for public use.

Tolls were once $.50 per day. They’ve risen over the years; I paid $8.

Scenes from films and television shows including The Legend of Baggar Vance, X Men: First Class, Magic Mike XXL, The Walking Dead, and others were all filmed on Jekkyl Island, making it recognizable to people all over the world, undoubtedly a part of its charm. It’s also known for its driftwood beaches - I got to explore one beach (more on that below), but missed the driftwood beaches, and regret that I didn’t have more time to look for them…

JEKKYL ISLAND CAMPGROUND

1197 Riverview Dr, Jekyll Island, GA 31527

Website

$57.92/night

I reserved my site at Jekkyl Island Campground online, weeks before I would actually arrive. I chose a site close to the entrance. I knew it was likely I’d be arriving late in the evening, and I didn’t want to have to navigate an unfamiliar campground in the dark.

Less than an hour I got a call from a Georgia phone number. The man on the other end of the phone had a thick Georgia accent. He was calling to ask about my reservation.

“What kind of equipment are you bringing?” he asked.

“It’s a Tesla Model 3,” I replied.

There was a long pause.

“A Tesla? Model… three. Okay, I can see I’m going to have to go to Google for this one…”

I tried to explain ‘Camp Mode’ while he click-clacked away at his keyboard. He stopped typing, and there was a pause again.

“Sir… you’re talking about… a car…”

I continued to explain the benefits of camping in a Tesla… zero emissions… camp mode and climate control… zero noise.

“But, sir…” he continued.

Here it came. I’d already heard back from a few other campgrounds who didn’t understand the difference between EV camping and car camping. Most didn’t care to try to understand. For some, I suspected, it was a matter of the stigma of car camping… tiny vehicles make people driving gigantic buses uncomfortable. For others, they just didn’t want to have to try to figure out the difference between an EV and an ICEr.

In this case, I was wrong.

“Sir… you’re coming in a car. You’ve chosen a spot for the biggest RV’s. You’ll be very out of place there. Would you mind if I help you find a site you’d be more comfortable in?”

Surprised, I agreed. He located me one meant for a vehicle more my size. It was cheaper, too. It only had 30-amp electric, but I had an adapter on order, and figured that would be fine. I hoped so, anyway, because I hadn’t had a lot of time to researcha where the nearest Supercharger might be…

Sure enough, I arrived after dark. The campground appeared even darker because tall oak trees filled the space, and the canopy their leaves created above left very little room for moonlight to come through. It had kind of an eerie feeling to it, as rays of moonlight lit up parts of the forest floor unoccupied by campers.

The campground hosts that evening were from upstate New York, as I am. They appeared to be a husband-and-wife couple, and the wife was excited to see me. The husband, it seemed, less so.

This campground was by far more crowded than those in VA and NC, and even Charleston. This seemed to be a camping community, where people all knew each other - I drove in and immediately noticed that campers near each other had all gathered around fires in groups. There was a cacophony of conversation. Several glanced over at me and did a double take at the car, and I heard the word “electric” and some chuckling. Hmm…

If the older folks by the entrance had noticed the car, the younger people were absolutely abuzz. I’d followed the old man in his golf cart to my site, backed in, and started to unload the contents of the car onto the picnic table next to it. As I did, I noticed beams of light shining my way. They came from the front, and then from the back. I looked around, and my eyes settled on some teens who seemed to be walking the circular road around my site, turning their heads to shine what appeared to be headlamps onto the car. At first I was sure that I was imagining things… things here couldn’t be so boring that they were really all gathered around my site, right? At one point two boys were throwing a ball back and forth, and I swear it seemed like they dropped it on purpose just so they could bend over to pick it up and then slowly stand, facing my car - to see what it was, I guessed? I didn’t know whether to feel flattered or harassed.

“See, told ya… Tesla,” one boy called out.

“But which one?!”

I shouted over and let them know that it’s “the base model.” One of the boys complimented the car, and the other one urged him to ask me how fast it went from 0 to 60 as they walked off. The lights still pierced through my site off and on, but I was more amused than annoyed, and I got in the car and sat back, watching Netflix for an hour or two before I finished transitioning it to the bed to go to sleep.

Before I did, I walked over to the bathhouse. Three A/C plugs sat on the outside wall of the building with signs that announced they were for 'E/V Charging’. I had to laugh. Maybe golf carts? It would probably take 24 hours or more to charge up the Tesla. Still, I liked the sentiment… maybe on my next pass Jekkyl Island Campground would have actual electric car charging?

Jekkyl Island is the kind of place that people come and stay a while. Most of the RVs had light displays and signage outside, and several had fenced-in yards - likely for dogs, I imagine. These looked like homes, not the kind of RVs people put out at night and pack up the next morning on their way to somewhere else. Everyone I met was friendly, and besides a few curious teenagers nobody gave me any trouble at all. I would probably go back.

If I had one criticism of Jekkyl Island it was that the 30-amp service didn’t work, and another site had run an extension cord to my electric box, taking up the D/C outlet - I’d planned to use it to recharge my laptop, but used my inverter to charge it in the car instead. Once a warning about the charger wiring popped up on my Tesla screen I decided to unplug and find somewhere to charge in the morning… I had plenty of juice left to get me through the rest of the night.

OCEANVIEW BEACH PARK

551 Beachview Dr N. Jekyll Island, GA 31527

Website

Once I left the campground I headed for the nearest Tesla Destination Charger. I was surprised to find that it was located at a little park, Oceanview Beach Park, that I’d passed the night before. It had been dark, and I had barely been able to see - I could tell it was a park and that there was ocean behind it, but that was about it.

In the light of day it was beautiful - a huge park with dozens of parking spaces, EV chargers, a bathroom with private changing areas, and outdoor showers. Free pavilions with picnic tables and grills sat over by the ocean, and a walking trail appeared to run through the whole thing. I took a walk around while my Tesla was charging and found that a ramp went down to an absolutely beautiful beach. (No driftwood, unfortunately).

I’m not sure if a Tesla owner could get away with an overnight here, but I’d be willing to bet that they could. They do have security, but signage indicates there is no overnight RV parking, and the park itself is open 24/7. (I believe the bathrooms are, as well). Someone could back in by the chargers, plug in, and go to sleep, and I doubt they’d be harassed. (I mean, you did pay your eight dollars to get in.)

On the other hand, the weekend I visited (in January) saw a number of hotels on the various deals apps selling rooms within walking distance of this park for just a little more than I paid for my campsite. For a little more, oceanview rooms were also available.

Turns out Jekkyl Island is quite Tesla-friendly; you’ll also find destination charging at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center and the Jekkyl Island Convention Center, as well as a number of motels, hotels, and resorts.

Jekkyl Island was one of the places that I would definitely have liked to have an extra day or two. Were it not for my need to be back in Rochester, NY for my injection on February 4th, I would have stayed another night - seemed like an amazing place with way more to do than I had time for.

But it’s a road trip, and I needed to keep it moving…

JACKSONVILLE, FL

I added Jacksonville to my itinerary because a very good friend lives there. I hadn’t seen him since he’d come home to New York for a wedding the same month that I moved back in 2016 - just before I moved he’d actually helped me pack my rental truck for the return trip.

Jacksonville is the most populous city in the state of Florida. As of 2020 it was also the largest by population in the contiguous 48 states. Just under 50 miles from the Georgia State Line, it practically welcomes you to the state of Florida.

Jacksonville is a major military center. Located on the St. John’s River, you’ll find Naval Station Mayport, Naval Air Station Jacksonville, the U.S. Marhine Corps Blount Island Command, and the Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay - these combine to form the third-largest presence in the United States. It also serves as Florida’s third-largest seaport, the Port of Jacksonville.

My plans included having lunch with my friend and meeting his fiancé for the first time. They’d hoped to take me to two of their favorite restaurants - one turned out to be closed for remodeling and the other for MLK Day. A member of the Florida Tesla owners group on Facebook had recommended a restaurant by the airport that was supposed to be perfect for planespotters - but that turned out to be closed on Mondays. (Just my luck - I’d pass through on a Monday in one direction, and back through the following Monday in the other - sigh.)

After a delicious lunch at a random restaurant we found in the vicinity of another, and braving holiday traffic to explore the area a bit, I was ready to head back to camp.

HUEGENOT MEMORIAL PARK CAMPGROUND

10980 Heckscher Drive Jacksonville, FL 32226

Website

$27.24/night

Imagine my excitement when, during the planning for this trip, I learned that a Jacksonville city park - Huguenot Memorial Park - offered campsites located directly on the St. John’s River?

My selection for “Site B” on the park map showed that I would, very likely, be sleeping right on the beach. I wasn’t sure what to expect - other parks in the area, including several Florida State Parks, seemed much more popular on camping review sites and bulletin boards. And the city’s website indicated that the park often has trouble with its septic system - common across campgrounds everywhere. Was this some rundown little park I’d be camping in? Just in case I found a truck stop as a backup. I pictured myself parking in standing sewage, water from the St. John’s lapping at my car’s battery.

Instead, I found this to be as picturesque a place as any I’d come across on my journey so far.

As I pulled in, the gentleman at the gate house checked my information and advised me I had a remaining balance of two dollars and change. I thought that was a bit odd, but I pulled out my debit card and he ran it. Sure enough, I got the notification - a charge for $2.74 had been authorized. I wonder what it was for?

At one point as he was laying out the park rules - they lock the gate at night and you can’t leave, a first for me - he turned to me with a very earnest look on his face.

“You have a tent with you, right?” I nodded in reply, and he said - and I’m not making this up - “Oh, thank goodness…”

I pictured some crazed campground host walking around pitching fits whenever he caught someone car camping, so I decided this would be a good night to try mine.

I hadn’t had a chance to set it up at home - I’d gotten it for Christmas, a gift from my family, but temperatures had dropped into the 20s and 30s in the days before I departed for this road trip, and I wondered how well it worked and what it looked like all set up? I wanted to get a picture for my Tesla Camping group on Facebook, and figured this would be the perfect time - the sun was setting, the moon was rising, and the sky was an absolutely shade of blue.

First, I’ll say that my tent, the Napier Backroadz SUV tent, is much bigger than it looks on the website. I struggled to put it up by myself - possibly because of its size, possibly because of a lingering wind off of the St. Johns, or possibly because I was setting it up in sand, without sand stakes.

I was a little bit self-conscious about how misshapen my tent looked, but a nice couple in a too-big-for-the-space RV pulled in to the site two down from mine and spent the next 30 minutes pulling backwards and forwards over and over and over to try to make it fit, so I figured that unless my tent fell over I was still doing better than they were. Plus, they were too busy trying to not hit the fence posts that surrounded each site to even notice my failure as a tent camper, and nobody else was around. Once I had it set it flapped noisily in the breeze, leading my XL-RV glamping friends to glance over, annoyed, every few minutes. Oh well.

I realized after I set it up that the part of the tent that is supposed to attach to the back of my Tesla was facing the wrong way - I’d never have room to maneuver the car into place to line its trunk up with the tent. I unstaked the tent and took another 20 minutes moving it inch by inch until it was facing the right direction. At some point while I worked a young man in a pickup truck pulled in next to me. His tent was much smaller than mine, and he had it set up in a matter of minutes. I wondered if he looked at me with my colossal tent the same way I’d looked at the folks in the giant RV? I hoped that the wind would die down so my tent would stop flapping, because I bet it would keep him up all night.

After everything was set up as well as I could muster I drove out to try to find some dinner before the nightly gate locking occurred - I’d had lunch earlier, but the granola and leftovers on tonight’s menu just wouldn’t cut it after all of that work putting up the tent. Turns out the nearest restaurants and stores to this campground are actually on a military base accessible only to members of the military, so I had to make what seemed like a 40-minute round-trip before I returned with some Panda Express… next time I’d bring a better selection of food with me to avoid having to drive back out.

Temperatures were dropping considerably - it seemed like I’d brought the cold front with me on this trip, as people in each city I stayed in reported it being “unseasonably cold” whatever day I was there, but “not to worry, it goes back up tomorrow.” This was true in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and now Florida. What was happening? In Jacksonville there was a ‘frost warning’ - and sure enough it was freezing overnight, and I woke up with my tent unexpectedly soaked. Damn.

As I sat in my car watching Netflix on the infotainment display and chowing down on chow-mien I pondered how lucky I’d been to find this place. I watched cargo ship after cargo ship slowly cruise by, jumping out of the car to take a few videos as they passed. They were enormous, and I found myself praying that they’d turn as they came straight toward me. Turn… turn… turn… but each did, at least once with what appeared to be great difficulty.

I’d gotten lucky with most of the campsites I’d stayed in up until now, but this was an absolute gem. And it was under $30 a night?! Perfect.

I’d chosen Campsite B because the ‘letter’ campgrounds - as opposed to the ‘number’ ones - appeared to be smaller and closer to the water on the map I’d seen. I’d been right - these were right on the water, save for a small, mostly-private beach right behind them.

Unfortunately I wound up being unable to back my Tesla up to the tent - site B also features a little sand-filled hill, and I didn’t know if my Model 3 might get stuck in that sand. Also, I needed to stay plugged-in all night - I’d driven many miles to get my dinner, and it was unusually cold. No point in pulling the tent all the way to the car for a photo op only to drive right back to the charger - I would just try to put the tent up again later in the trip. I figured, what were the chances I wouldn’t have to set this tent up again somewhere else?

I will say that, as far as campgrounds alone go, Huegenot Memorial Park was probably my favorite. Something about watching huge cargo ships drift past… watching the full moon rise over the river… watching a beautiful sunset behind some palm trees… and only paying $27? Absolutely spectacular.

Next time I’d probably just leave the tent in the trunk…

ST. PETERSBURG, FL

One of the unfortunate things about setting a goal to complete one-fourth of a road trip of the United States in just three weeks is that much of the trip turns into a… well, a drive.

My need to build in a ‘rest day’ every once in a while left me planning two-day stays in several areas: the Outer Banks, Charleston, SC, Orlando, and the Florida Keys. My need to return to the cancer center by a deadline to receive my next Sandostatin injection, and the possibility of winter weather systems, required that I build in extra days for the return trip. That meant that I would only have a day in some of the areas that I stopped in - and zero days in some areas I wasn’t able to include on my itinerary. The gulf coast of western Florida is absolutely beautiful - Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota, and other points south are regularly voted the best beaches in the USA, and so much of the lifestyle there is built around those beaches - I wanted to stop, stay a while, and explore!

My itinerary, on the other hand, had me leaving Orlando and arriving in Miami just two days later. That marked a single day for just one city among at least a half-dozen well-deserving cities. I’d need to figure out ways to lengthen these trip timeframes going forward…

Based on suggestions in the Facebook Tesla groups, I chose St. Petersburg.

With an average 361 days of sunshine each year, and a Guinness World Record for the most consecutive days of sunshine, St. Petersburg - or ‘St. Pete’, as it is often referred to locally, is nicknamed "The Sunshine City". Located just 23 miles outside of Tampa, it is connected to that city by three bridges, the main being The W. Howard Frankland Bridge, carrying Interstate 275. That would be my route in.

I’d stopped to do a little extra planespotting on my way out of Orlando, and had run into traffic on I-4. I was already running behind schedule to get into St. Petersburg when Tesla’s stellar navigation system decided to route me around and around - it was as though it was trying to keep me in Tampa, for some reason. I found myself driving on the streets of Tampa, phone in hand, programming directions to my eventual destination into my iPhone. Apple Maps saved me on this trip, because if I had to rely on the Tesla nav I’d probably be driving around the streets of Tampa to this day. Not sure what causes so much confusion within the Tesla Nav? I don’t know how the locals do it, and it gave me a newfound respect for my dad, who managed to navigate our trips across central Florida in the days before navigation, with actual maps. Maps!

Eventually, though, I found my way into St. Petersburg. It was far later than I’d originally planned to arrive, and I was sad - a member of the Tesla Florida group had invited me to a rooftop bar, and I’d hoped to reach out to her to take her up on that - a drink and planespotting? Score! - until that morning’s traffic kept me inching along I-4. I searched for rooftop bars as I drove, and was surprised to find that they exist all over St. Petersburg, as well as nearby Tampa. Several were located near each city’s respective airports. And I only had an overnight here? I’d need to do better going forward…

FORT DE SOTO CAMPGROUND

3500 Pinellas Bayway South, Tierra Verde, FL 33715

Official Website | Call 727-582-2100

$42.40/night

I had decided to stay at Fort De Soto Park Campground for my overnight in St. Pete. A Pinellas County Park, Fort DeSoto is describes itself as “a 236-site family camping area with facilities including picnic tables, grills, water, electricity, washers, dryers, sanitary disposal stations, modern restrooms, showers, play areas, and a campground store.”

I liked that maps online showed it right on the water. I searched the websites of some other road trippers who’d visited this park before, and found that some sites are more “on the water” than others, so I called the hotline and a very helpful reservationist gave me a list of sites available for the dates I’d pinpointed that had direct water views. I was very pleased when I pulled into my site and found that it backed up right up to the beach. A few trees semi-obstructed my view, but it did indeed have a view of the bay.

Where Orlando’s campground had been isolated and somewhat empty, Fort De Soto was sold out. Nearly every site was full by the time I arrived, and this was evident as I drove through the park trying to find my way to mine - several times I had to stop and wait for pedestrians to notice my car - Teslas are silent, after all. I eventually found that there were so many trees lining the roads that flashing my high beams repeatedly almost always resulted in the bright lights flashing in front of who ever was in my path, causing them to look around and eventually look back, chuckle, and move to the side. (That’s a problem I didn’t have in my Prius).

I suppose I could have simply beeped the horn, but this place felt very paradise-like, and making noise for no reason just didn’t fit the vibe.

Later in the evening, though, what had been quiet turned into a cacophony of chatter. These sites were packed in tight, with only a few trees in between each, and that was demonstrated by the level of conversation and how easily it was overheard.

To my left, a couple debated how to put up their tent.

On the other side, a man who I gathered through the course of the conversation was both a law enforcement officer and a Republican, boasted about not following gun rules at parks. It became clear that it was very important to him that all around knew he carried a gun in his RV.

Across the road an apparent pacifist complained about how gun-crazy Florida had become.

Elsewhere, off in the distance, several woman wanted everyone to know that they love Florida wine, and it’s underrated in the wine-tasting world.

I’d had two very busy days in Orlando, each starting early and ending late, and I was beat. I stayed up to enjoy the rest of the sunset, then made up my pod and hit my mattress shortly after 9. I thought I’d hear Gun Nut or Arguing Couple continuing to talk through the night, but my climate kicked in and I heard nothing. Soon I was asleep.

When I awoke before 7 a.m. the next morning I tried to be as quiet as possible, opening all of the doors and the trunk and closing them quietly only seconds before I made my getaway. I heard a loud sigh from Mr. Arguing Couple as I got back into my car, and I could only assume that he was wishing he’d dropped his $40K on a Tesla instead of a Honda Odyssey and a tent.

Overall I was quite pleased with this choice.

I’ll note that I was not thrilled with the showers, as they were small, limited, and offered no hooks to hang clothing other than some on the outside of the showers. Those who prefer to shower in luxury may want to skip this park or - as I often say - make some adjustments to your comfort level.

Also, the 30-amp service was poor, and resulted in warnings appearing on the Tesla screen.

Otherwise, I would most definitely return to this campground again.

I-275 REST AREAS

Mile Markers 7 and 13

Website

Part of my goal of this trip was to travel ‘cheaply and cleanly’. That meant spending overnights in low-cost locations - public campgrounds in local, state, and federal parks whenever they were available, and travel deal apps for bargains on Tesla destination charger hotels when they were not. (Or, in the cases of several, when fatigue or weather made stopping necessary).

Boondocking is, essentially, free camping. It can occur at any number of places, including ‘old stand-by’s’ like Walmart and Cracker Barrel parking lots - both are known for allowing RVs and, in some cases, ‘car campers’ to spend the night. Other places, like truck stops, rest areas, federal lands, and church properties can serve as a place for a dirt-cheap overnight, as well.

Boondocking websites exist that help travelers find these free spots. They include Freecampsites.net, Campendium, FreeRoam, the Boondocking app (check app store), AllStays, and iOverlander. There are also apps limited to free stays on public lands - although some require a permit application fee - including the US Public Lands App and the USFS & BLM Campgrounds app - check app store. TheDyrt is an app that mainly centers on backyard camping, but may do well in a pinch, as well.

My initial plan for the ‘Dry Run’ Road Trip taken by Ben and I back in June was to boondock where we could and stay in campgrounds where we could find them. I found a lot of resistance from campground operations, then, and sort of gave up - then we spent our first night in a Walmart parking lot in Erie, PA where teens regularly do donuts during the overnight hours. Six thousand dollars worth of damage later I’ve soured on boon docking, and prefer the safety a designated campsite can provide. For a true road trip, though - i.e. New York to Key West on I-95 - knowing where the free sleep stops are might be helpful.

In researching my visit to FL the same rest area kept coming up over and over. So many boondockers, RV campers, and others had spent the night here, and all raved about its beautiful view and its accommodations, as well. I didn’t plan to spend the night here, but I just had to check it out. So on my way out of St. Petersburg I found myself making a stop at the I-275 rest areas. They are located on the interstate just before (or after) each end of the W. Howard Frankland Bridge. On both ends of the bridge, a lane allows those from either direction to access the rest stop.

The rest areas themselves almost seem like little parks. One includes its own fishing pier. Both include covered picnic tables with grills. The views from all of this are absolutely amazing. And the building inside includes food and drink vending machines, bathrooms, and an ATM. (No showers… that would make this stop complete). I’m told that, while a sign suggests that there is nighttime security and that overnight RV parking is prohibited, security doesn’t harass people. Camping in the parking lot would probably raise some suspicions, but a simple overnight stay to sleep - especially in a Tesla - should be no problem.

I’d seen so many people rave about these rest stops online that I wanted to see what the fuss was about, and I have to say that, were there a website with the world’s most beautiful rest areas ranked, I can’t see how this wouldn’t be in the Top 10. If you’re passing by the I-275, be sure to stop and check it out for yourself.

SKYWAY BEACH & SKYWAY FISHING PIER STATE PARK

4905 34th St. South #5000 St. Petersburg FL 33711

Website

When the new bridge between Tampa and St. Petersburg was build, the old bridge was converted into the world’s longest fishing pier. It has since become on of Florida’s state parks. The pier is located at the north and south sides of the mouth of Tampa Bay, and admission costs $4 fee per vehicle, plus an additional $4 fishing fee per person. Once admission has been paid to fish on the pier, fishing licenses are not needed and are covered in the fishing fee, which is good for 24 hours from purchase. The park is open 24 hours, and I’m told that locals who don’t fish sometimes visit just to enjoy the sunsets in the evening. When I entered the employee at the gate immediately asked if I was fishing, and when I said that I was not I was charged about $4 for the first hour - I was directed to stop at the gate if I wanted to stay longer. I didn’t. I did drive the entire pier - it was filled with folks from all over fishing, from a man who appeared to spend much of his time here (or somewhere out in the sun) to an entire family with a ton of expensive-looking gear all wearing matching fishing jerseys. Pretty cool place.

I also stopped by the beach, and snapped a few photos of the Tesla against the backdrop of Tampa Bay.

MIAMI, FL

I knew from the moment that I began planning for the Miami overnights on my trip that finding a place to stay wasn’t going to be easy.

At this point I would have spent at least six nights in a row sleeping in the car at campgrounds. I’d do at least two more in Key West. Finding a camping situation in Miami would make that 10 consecutive nights of TeslaCamping - a real streak.

The first spot I found seemed like a no-brainer. Larry and Penny Thompson Memorial Park and Campground. Billed as “a 236-site family camping area with facilities including picnic tables, grills, water, electricity, washers, dryers, sanitary disposal stations, modern restrooms, showers, play areas, and a campground store.” Reviews described this as a tropical oasis in the shadows of the city - the exact kind of place I prefer to stay.

Larry and Penny consider themselves “a first-class camping area adjacent to world-famous Zoo Miami. It has 270 acres of natural South Florida woodland, bike trails, hiking paths, and a freshwater lake with its own beach that operates seasonally.” The campground consists of 240 separate campsites for recreational vehicles, each with electrical, sewer and water hook-ups. Amenities include four large bathhouse facilities with laundry, restrooms and showers. The best part besides the location, to me: the daily rate of $33.90. 

When I called, though, they quickly let me know that Miami-Dade doesn’t allow “car camping.” This would call for another letter - I didn’t have the energy to explain over the phone, and didn’t want to be stuck without a campsite when I arrived in Miami. To say that I was disappointed was an understatement.

I was running into a lot of that: campgrounds in the southeastern part of the state quickly cutting off questions about “car camping.” A friend pointed out that the homelessness rate in Miami closely resembles that of Orlando - Florida is, overall, a mecca for the country’s homeless, and its own economic policies don’t do much to improve the situation. Campgrounds across the state are probably inundated with inquiries from people living in their cars. Those of us doing road trips pay the price - but we have homes to return to, at least. Still, it sucked.

My remaining options consisting of truck stops and a parking area in Broward County that reviews suggested might not bother boondockers, I decided to scrap the streak and find a hotel in the area. Still, it killed me not to just park on the top floor of the parking garage at MIA, lay on my back, and watch jets pass over every night. On future road trips I may reach out to airport-adjacent businesses and offer them a bribe to let me do just that…

SPOTTING AT MIA

I’d planned to meet a friend, Javier, during my visit to Miami. Javier has visited me in New York twice, but I had yet to visit him in Miami, even when I lived just a few hours away. I hoped to right that during this trip.

Despite Javier living in Miami, he treated Miami very much like I treated Orlando - when I asked him what kind of ‘Miami-type stuff’ we could do while I visited, he drew a blank. What did I want to do, he asked me? Quick google searches revealed little besides a nude beach and the nightlife. I was avoiding nightlife due in part to COVID-19 and the Omnicron variant, and I figured a nude beach might be a bit cold this time of year. Miami, then, would serve more as an entryway to the Florida Keys than it would as a destination for me on this trip.

“Let’s go planespotting,” I said.

I expected Javier to do some quick research and come up with a better plan - most people don’t jump at the chance to go planespotting with me lol. Instead he embraced the idea.

I reached out to a Florida-based spotter friend, Ethan, and asked him where in Miami we might get the best shots. If anyone knew, it would be Ethan.

“El Dorado Furniture is THE place,” he told me.

I asked Javier to scout out this furniture store and #avgeek mecca, and he did in the days before I came to visit. We’d meet there on a Friday evening, parking at the end of the roadway just in front of the runway. To our surprise and dismay, the cars of a freight train had been rolled down the tracks, blocking our view of half of the runway. What the hell?

“Is there somewhere better we can go?” Javier asked me. “I didn’t realize this train would be here.”

“I’m not sure,” I replied, already searching my phone for another spot I’d seen referred to as ‘the holes’ online. I’d hoped to get some footage of planes landing off of the reflection of the Model 3’s glass roof. That a freight train blocked half the runway would be a problem.

Soon, though, we realized that planes landing were typically touching down just to the right of the last train car - and planes taking off, while starting in an area obscured from view, quickly moved into view and continued east down the runway. I’d be able to get some good footage after all.

The area was surprisingly crowded, with people gathered on the tracks, in the grass by the airport fence, and even standing on the train itself. Some appeared to be die-hard spotters with expensive camera equipment, and others appeared to be people with little interest in the planes, including a car full of teens smoking to our left and a couple making out off in the grass to our right. One little boy, dressed in orange, excitedly ran back to his father and grandmother, parked in their car, giving them updates on every incoming plane. It seemed to us that his parents had zero interest in any of it, and were just letting him get his #avgeek on. Over on the other side a couple of teens got as close as they could to the fence, holding cameras with zoom lenses in search of that perfect shot.

This was quite the gathering spot, and the fact that the airport’s security didn’t harass people, and the furniture store allowed people to park in their lot without consequence, was really cool. Orlando could learn a thing or two from MIA…

WHO’S THIS SPOTTER?

Spotter friends in Miami - do any of you recognize this… spotter?

My trip to MIA was absolutely amazing, and the other planespotters there were, for the most part, very welcoming, even helpful with information for a spotter new to MIA - just as I’ve come to expect from spotting in other cities.

The gentleman seen here was the one exception. His SUV was parked a fair distance down the road, and I only noticed it while we were spotting because he was parked out in the road instead of along the side of the road like everyone else.

At one point the spotter in the vehicle next to me decided to head out, and I got into my car and began to back up, hoping to get the spot closer to the runway for that perfect shot against the roof. This gentleman, and anyone else in the vicinity, could plainly see that I was in the process of moving my car over into a closer space, but he fired up his engine and raced down the road, blocking the other vehicle from being able to back up any further so that he could maneuver his SUV into the same space from the other direction. In doing so he came close to causing a crash with the backing vehicle, and he blocked another vehicle on his other side from exiting until he left. I couldn’t even believe it.

The gentleman who’d been waiting for him either didn’t understand basic English or pretended not to understand me as he waited for his friend to exit the vehicle. This guy sat in his SUV and glared at us - he appeared to be a really angry gentleman, leading Javier to suggest that we may want to move further away from him. When he finally stepped out of his SUV much later it was to walk briskly across the grass, snap a few pictures of a plane, and then quickly return to the fence and lean against it, glaring at people again. They soon after got into the SUV and left together. I hope he was embarrassed.

Again, everyone else at MIA was very welcoming, as I’ve come to expect from #avgeeks everywhere - I’d never had an interaction with someone like this before in all of the time I’ve spent with #avgeeks in Orlando and elsewhere, someone so desperate to beat out another man for a parking space that he’s willing to speed in a giant SUV and block traffic to secure it for himself.

If any of my friends recognize this guy, please email me his instagram - I’d love to see it. I’m hoping he was just an enthusiastic fan of aviation, as am I and most other planespotters, but I’ll be damned if his ethnicity, attitude, and apparent seething anger didn’t give off some real 9/11 Florida vibes. Maybe he was just having a bad day, and wanted to spread his ‘bad day’ vibes to others. If so, his efforts were a fail, because we had a great time.

Overall, my planespotting experience in Miami was amazing. I hadn’t seen any Boeing 747 jets in Orlando - they don’t fly in there anywhere near as often as they did pre-COVID - but we saw one very early on in our visit to MIA - see below. We saw a number of other international planes I didn’t get to see in MCO or at most other airports, as well.

The highlight of the night, though, was our realization, from the listings on the Flightradar24 app, that a British Airways Airbus a380 was scheduled to take off within the hour. I somehow convinced Javier to stay that long, and we waited patiently, hoping that it would take off on the runway closest to us. (Planes were taking off from another runway further away, as well). Javier wanted to know how we could even be sure we’d be able to see it… it was getting cold out, and I suspect he was ready to move on to our next activity: dinner. I’d never seen an a380 up close, though, and I didn’t want to miss this. So few of these are flying - who knew if I’d have another chance?

I realized as several serious spotters showed up and set up their equipment that they were here for a reason. The a380 was scheduled to take off on the runway closest to us. Finally, it began rumbling down the runway, parked right in front of us for what seemed like an eternity, and then took off. What a sight!

Definitely well worth the wait - and dealing with a parking spot-hoggy jackass.

Thanks, MIA!

HOMEWOOD SUITES BY HILTON MIAMI AIRPORT

3590 NW 74th Ave. Miami, FL 33122

Website

$181.77/night

As I mentioned above, campgrounds appeared to be closed to ‘car camping’ and boondocking spots here seemed questionable at best. Parking overnight at the nude beach or the sailing center? A rest area in Broward County? A truck stop? Any of these were possibilities. But I wanted to enjoy some time with a friend, and I’d need to be well-rested for the four-hour drive to Key West the next day. Plus, the parking lot at the WaWa I decided to supercharge at was filled with speeding drivers carelessly backing within inches of my car and the other cars charging there, and even the Tesla drivers seemed to back up like jerks. I decided parking lots might not be for me that night, and opted instead to find an airport-adjacent hotel with Tesla supercharging.

I booked a room at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Miami Airport West, via Priceline, for $181.77. This would be, by far, my most expensive overnight stay of the entire trip. I could have stayed ten nights at Buck Hall Recreation Area for what I paid for this room. But spending the night in safety, in the comfort of my own suite, felt well worth it. The suite was spacious, the rooms offered views of planes flying directly overhead - love that - and I was able to charge my car at one of their ten superchargers - I think they may share them with other Hilton properties nearby, although I didn’t see any of those listed on the Tesla nav earlier. Plus, they offered a delicious breakfast the next morning - by far the best I had on this trip. They take that breakfast seriously.

What did I miss in Miami? I’d love to hear more about campgrounds that do allow Tesla camping, or boondocking spots you know of that are safe? Email me! I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to do this trip again, but if I do I’d prefer not to spend so much money on one overnight stay.

One thing I’d really looked forward to was driving through downtown Miami and enjoying its skyscrapers through the glass roof of my Tesla Model 3. I’d hoped to have more time for Miami, but as with many of my other stops, my time was limited. Still, getting to experience this was really cool. Ben and I drove through Manhattan in the Tesla last June, so I’d already seen the ‘holy grail’ of high-rises from inside the car, but Miami’s downtown is a really beautiful place, so I made it a ‘bucket list’ item, and checked it off as I passed through.

EDIST-SLOW ISLAND

Imagine America’s favorite beach towns: Daytona Beach… Cocoa Beach… Myrtle Beach…

Now imagine them before the chains. The Ron Jon Surf Shops, the Super Wings, the …

The Joe’s Crab Shacks, the Outback Steakhouses, the …

When I pulled in to the first tourist information building I found just outside the Outer Banks I asked where I might find some ‘touristy souvenir stickers’.

“Just go to Super Wings,” the tourism guide told me.

“Where will I find Super Wings?” I asked her. She laughed. The person next to her laughed. The whole room began laughing.

“The question you should be asking is, Where won’t I find Super WIngs?” an old man with a thick North Carolina accent spoke up. “They’re ubiquitous…”

On Edisto Island, nothing is ubiquitous. It’s like the chains and developers haven’t discovered it yet.

The grocery store is a Food Lion.

And there’s a Subway - but where isn’t there a Subway, really?

“Oh, he closes up around 2 or so,” the gas station clerk that houses it told me when I stopped by for a late lunch one afternoon. She chuckled a bit, then told me I could probably find all of the ingredients to make my own over in the Food Lion.

But as for the rest of the island, there are no chains. If you want tacky touristy decor, plan to head over to a locally-owned surf shop on the beach, or a locally-owned surf shop on Jungle Road. There are no Ron Jons. There are no Super Wings.

At first, it seemed odd - like I’d stumbled upon this secret town that nobody knew about. Or perhaps I’d entered Edisto from the wrong direction - maybe I was on the local side, and they put all of the tourist stuff on some other part of the island?

I eventually learned that I’d simply discovered a place that, for whatever reason, developers hadn’t gotten their hands on yet.

And it felt good.

EDISTO ISLAND SCENIC BYWAY

One of my goals of Stage I of the Stage IV Tour was to embark on some of America’s more scenic road trips.

I stumbled on Edisto on the southern half of my tour simply because the state park campground had come highly recommended, and I wanted to check it out to see if it was worthy of a two-night stay. I’d do a little recognizance ahead of time, since South Carolina has a two-night minimum, and paying a second night for someplace I didn’t really enjoy the first would be an irritant I didn’t need.

By this time I’d already done (most of) the Outer Banks Scenic Byway. I looked forward to the Overseas Highway, and perhaps Atlantic Avenue/A1A in Florida. And, during my nights of watching Netflix on the Tesla console, I was looking ahead to other stages of the trip, seeing what other iconic scenic rides were out there.

During all of this, somehow, I missed the fact that Edisto Island is actually on the list of America’s Scenic Byways.

I’d already ridden miles of it before I spotted a sign denoting it the Edisto Island Scenic Byway. But even before that marker I could see how special this ride was. Cruising along under miles of tree canopies just made the ride feel - different. I’d set up my filming rig inside the front windshield for the ride out of Charleston and some more Ravenel Bridge footage, and I hit that record button to get some footage of this ride, as well.

I didn’t capture footage of the gatherings along the way. To do so felt like it would be an invasion of the privacy of those doing the gathering. It was a Sunday, and church had just gotten out at several locations along my route. For as un-fancy as everything about this place felt, the outfits I saw outside one church showed that church was fancy. I saw women in dresses and men in suits walking down the road, smiling and waving as I passed. It struck me that the area was fairly rural, and these folks appeared to have a bit of a walk ahead of them. Most of the places I’d traveled were the kinds of places families would get in the car and drive if the ride to church was more than a few blocks.

Again, this place just felt… different.

As I got closer to the state park I saw a group of men gathered in a yard playing what appeared to be a board game, or maybe a game of cards. The smell of BBQ hung in the air, and though I was stuffed from breakfast I wishes I could stop for a bite of whatever they had cooking - oh my Lord. Everyone seemed so friendly. At one house, a line of older gentleman sat rocking on a porch, and as I waved back to them I had a sense that they probably watch tourists pass by with the same curious interest that tourists regard the locals as they pass their communities, churches, and homes on this place so special its been declared a National Scenic Byway. (The scenery consists of salt marshes and tree-lined routes, but in many ways the scenery is also the locals of the low-country, just living out their day to day lives.

I almost felt guilty as I drove, despite the smiles and waves - treating these folks as if they were my own personal tourist attraction. I’d later read more about this particular route, and realize that the locals actually benefit from living on the Scenic Byway.

There didn’t appear to be any roadside stands today - probably another consequence of making this journey in the middle of January, and not the middle of the harvest season.

The McKinley Washington Jr. Bridge, or the Dawhoo River Bridge, connects Edisto Island to mainland South Carolina. The bridge is named after none other than McKinley Washington, Jr. Guess what he did? He served in the South Carolina General Assembly, and lead the effort to appropriate funds to place the former bridge, built so low that it required a span to be lifted to allow boat traffic to cross. If you live in South Carolina and you’d like to have a bridge named after you, run for office…

This bridge comes up out of nowhere as you head south on South Carolina Highway 174. You’re driving through the trees and then, suddenly, BAM - a beautiful river, and a majestic bridge, where you don’t expect to find a river and a bridge. (If you’re traveling in a Tesla, of course, the GPS display gives you plenty of warning that you’re about to drive smack-dab into a marsh…. you’d better stay on that bridge. I, however, was too enthralled by nature’s scenic beauty to be scanning that console very often).

I was probably even more impressed by the parking area immediately after the bridge crossing. I glanced down and spotted it - it’s not marked, and you could easily miss it if you’re not looking. I had to brake suddenly to turn on the road that leads you to it. But as I turned right, and right away, and drove toward the Dawhoo River, I found myself coming up to a boat launch featuring

Now, there are all kinds of road trippers. Amongst then, Tesla and EV road trippers. And there are all kinds of Tesla and EV road trippers. Amongst them, those who opt for swanky digs of Tesla-desination charger-powered hotels and resorts… and those, like me, who opt for the cheapest accommodations possible, such as campgrounds. There are even some who opt for the boondocking lifestyle - i.e. pay as little as possible, and unless you can help it, never pay to stay overnight somewhere if you can stay somewhere near for free…

If you were looking to cruise the low country and pay nothing, yet wanted to sleep somewhere under the stars surrounded by nature’s beauty, I can’t imagine anywhere better than this. A river flows, clouds roll by overhead, and cars travail the bridge close enough to remind you you’re still in civilization but far enough overhead so as not to disturb. Plus paved parking, picnic tables, and garbage cans? Add a bathroom and you’ve got the perfect spot. (I won’t go crazy and hope for a bathhouse and electric charger… but who knows what the future holds? From 1920 until 1950 a tender had to open the bridge span by hand here, and now look at this…

Of course, I was checking out the area for more swanky digs for myself - a site at one of the Edisto Beach State Park campgrounds.

EDISTO ISLAND STATE PARK

8377 State Cabin Rd, Edisto Island, SC 29438

Website

$58.80/night

The South Carolina State Park website shows that there are two campgrounds at Edisto, but you don’t get a real sense of how different they are until you arrive at the park.

It’s almost like there are two entirely different parks, united by a single name. The first is on one side of the street, and borders a forest and a salt marsh; this contains the ‘Live Oak’ part of the campground.

The second, on the other side of the street, is right on the beach. That’s known as the ‘Beach Campground.’

I’d come through and scouted this out on my way between Charleston and Jekkyl Island. I made a note of a few of the sites that I liked, but I absolutely fell in love with site 3 - a little alcove surrounded by trees offering a level of privacy unless anything I’d seen at any campsite so far.

I pictured myself backing in and down the little hill, and sitting on my picnic table for a while, updating my website. And the walk to the beach? It was less than a minute away. I could hear the surf crashing just behind the greenery in between me and the ocean. (You can see how close my site - site 3 - was in the stop-motion video below.)

One problem? Site 3 was booked.

It was listed as unavailable when I passed through heading south, and it was listed as unavailable during the timeframe I’d be returning.

In fact, it appeared to be booked all the way through summer. I imagined everyone who came here in a vehicle smaller than a Winnebago hoped for the privacy that this place offered.

I was headed for two nights at another South Carolina State Park, one recommended by a member of my Tesla Camping group: Dreher Island State Park. Dreher Island was further inland, but that might work out - rumors were that a major weather pattern was headed for the Carolinas coast, and I might be driven inland anyway. Plus, Dreher looked amazing… most of the sites were smack-dab on the water, as the campground is practically an island - thus the name - located on Lake Murray. I’d pictured myself spending two days writing and lounging on the lake - it seemed almost perfect.

Still, I found myself checking back with Edisto. Was site 3 available? No.

Maybe now? No.

I must have checked half a dozen times. And then… bam. Available.

Even better, it would be available for the requisite two days, Tuesday and Wednesday. I booked within seconds.

That meant, of course, that I’d need to find someplace to spend Monday night.

I’d originally planned to stay at an RV park in Cape Canaveral, Jetty Park Campground. Now, Jetty Park had given me trouble on my way down, refusing to allow me into an ‘inlet’ site (“no cars on the inlet sites,” they’d said - though their website like me reserve one), instead diverting me to a more expensive site that Google Earth showed was just inches from a walking path. No thanks. I’d hoped to wake up in my Model 3 to cruise ships steaming in and out, and maybe take in a rocket launch that same day, but those plans were abandoned and I headed west to the Gulf of Mexico instead.

I was pleased to see their newly-redesigned website allowed me to put ‘automobile’ for my equipment, and allowed me to choose an inlet site. Score!

Before going through the trouble to book, though, I emailed to double check. Big mistake. Jetty Park didn’t make exceptions for electric vehicles, and treated all cars the same… if you didn’t have an RV to leak some oil and gas on their pads, you’d need to have a tent and be prepared to use it. And the tent sites over overpriced and in an awful location… no thank you, once more.

I contemplated paying the $15 for admission to the jetty and just parking in the fisherman’s parking lot and sleeping in the car, but I couldn’t determine the bathroom situation. I decided to had on through to a KOA outside of Jacksonville. No cruise ships or rocket launches, but they understood what an EV is and why it’s used for camping.

Next up: a ride through the last few miles of Florida, the state of Georgia, and into South Carolina.

I arrived at Jekkyl Island after hours, and called the number on the office door. A park ranger advised me that she was on all night, and that she’d come by site 3 with a few things for me. I waited about 30 minutes, unloading the Tesla and trying to plug it in while I waited.

To my surprise, the 50-amp outlet didn’t work. I can’t begin to describe my disappointment… I’d come all the way here for one site, and it had no electric. I could drive to one of the sites out in the middle of the park and charge up… and then pull back into my site for the night… but that defeated the purpose of booking site 3. Damn it! I just hoped someone would be able to fix it the next day…

I needn’t have worried - when I asked the park ranger if she could report the outage she assured me she could - or she could just fix it herself? She went to work, and I held my lantern for her while she tested the outlet, pulled the breaker somewhere out in the main section of the park, and replaced the outlet. When she reset everything and I plugged in, I was relieved to see the “TESLA” letters light up on my charging cord. Vacation saved!

I’d arrived in Edisto late, and the park ranger’s emergency electrical repair had gone even later. She’d told me to call her if I needed anything, and sure enough, I found myself dialing her shortly afterwards as I tried to exit the park and found myself - locked in? Ring, ring, ring…

It turns out that Edisto is another campground that locks the gate - and the combination is on the parking hangtag they give you. No big deal. But it’s dark as hell, and the lock they use looks like its from the 1970s… the numbers are basically invisible at night. I stood there, in the cold, for what seemed like an hour trying to get it right. I finally grabbed my iPhone and used the flashlight - only to find that the glare it created made it just as difficult to see. I’d left my lantern back at the site, where I’d set it down after we used it to see the electrical box. I almost went back for it, but just as I was about to give up the lock clicked and it was open. Campground feedback card: get a new - or, at least, newer lock at the gate.

I drove out into the town of Edisto Beach in the dark in search of food. Edisto doesn’t believe in lighting the town - it may be their way of hiding it from developers, or maybe it’s because they’re a major sea turtle breeding ground part of the year? Whatever the reason, I found myself driving down what appeared to be the main road bathed in darkness. Deer ran out in front of me several times, and I almost didn’t see them at least once. It made it difficult to get a lay of the land, and the Tesla nav didn’t help - I entered the address for several restaurants, and even though they were literally minutes from the state park because I’d turned left first the nav took me all around the island! This was another place I had to use Apple Maps and the Tesla nav simultaneously to find anything.

Yelp suggested several restaurants, including The Waterfront and Briny Swine Smokehouse & Oyster Bar. I walked all the way up the steps to the Waterfront, but they were putting chairs up on top of tables. Closed! Yelp had their hours wrong. I drove further down, looking for the Briny Swine, but the nav took me to a bar called Dockside Tavern, instead. Damn… I didn’t want a bar, I wanted a restaurant. I resolved to buy something besides granola if the Food Lion was open the next day, because this search was getting ridiculous.

As I sat in the parking lot of Dockside Tavern scrolling through Yelp a woman stepped out of the bar and lit a cigarette. She looked over at the car, did a double-take, and then stepped back into the bar. Then the door swung open wide and she stepped out, headed in my direction. Oh no… I rolled my passenger side window down and she leaned all the way into the car, smiling at me.

“I said to my sister… that car has finally made it to Edisto!”

“That car?” I asked. Had they been expecting me?

“This is a Tesla, ain’t it? This is one of them electric vehicles? I haven’t seen one of these in Edisto before.”

OH… wow. This place really was remote.

I told her about my road trip, and she listened intently as she finished her cigarette. I told her then that I was in search of a restaurant and had to go, and she pointed to the bar.

“What about this place?”

I really didn’t want to eat in a bar. I wanted to experience some local flavor! I asked her how late they were open.

“Well, they’re open now…” was the reply.

I thanked her and let her know if the restaurant I was looking for wasn’t open I’d certainly be back. I was thankful she didn’t ask which one, because I hadn’t figured that out yet.

“Well, let me be the first to say… WELCOME TO EDISTO! You’re going to love it here.”

I knew she was a little bit drunk, but that was probably the most genuine welcome I’d had on my entire trip. These people were all right.

I backed out of my space, headed down the road a little bit, and decided to try for the Briny Swine again. Maybe I’d entered the address for the wrong restaurant? I put it in and found myself driving all around the island - an entire herd of male deer stood in the road at one point, and I was impressed to see so many in one place. Once we’d done the Tesla-mandated loop around Edisto I found myself right back at the same address. Dockside!

It was one of very few parking lots lit up, so I decided to take the chance. I walked in, and my new friend and her sister were just finishing up a drink. Another man sat at the bar as well. I sat at the other end of the bar and put in a ‘to-go’ order. Besides the bartender, I was the only one wearing a mask, and eating there just didn’t seem wise.

The sisters took turns stepping outside for a cigarette, and the gentleman continued to drink his beer. The menu was actually impressive, a mixture of burgers, wings, and seafood, and I had no trouble picking out something I’d like. I ordered a coke while I waited for them to prepare it, and the bartender peppered me with questions about my reason for being in Edisto. It turns out this is the slow season, but weekends still get pretty busy. That someone was in town on a Tuesday night in January who wasn’t from Edisto Beach was surprising to them, so they wanted to know why. I explained my road trip, and as I was talking one of the sisters stepped back inside and asked everyone, “What’s ‘Stage IV’ mean on your license plate?”

I explained that the road trip I was on was going to be completed in four stages. The first was to Key West -

“Oh, you’re going to love that, I’ve heard it’s beautiful down there!” the sister I’d met in the parking lot interrupted.

“Already been, and it was!” I said proudly. “The second will be too California. The third up the California coast to Washington. And the fourth - whatever’s left.”

“That’s good,” said the other sister, seeming fairly uninterested in the trip details. “I thought maybe you had Stage IV cancer or something.”

I knew it was a mistake… I should have just changed the subject… but I sheepishly admitted that was the reason for the road trip.

“Oh, I knew it,” said the friendlier sister. “I seen that right when I walked up to your car. Oh, baby… you keep going on your road trip… you’re going to beat this thing!”

And just like that, she walked over from her side of the bar, leaned in, and gave me a huge hug.

Then she coughed again, and I thought… that was the nicest hug I’ve gotten in a long time. And, damn it! COVID!

This trip was weird…

I returned to my campsite to eat, but not before the man at the bar bought one last drink so I wouldn’t have to wait for my food alone.

I’m not sure why, but even though I’d been famished when I left the park, I didn’t have much of an appetite when I returned. I ate about half of my meal, and then threw the remainder back in the bag, intending to walk it over to the dumpster.

The only problem was, I didn’t know where the dumpster was. And I wasn’t sure where I’d put the map the park ranger had given me earlier.

Damn. I was going to be stuck with stinky seafood leftovers in my car overnight.

There was a light rain in the forecast, and I decided that it was finally time to put these Husky travel boxes to the test. They were advertised as being ‘water resistant’. Were they really? We’d soon find out. I put the bag of food in the biggest box, and set it on top of the picnic table. Then I placed my tent, back in its box, on top of that. The smaller of the two boxes went on the ground. Then I got back into the car and finished whatever I was streaming on Netflix.

When I stepped back out of the car to begin getting it ready for sleeping I was surprised to find that both the tent and the travel box were no longer on the table. Instead, they were on the ground. What the hell? It was windy, with winds whipping in off the ocean, but not that windy. I walked over and uprighted the Husky box, and I put the tent back on the table where I’d had it before. Then I made up my bed, took off my shoes, and climbed in for the night.

As I did, I heard some sort of shrill animal call. A bird? A raccoon? I wasn’t sure. I was glad to be sleeping in my little hardshell sleep pod instead of that tent, though!

A little bit later I heard it… bang, bang, bang.

I wasn’t sure what it was, but it was coming from behind my car.

I sat up and tried to look out the back window, but it was too dark to see anything.

Bang! Bang!

Then silence… and that shrill animal call again. This time I heard it from inside the car, and it seemed close. I was alarmed.

I rolled my window down and stuck my head partway out. I couldn’t see anything. There were more of those shrill calls now, but I couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Should I get out of the car? I wasn’t sure that i wanted to.

The car was already in ‘camp mode’. I woke up the display and pressed the ‘camera’ icon at the bottom. Everything was green and it was grainy and hard to see - if you own a Tesla you know what those cameras look like at night. Suddenly, I saw movement. What was it? I couldn’t tell. It was coming from the side of the car, and then it shifted to the back.

I decided to be brave. I opened the door and stepped out of the car and - there it was. A raccoon was trying to open the hatch of my Husky box. Damn! It must have smelled the food, and was trying to get in.

I took a short video, and it suddenly turned and looked at me and - there was that shrill scream again. It didn’t look scared of me at all. I was scared of it. I yelled “RAWR!!!!” hoping to scare it off, and it just looked at me. Then it went back to the box. It was literally trying to unlatch the latches that keep it secured to the top of the box. I heard another shrill scream come from behind me and I got back into the car and slammed the door shut.

I lay in my little Tesla bed for a while, trying to scare these paunchy predators off with a mixture of horn honks and light flashes from my phone. I could still hear them, and I knew they weren’t scared - they probably did this every night, any time someone dared leave food outside where they could get it. Could I use the app to shout at them in the ‘Tesla voice’? That would do it! But… no… Sentry Mode must be on, and Sentry Mode and Camp Mode don’t get along. Grr…

I realized that a lot of my other things were inside that box, too - if these beasts got inside would they carry off my travel toilet, or my trash bags, or my beach towel? Would neighboring campers find everything I owed scatted about the campground the next day? I wasn’t sure, but I was damn sure not getting back out of that car again, so I went back to sleep hoping for the best.

The next morning when I woke up I found that the raccoons had gotten three of the four latches to open before giving up. One more and they could have flipped the box and opened the top. I was relieved to find everything else undisturbed, although a little wet.

If you’re looking for an amazing travel box for your Tesla camping trips, check out Husky - I can confirm from real-world experience that they are water-resistant, and raccoon-resistant, too!

After my cancer diagnosis - and, actually, for months before it was detected, really - I was tired a lot. I knew something was wrong early on because I was taking a nap every single day, and it often didn’t leave me feeling even a little refreshed. I was seeing my doctor regularly, and she was trying various blood pressure medications, among other things, but nothing seemed to be working. My sleep apnea seemed to be under control, but just in case I was referred to an ENT specialist. Was this fatigue just depression? Was it all in my head? Something was wrong, but nobody knew what. One afternoon I had a wine slushy - one - and almost passed out on the way home. I was dizzy off and on for another day or two. The next few days were filled with an increasing level of pain in my abdomen, and other symptoms; when I finally called the local urgent care and went through there phone questions I was directed to the ER.

Once the neuroendocrine cancer diagnosis came in, everything began to make sense.

For quite a while after the diagnosis, and even after my surgery, I was absolutely exhausted. I spent most of that first summer in bed, struggling even to walk down the dock to find my way to the bathroom. Family and friends, ever supportive, brought me groceries and meals, so I didn’t have to go shopping myself. One of my very few forays to Wegmans resulted in my feeling so dizzy that I considered using a scooter to complete my shopping.

Over time since the surgery things have gotten better. I still take naps, but they’re typically a few days a week now, not every day. And I generally wake up feeling refreshed. Last winter I was tested for anemia, and it was so severe that my doctors ordered further tests and came to the conclusion that I’m anemic, and that my body also struggles with iron absorption. After that I found myself at the cancer center’s infusion center receiving infusions of iron… that made a huge difference in how I feel.

Still, fatigue is a regular part of my life, and it often comes out of nowhere. In planning for this trip I built that possibility in around it. I did my best to limit driving on each day to no more than five hours. And every few days I allowed for a second day in the same city - the idea being an extra day to explore if things were going well, or a ‘nap day’, if/when one was needed.

I’m pleased to report that my visit to Edisto was the first full nap day I needed for the entirety of the trip.

And nap I did.

But I don’t mind telling you that, for that first day and part of the day afterward, I was sure I had come down with COVID.

I went to breakfast my first morning in Edisto - I can’t recommend the SeaCow Eatery highly enough, by the way. Then I did a little souvenir shopping before heading back to the campsite. I’d planned to spend part of the day relaxing on the beach, and part of the day seated at my little picnic table, in isolation, updating my social media and website. (I’d gotten way behind on this trip… it’s hard to keep up on all of that when you’re having so much fun adventuring).

I did head out to the beach - but I spent less than 30 minutes there. It was unseasonably cold - the theme of my trip, if you haven’t figured that out yet - and the wind off of the ocean was strong. A storm was brewing - more on that later - and you could feel it in the air.

And I was starting to feel tired.

Back at my site, though, I was shielded from the wind on all sides. I sat at the picnic table and began to write - but suddenly felt myself feeling fatigued. I tried to type out words and suddenly some severe sort of writer’s block was plaguing me. Egads - I had a whole day here, and I couldn’t think of a thing to write. This was going to be a waste…

Before much longer I felt a headache setting in. Was this COVID? I had been in Florida for a week, and Florida’s living like the pandemic doesn’t exist. Had my eating around others, even with as many precautions as I tried to take, finally caught up to me? Had the drunken woman who’d walked up and hugged me out of nowhere at the bar the night before given me the virus? She’d coughed a lot as she extolled the wonders of Edisto Island, but I assumed that was a smoker’s cough. Maybe not?

I wasn’t sure, but I found myself laying down in the car around lunch time, and sleeping until well after dinner.

I woke up with a pounding headache, took some tylenol, and and went right back to sleep.

This was the worst that I felt in a while.

When I finally woke up it was dark out. I was sweating profusely, still had a headache, and still felt tired. I found my thermometer - I was taking my temperature once a day on this trip from the very beginning. My normal temperature is 97.7 - not sure why, I just run cold. Today it was 98.9! Not a fever, necessarily - but warm for me. Damn…

I wasn’t hungry, and I was still tired, so I walked over to the restroom and back to the car, climbed back in, and went right back to bed.

Maybe this trip had been a mistake… maybe traveling into the south during an epidemic wasn’t the smartest idea… and now I had to drive nearly 800 miles in what weather forecasters were calling a ‘bomb cyclone’ to make it back to New York?

The rest of this trip was going to be brutal…

TO BE CONTINUED…

Coming Soon…

I wound up racing back to New York to beat a ‘bomb cyclone’ that was headed for the Carolinas. I didn’t shorten my trip, but the last few days were a lot less fun as I stayed in hotels and drove through snow and ice. I’ll share the details of NC, VA, PA, and NY soon…

TL;dr

Here’s a brief analysis of my trip from a financial standpoint. Any questions for me about the trip? Email me!

Campgrounds. I made reservations for 15 nights at ten different campgrounds: two state parks, two campgrounds in federal parks, two city parks, one county park, and two private campgrounds. And Jekkyl Island, which has its own authority - not quite sure how to categorize that. The least expensive campground was Buck Hall, where I paid $18.00/night - remember that is discounted approximately 50% because of my National Parks Access Pass. (The pass gave me free admission to the Wright Brothers Memorial, and a discount at Oregon Inlet, as well). My average cost per night was $46.32.

• Shenandoah River State Park - Virginia State Parks: $53.44/night

• Oregon Inlet Campground - National Parks Service: $21.00/night (see above)

• Buck Hall Recreation Area - United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service: $18.00/night (see above)

• Jekkyl Island Campground: $49.92/night plus $8/day toll = $57.92/night

• Huguenot Memorial Park - City of Jacksonville, FL: $27.24/night

• Moss Park - Orange County Parks: $23.00/night

• Fort De Soto Campground - Pinellas County Parks: $42.38/night

• Boyd’s Key West Campground: $109.13/night

• Edisto Island State Park - South Carolina State Parks: $58.80/night

• KOA Jacksonville: $61.90/night

Unfortunately fatigue lead to me spending one of the nights I should have spent at Buck Hall Recreation Area in a hotel instead. This threw off my overall averages, since I wound up paying for a campground I didn’t get to use. At just $18/night, though, I can’t complain too much. The good news: I was able to charge my Tesla Model 3 with 50-amp adapters at Shenandoah, Oregon Inlet (one night), Buck Hall, Huguenot Memorial, Moss Park, Edisto Island, and KOA. I had to resort to using 30-amp adapters at Oregon Inlet (the second night, when the 50-amp service stopped working), as well as Jekkyl Island and Fort De Soto, where even the 30-amp didn’t work well. I’d estimate that all of this charging saved me an additional $130. It more than paid for the 50-amp adapter I purchased for the trip.

Hotels. I spent five nights in hotels during the trip. I’d planned to spend two in hotels for sure: one in Virginia Beach, where winter had closed most of the local campgrounds - the only one I could find had a multi-night minimum and I only needed one night; the second in Miami, where the only campgrounds I was able to find with vacancies refused to allow Tesla camping. I added three other hotel stays during the trip: an overnight in Myrtle Beach brought on by fatigue and a need to pull over and sleep… an two overnights on the way home, one in Charlotte, NC and one in Virginia. The latter two were made necessary because of a bomb cyclone that hit the Atlantic coast and forced me inland. (One campground I’d eyed in Charlotte offered first-come-first-served only, and were completely booked with RV’s that had also fled the storm).

• Four Points by Sheraton Virginia Beach: $98.77/night

• Best Western Myrtle Beach: $91.96/night

• Homewood Suites Miami Airport: $181.77/night via Priceline

• Charlotte: $113.05/night

• Microtel Virginia: $122.41/night

The good news: I was able to secure Tesla destination charging at every hotel I stayed at. And four of the five had decent breakfasts, saving me a little money on the road. The bad news: the average cost per night for hotels was $121.59. This brought my overall total to $68.56/night for lodging. I had hoped to spend $50-60/night, so my need to swap hotels for campgrounds hurt that just a bit.

Charging. Charging is inevitable, and my philosophy was to charge for free where possible but, wherever Supercharging was needed, charge up and keep it moving.  spent a total of $331.11 on Tesla Supercharging. This averages to $.066 per mile. (In comparison, at $3.2736 - the average cost of gas in the eight states I charged in - the same trip would have seen me spending about $431 on fuel in my Prius.)  I was a little bit disappointed that the savings weren’t greater, especially with so many nights of leaving campgrounds and hotels with a full charge for free. This is likely because I traveled with a cold front accompanying me most of the way, and we all know the efficiency of that battery is greatly reduced in colder temperatures! I look forward to doing this same analysis during my next road trip when it’s warmer. (I also hope to find even more ‘free’ chargers on that trip, to further the EV advantage). 

Tolls. The toll bills in Florida alone will be staggering - it’s impossible to avoid them, and they’re adding tollways across the state - there are even special lanes set aside that you can pay additional to drive in now!  

Food. I gave up trying to figure out my food bill - we’ll just say that, whatever I spent, it was well worth splurging a little in that area. She-Crab Soup in Charleston, SC… fresh fish in the Outer Banks… Fried Key Lime Pie in the Florida Keys… I could go on and on. Still, I saved money by bringing a travel box filled with healthy-fish snacks, granola bars, and more. I also put my Yeti travel mug to good use - it kept coffee hot for hours, reducing my need to swing in for a refill.

Questions? Have any questions for me about this trip? Email me!

WITH GRATITUDE…

This trip wouldn’t have been possible without the support and generosity of my family, closest friends, and some support from within the Tesla community. Thank you all so much for helping me complete ‘Stage I’ of this adventure. From my brother, Jeff, who bought me a Tesla Model 3, to my parents and Santa, who helped with the outfitting of it. To my friends who have helped in other ways, and who have supported the idea of a ‘road trip’ from the very beginning. From those who met me on my route and took me out to eat, and to those I didn’t get to meet but who extended offers of meals, free overnight stays, and more - thank you, thank you, thank you!

Thanks to ReSport for setting up the mapping software I used for the trip - that map will be updated here soon! And thanks to Tesla, for creating such an amazing roadtripmobile, and for outfitting it with ‘Camp Mode’ and ‘Dog Mode’ and all of the other modes that have made this trip possible and my everyday life easier.

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

This one’s for the Tesla road trip enthusiasts… I get this question a lot, mostly from other Tesla owners who are planning their own road trips.

If you’ve been following this site for a bit, you know that my friend, Ben, joined me from Europe for a road trip to the Great Lakes in June of 2021. I’d shared my road tripping plans with Ben, and he’d had concerns about my ability to travel these types of distances on my own. He wanted to join me for the first one. We called our adventure the ‘Dry Run’ Road Trip, and were poised to go from upstate New York to Holland, Michigan in just under a week. Instead, our trip came to a crashing halt in Erie, PA when the Walmart parking lot we decided to spend the night in - Walmart parking lots are a staple of American road trips - turned out to be a favorite race track of Erie teens joyriding in stolen cars. Who knew? We shortened the trip as a result, and it would be a while before I felt comfortable sleeping in the car again. So for my next trip, I was determined it would be better-planned and, ultimately, safer.

Between June 2021 and January 2022 I took a fair bit of time researching what others consider road trip necessities. I read a ton of travel blogs, taking in the words written from of a wide array of experiences, including those on #vanlife trips, RV owners, boondocks and others who try to travel for as close to free as possible, and others.

Using what I read in the blogs and watched on YouTube and TikTok, as well as the observations Ben and I made from our week-long journey last summer, some equipment was added for these next trips.

• TesMat Mattress & Carrying Case & Fitted Sheet/Bedding

• TesMat Privacy Screen - for privacy from onlookers on all sides

• Napier Backroadz Tent - Attached or Freestanding

• Cliq Camping Chair

• Chirano Sunshade for Model 3 & Model Y - for front-end privacy and heat reflection

• Bestek 12V Inverter

• Teton Sports Camping Pillows

• Wise Owl Outfitters Microfiber Towel

• Balleine Collapsible Grocery Bags

• Yeti Rambler (30oz) with Magslide Lid

• Ipekar Portable Camping Toilet

• Green Elephant Portable Toilet Bags

Check out the “GEAR” page on this site for photos, descriptions, and reviews of all of these items. I will expand on this list over time as things are added for future trips. I’m always open to tips and suggestions - just email me!