I can not stress this enough, Rapid City is awesome! I loved the people and I loved the city, I got a chance to walk around the city for a bit in the morning. I wanted to stay longer, however we were issued a blizzard warning for the next morning, so I thought to myself I should drive as much as I can so I could avoid this blizzard before it hits. I left Rapid City with about a hundred or so miles of range, and headed for Mount Rushmore.
They way to Mt. Rushmore was straight forward, literally…I went straight on a single road and it took me to Mount Rushmore! The road to Rushmore was pretty steep, but it wasn’t too bad. The drive up was scenic as hell though. I never knew how beautiful South Dakota was till that drive. I was able to understand why the monument was built where it was, they could only construct a monument of such importance in such a beautiful location. When you are driving up to the entrance you can actually see the monument multiple times during the drive up. Once I got there, I tried to be as quick as possible to not waste time before I was hit with the storm. So I took a few pictures, and did not stay too long, (Dog wasn’t allowed with me and I didn’t want her to be alone in the car too long, even with dog mode on). Also just a side note, when you are leaving Rushmore you can catch a pretty nice side view of George Washington’s head. The rest of the drive out to Cluster, was absolutely breath taking, I cannot imagine how amazing it would look during Autumn, it was a mixture of mountain-y terrain and trees everywhere.
I made it to Cluster just fine but needed to charge up. Cluster is a small town near what seemed like the base of the mountains. I charged up for about 50 min to an hour and headed to Lusk. Lusk, was also a fairly small town, the hotel people were nice, let me use the bathroom and grab a coffee. Charged up and left to Wheatland Wy. On route to Wheatland, I saw a small state park on the way, to I-25 from route 26, called Guernsey state park. I debated with myself if I should take the detour and check it out, or skip it and get out of the storm zone. I told myself I should check it out since I didn’t get a chance to check out Badlands or really any other major park other than Mount Rushmore. When I got to the main gate for the park, it felt a little eerie. No one was at the booth to collect the vistor’s fee, and the place just seemed way too quiet. As I was driving through, I was in awe, it was so quiet and so calm, but at the same time it was so amazingly beautiful. I was genuinely surprised no one else was there. I stayed at the park for about an hour or so, scoping out different vantage points to get good shots, and then I slowly started to realize people might not have been at the park due to the fact that there was a pretty major storm heading this way.
I was able to make it to Wheatland just fine, but I knew that the drive from Wheatland to Rawlins would be tough, especially if I was going to follow the route Tesla’s Nav was suggesting (small roads, no major citys/stops or super chargers). I charged up till about 200 mi before leaving, I actually hesitated and wasn’t sure if I should let the charge go on for a few more minutes or if I should leave, I kind of just told my self I will be fine since the Tesla Navigator told me I would make it within 20%. I have to say this was easily one of the most stressed out moments during my trip. The Tesla navigation suggested that I take route 34 to route 30 and then Interstate 80, and that I would reach the super charger in Rawlins Wy with about 20% left over in about 2 and a half hours. Little did I realize that route 34 had some pretty steep inclines, that combined with the high wind I was driving against, I kept seeing my projected range plummet. It might not seem too scary or bad, but when you are driving and you constantly see nothing but road, hardly anyone passing by on either side of the road. Combined with the fact that I had two cellphones with me, neither with any reception. If I was to get stuck, I feared I would be stranded for days. One because it was nearing nightfall, and no one was on the roads, two there was a blizzard warning for the following two days, and most importantly I feared I would not be able to make it out of those small roads due to not having enough battery.
I buckled down, dropped my speed down to 5 below the speed limit, turned the monitor brightness down, turned off the AC/Heat, turned the fog lamps off, really tried to do anything I could to conserve charge. Some how I made it to Rawlins with about 5% battery left. At this point I was exhausted and something was telling me to call it a night and just stay at Rawlins. But I wanted to push through and “beat the storm” or get ahead of it. So I stayed in Rawlins for about an hour and headed out to Rock Springs.
