Charging
Last weekend I took my first real road trip in the Tesla. I am defining a real road trip as one where you have to stop and charge at least one time. It was really nice. We have all seen those YouTube videos of people with non-tesla-ev’s and all the problems they have charging, so I was naturally a bit worried. But I didn’t need to be. I spent a lot of time leading up to the trip planning out where the best chargers were and where I should stop before coming home. My only stop on the way to Indy was in Terre Haute, IN (5600 New Margaret Drive, Terre Haute, IN 47803). There is a nice 250kwh charger there. I pulled in, plugged the car in, and walked over to the Culvers that was next door. Between the walking, the bathrooming, and then cleaning my windshield my car was mostly charged when I was done. I ended up watching a 10-minute YouTube video and then it was fully charged.
This guy pulled into the supercharger just to get a pic of his truck.
On the way back, there was a charger about 5 minutes from the hotel. I stopped there. I didn’t go into the grocery store it was by. The charger there was a slower charger. I cleaned the windshield and the headlights again. Then I was about to enter where I assumed my next charging stop would be, but instead, I just told it to route me home. It automatically chose the same charger in Terre Haute. It said I had enough charge, to get there, but I chose to let it charge up to 80% before I left. So I watched some cartoons on Netflix for maybe 20 minutes before heading out.
The only issue I had coming back was all that driving in 2 days led to my but being numb and my back hurting. I keep telling myself I need to get back into keto and I need to get back on the treadmill and lose some poundage so that these random pains go away. Considering it’s a week later and my back/left shoulder still hurts, it might be a good incentive.
Indy
Indy was great. I stayed at the Staybridge Inn & Suites in Carmel, IN. I had never stayed in this particular hotel chain before. It’s lumped in with all the Holiday Inn hotels, so I get points or something from it. It had a kitchenette in the room.
My hotel room.
It was really nice to be able to pull the leftover pizza out of my cooler and eat it on a real plate and have a nice relaxed dinner instead of having to eat it cold or on a paper towel. The room also had a nice couch, it was kind of hard, but still, a couch is always a nice addition. The bed was also ridiculously firm, much more firm than what I prefer. Nonetheless, I slept like a rock.
The reason I was in Indy was that my Aunt and Uncle were celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. It was at a fairly nice vineyard that is near where they used to live. Despite driving over 4 hours to get there, I was the first guest to arrive. It was nice to see them, I hadn’t seen them in two years. A couple of my cousins were there and my brother and his family were there too.
Nieces
Last winter, my brother had invited me to come this summer on a neat trip. We were going to be starting in Grand Haven, MI, and then traveling up the West Coast of Michigan. It was only going to be a couple of days, but I had been planning on continuing up to Traverse City and spending a few days there too. Unfortunately, one of my cousins lost her job and the whole trip just fell through.
It was sad because I thought it would be a good opportunity to spend some time with my 3 nieces whom I hadn’t seen since pre-pandemic. The youngest of which, I hadn’t seen since she was baptized. I was worried that when they got to the anniversary party last weekend they wouldn’t recognize me and worse they would just ignore or be afraid of me.
The youngest was shy for maybe 20 minutes and then after that, she seemed to not be bothered by me at all. I think that might have a lot to do with her two older sisters being immediately comfortable around me. We hung out all day, colored pictures, played games, had some cookies, and had an all-around good time.
The Project
After the anniversary party, I followed my brother over to the hotel they were staying at. Once we were up in their room, I brought out the project I had been working on for the last 6 weeks or so, 3 little leather bags I put together for my nieces.
3 bags I made for the girls. Water bottle for scale.
The original plan was to make all 3 of them identical. After I did the first one, the one with the fur flap, I decided I just didn’t have the time to do all three of them with the hair on. It added a bunch of extra steps that were very time-consuming. First I had to cut out the fur piece, but it’s too flimsy, so I had to cut out another piece and glue it to that. The glue took at least a day and sometimes longer around the edge. That first bag took two weeks to do and if you zoom in, the hair around the rivets doesn’t look as nice.
The other two, I did in the Italian Badalassi Carlo I used on the bottom of all three of the bags. That leather is really nice, I hope to use that again on some future projects. I need to get a strap cutter. I ended up just buying a 1″ piece of veg tan harness strap. It’s by comparison much stiffer and much heavier than the rest of the bags. I left them natural, but I did hit them with some mink oil. I told my brother that the straps should darken and soften over time, which they probably will.
The girls really liked the bags, they were super excited when they got them and checked them out for a good two minutes until they figured out that inside the bags there were candy and toys. That is when all chaos broke out. For this past week, I think I earned best uncle. My brother was also really impressed with the craftsmanship of the bags. He asked me lots of questions about it.
The next project…
When I showed my sister the little bags, she told me a few days later that she was feeling kind of jealous of my nieces because they were getting something and she wasn’t. I had her pick something out, and I guess that will be the next project. I printed it out. It’s 22 pages long. That’s gonna be a lot of cutting.
