A Tesla road trip?

We recently took a long road trip from Park City to Banff, in Canada, that was mostly improvised on a daily basis and I recently wondered how that loosely planned escape would have been possible if we had driven an all-electric Tesla automobile instead of our gasoline powered car.

I guess that my need to find places to recharge my vehicle would have defined my itinerary as well as my travel time, and that I would seen a much different scenery if had been behind the wheel of an electric car.

First, the Tesla Supercharger Stations are few and far between between Utah, Idaho and Montana and there was just one around Banff, in Alberta. Of course there are a fairly large number of regular charging stations, but they take time to “fill up” the battery and one must be always cognizant of issues like maximum speed on freeways, charging time not to mention heater use.

While the regular S model is given a 200 mile range by the EPA. It takes about 40 minutes to get it fully charged at a Tesla Supercharger Station while you can count on 7 hours to do the same inside your garage as long as you have a 240V outlet. If you must rely on a public charger station, as you travel, count on a rate of 22 miles per hours.

So when you look at it, recharging a Tesla is not yet that easy or that worry-free; I'll wait a little more before I order mine...

Marks of a sophisticated mountain-town

Recently, as we were traveling up north, I noticed several elements that always seem to be missing in a prosperous mountain town: the auto part store (people are affluent enough to bring their car to a service shop), barber shops (those are called beauty salons) and mortuary places (no one seems to die in paradise!)

Have I missed anything along these lines?

The bimbo, the salesman and the mortician

Last night was the turn of the candidates for Vice-President to show their talents and try to sway the still undecided voters.

The moderator was a young, perfect looking CBS anchorwoman who could barely read her questions to the two opponents, and was woefully unable to keep them from interrupting each other and staying within their allotted time, not to mention answering the questions they were supposed to respond.

Tim Kaine was the typical used-car salesman who was loud, interrupting, but could put an understandable argument together, while Mike Pence looked stern, stiff, used much more than the time he was given and made me think of a mortician.

If I had to have a beer with anyone of the threesome, I'd pick Kaine without hesitation!

Responding to vicious emails...

We all get emails that are manipulated and under the guise of common sense say things that are politically or socially extremist. We can ignore them or as happened to me yesterday (see text inside the illustration), respond to set the record straight.

Which is what I did:

"I feel sorry for the man who wrote this and for all of those who identify with everything listed in that text. To me, it sounds like an admission that change is unbearable and that the good old days were a much better time. 

Refusing to change might be a reason for the demise of the Neanderthals some 30 thousand years ago, and I get more inspired by the stories of people who have flourished with change. Folks like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and today, Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. 

Most of us [like the man sending me the message] who have been in sales can identify with pushing the envelope, making huge progress, occasionally losing perhaps, but always standing back up, dusting ourselves off and trying even harder. I wouldn't be surprised if the author of that piece stood front and center around Woodstock in 1969 and has since just given up, ready to fall for the Donald Trumps of the world who propose to go back to the 1950s. This is not for me; I'm still too curious, remain eager to participate and can't wait to move forward!"

The danger of charisma

Last night, we watched “Holy Hell” a 2016 Sundance documentary that told the real life of cult guru and its followers between 1985 and 2007.

It was all about the destructive power of spiritual or religious belief, the magnetic charisma of its leader and most importantly, the tenacious attachment of its followers to the “truths” they had been told in spite of the ordeal they had experienced.

This made me think that organized religions, political beliefs and movements of all kinds aren't that much different from these destructive cults and when people have been perfectly brainwashed on a weird idea, it's very difficult to make them execute to a total 180 degree turn.

I'm thinking about Nazis, ex-USSR Communists, Evangelists of all kinds, Trump followers or ex-Catholics just like me. The trip out of an entrenched set of belief proves always very arduous if not impossible.

Until now, I thought that religion or any other form of mental contamination was simply a “poison”, but it also a “prison”.

Not paying taxes makes Donald smart!

At least this is what the Bully-in-Chief quipped at Hillary during their first debate when she suggested that he might have not paid a red-cent in taxes.

Since this mere suspicion is now becoming an established fact, what makes Donald so smart, just make 320 million fools out of all of us, including the patented imbeciles that support him

No wonder then, that with zero effort on Trump and his tax-avoider brethren, we aren't building airports that are up to par with his regal tastes and that the United States is going to the dogs.

Time for Donald Trump to get his exit visa and move in with Putin at the Kremlin. This is where he belongs.

The improvised road trip

Early September, before the autumn equinox, we decided to jump in our car and head north while the light was still good, the weather pleasant and the tourists long gone – we were a bit wrong on that assumption...

We had no particular plan. We wanted to drive somewhere north, up in Canada. We did it one day at a time. Each evening we chose where the following day would take us, booked that particular night, got behind the wheel and soaked up the scenery.

Just like when we ski or bike, we were lost in the moment and forgot everything; who we were, what we did and whatever bothered us. We saw some spectacular vistas, met some interesting people, gathered a few good stories and didn't see the days and miles go by.

We can't wait till the next road trip!