Wyoming and Idaho

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We are back from a quick vacation. I managed to score three (actually several more) bucket list items in 4 days. 1.) Long Snowmobile Trip. 2.) Yellowstone Park and 3.) Wyoming. I reached my 50th State --Wyoming! And we took a 90 mile snowmobile trip in Yellowstone National Park. We went to the "Craters of the Moon--National Monument and Preserve" in Idaho and also stopped at Idaho National Laboratory (INL) where I got to see (with my own eyes) the very cool nuclear powered twin turbojet engine. It was a successful experiment in the 1950s and 1960s. https://whatisnuclear.com/safety-minutes/htre-3-meltdown.html Of course, I had my Radiacode scintillation detector with me and yes, the apparatus is "Hot". The screenshot of the readings from my three walk-arounds the artifact. I swear you could smell the radiation. There was a very un-natural burnt smell something reminiscent of burned bakelite. Although, I am quite certain the emitted radition was not the source...

Mississippi and Buc-ee's

We went on an overnight to a cool spot on the Tenn-Tom waterway in Mississippi.

They don't see Teslas out that way, and I had to answer a number of questions and got some comments on how cool the car is. Camping with the Model Y is surprisingly quite nice. We have a custom memory foam/self-inflating mattress. The camping mode provides air conditioning all night with lots of fresh air and no bugs. Quite pleasant actually. The glass roof on the Tesla helps too. You still get a feeling of being outdoors. Staying in a campground is also very practical since we get AC (it was over 100F and we were at 68F in the car), but we also add about 150 miles to the battery overnight via a 50 amp 220 connection. I don't push the battery hard, never deep-drain and never charge to max capacity.

Myself being from the deep-North, trips inside and across the US are interesting and filled with new visuals. Mississppi is at the bottom of most lists as far as US states, but it definately reminds me of Upstate NY. Upstate NY seems to continue its decline. Mississippi is likley on the way up.

We also had our first experience with Buc-ee's. We charged the car and lived the Buc-ee's dream. The store is a hypersized mini-market. 100 gas pumps, lots of flavors of electricity for the car (NACS, J1772, CCS/SAE and Chademo) and crazy amounts of mini-market food. It was good to expereince. We probably won't be back.

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