Monthly Archives: March 2018

A day in the life of an EV

Well, not a day, but, with apologies to Solzhenitsyn (damn, I’m glad spell check jumped in here!), it gives me an excuse to extol the virtues of driving an EV. Don’t get me wrong, I like my Silverado, and it does a great job pulling the boat, hauling other trailers, hauling dogs, driving on the beach, and so forth…but I sure do wish GM made electric trucks! I didn’t have but one errand to run today, just a 2.5 mile (one way) trip to the dentist, but I sure do love to drive the Chevy Bolt. Heck, it’s not a Tesla in Ludicrous Mode, but press the sport button, push the accelerator, and you will zip you into traffic with the instantaneous torque only an EV can offer. Zip up to 45 mph, slow down to 35 in the EI business district, back to 45, then whip around the new roundabout (using one pedal driving with huge regen braking) and over to the dentist. Reverse it going back, and I used 1 kWh, about 9 cents, for the 5 miles…and fun to drive.

Need a new car? Do yourself a favor and check out an EV.

Another nice day with Clearwater trout

The first day of Daylight Savings Time means getting up early, more so when you have a two hour and 45 minute, 155 mile drive. A lot further than when this was only 15 minutes from the house, before we moved. My alarm went off at 5:15 so I could make coffee and get out the door to meet Sam at the EV charging station at Durham Regional Library, so I could get a charge on the Bolt while we fished (used 95 kWh for the round trip, so with 60 kWh battery, with temps in the 40s, I needed several hours of juice). Sam picked me up at 8:30, and we headed to Clearwater, for the TU-sponsored stocked winter stillwater trout fishery. It started very slow…only one guy (of 8 rods on the lake) was catching fish, and he caught several while I was watching. I asked him what he was using, and he was fishing a dry as a soft hackle fly, just below the surface. I did the same, and promptly caught a couple nice fish.

Sam was on the other side of the lake, so I walked around the lake to where Sam was fishing, and suggested we have lunch and debrief. We ate, and then went back to to casting stations where the action had been. He promptly caught a nice one!

We then figured out that olive wooly buggers were the ticket, and over the afternoon we each caught a dozen or so, big strong fish, 16-24″. It rained on and off during the day, but the fishing was good in the afternoon and that made for a great time. Good fellowship and lots of trout. A great way to spend a late winter day.