Leslie, Tom, Finley and I went out for breakfast at a local place that was quite popular. Tom took a scenic route on the way home so I could see the lake near them.  I took a few more pictures of the leaves.

After breakfast, I said my goodbyes and started on the route to my sister’s home in Indiana.  I stopped a few times along the way to charge, but nothing eventful.  I was reminded of the toll roads around Chicago and NW Indiana as I spent over $10 on tolls to get home.  The highway oases (plural of oasis) are a somewhat interesting concept that I don’t recall seeing in other areas.  To avoid people exiting a toll road, city planners built structures that go over the highways and contain restaurants, bathrooms, rest areas and gas stations on the sides.  I didn’t take any pictures, though.

I arrived at my sister’s home about 7:30pm.  My mother and nephew were there with my sister and spent the rest of the evening catching up and visiting.  Julie had made dinner and cookies for me.  She also offered her bedroom for me to stay in.

Miles: 5677.7

I left Bryan and Kendra’s place at 8am, eager to get on the road as I had a large amount of driving to cover.  I needed to cross Minnesota and get into Wisconsin to catch up with my friends Leslie and Tom.

It was 30F when I got into my car.  I had started the heat before leaving the house so the car was nice and comfortable.  There was quite a bit of fog for the first two hours of driving.  I made it into Minneapolis and to the Mall of America about 2pm.  I’m not a big fan of malls, but I wanted to see just how big this mall is.  It’s huge.  I’d guess 3 times larger than the largest mall I had previously seen.

The mall is four levels and built around a large central area that contains an amusement park.  Really.  It’s covered in a dome so the entire structure is indoors.  I walked around one level of the mall and only stopped to buy two truffles. 🙂  I took a few pictures of the amusement park in the center.

My destination for the night was my friend’s place in Chippewa Falls.  While charging near their place, I took two pictures of the trees with different colored leaves.

After charging to 90%, I arrived at their home just after dark.  Leslie and I have known each other for about twenty years but this was my first time meeting her husband Tom and their daughter Finley.  I also met their dog, Jimmy, and we became friends instantly.

Leslie had cooked chicken tacos for all of us and Tom made some deep-friend Wisconsin cheese curds that I had to try.  Both were excellent and I, once again, over-ate.  🙂  We watched the Cubs game as they won the pennant for the first time in 71 years.  I took Tom and Jimmy for a ride in the Tesla. Tom loved it!  Jimmy fell asleep.  I think we have another convert. 😉

At the end of the night, I settled down on the couch and noticed Jimmy was staying with me on the couch.  I woke up in the middle of the night to feel him curled up against my back sleeping.  🙂

Hotel checkout time was noon so I ate breakfast at the hotel and stayed around the room until 11:30.  After that, I decided to try (again) to find some shoes while Bryan and Kendra were at work.  I went into two strip malls and the West Acres mall, but didn’t have any luck with shoes this time, either.  I was surprised to see the prices on Asics here are higher than what I found in California.

The West Acres mall has a cool water feature and I grabbed a pic:

After the mall, I went to a Walmart parking lot to sit and read for a while.  I walked through Walmart and did some people watching then spent time with the Kindle in the car.  Bryan contacted me after their work day and we met up at their house.

From there we went out to The Blarney Stone Pub for dinner and drinks.  The beer was good, the food portions huge, and the atmosphere was fun.  We had a good time there, then grabbed some wine for later and headed back to their home.  We spent the rest of the evening talking and playing MTG while drinking wine and playing with the cats.  Bryan has some cool deck builds that gave me ideas and the desire to build some decks again.  I enjoyed playing again.

They offered me the couch for the night and I happily accepted.  After they went to bed, as I was just settling in on the couch, the ‘anti-social’ cat started meowing to me for food. 🙂  I said goodnight and went right to sleep.  Don’t worry, she isn’t in danger of under-eating.

I’m going to visit my friend Bryan near Fargo, North Dakota.  There is not a direct route there along the SuperCharger network, yet.  I looked at the map and found a destination charger in Aberdeen, South Dakota that would permit me to shortcut the trip, though the charging is much slower.  I left Mitchell, South Dakota with nearly a full charge and arrived in Aberdeen two and a half hours later.  I’m parking outside of the Best Western charging at a rate of about 25 miles of range per hour of charging.  I probably have another four hours of charging to go before I’m ready for the next step.  It’s slow, but it permitted me to cut 455 miles off the other route through SuperChargers.

While sitting here, I’ve been catching up on news.  Tesla announced full automation in new Tesla Model S cars.  These cars are expected to fully drive themselves with no human interaction.  Video of self driving Tesla         Elon Musk’s tweet.

I charged until 6:30 pm, 7 hours of charging in Aberdeen.  I ended up charging about an hour or 90 minutes more than I needed to, but I was thankful to have the extra range.  I arrived at Bryan and Kendra’s place about 9:30pm and visited with them for a few hours, as well as meeting the cats. 🙂  I plugged in at their house to grab a few miles while we talked.

I’m in the Element Fargo hotel tonight.  I picked it because it’s the only place around here with a Tesla Destination Charger and I was down to 40 miles of range (16%). It’s quite nice for the price.  A modern hotel with some updated concepts.  Actual glasswear and plates, salt and pepper, microwave and minifridge in the room.  I took a few pics (also because I don’t have any other pics from today since it was mostly a travel day).

Tomorrow I plan to relax a bit in the hotel while Bryan and Kendra work.  I’ll perhaps explore a bit of Fargo and plan my next route.  In the evening, we’ll hang out.  Either tomorrow night or Saturday, I’ll continue East into Wisconsin.

Miles: again, I forgot to get the exact number but it’s over 4,800