An end to 2012...one last EVSE scavenger hunt

Last post for 2012. I've enjoyed my Leaf for the last 6 months + 8 days. It is a wonderful car. I have had the opportunity to meet a number of enthusiastic EV owners and curious members of the public. This has been an awesome time for me. I've got the electric car that I've wanted for so long and it does absolutely everything I want. I charged it up Sunday to 100% and headed out into the wild.

The first stop was at the new device at the International Brotherhood of Electric Workers. I was there a couple months ago for a Boy Scout dinner and was thinking it would be appropriate to have a device there. Now there is. It appears to be supported by 24 solar panels and potentially 2 vertical wind turbines.

After a 30 minute charge it was off to find some Walgreens stores. The first stop was not quite over the river but it was through the woods of Loose Park. I had to wait for the deer to cross the road. Eventually I arrived at the device on Gregory Blvd. I arrived just in time for a breakfast snack of Snickers and Pepsi. I only charged long enough to eat. Even though there are plenty of areas to visit, the traffic is fast enough that it makes walking along the road dangerous. Now it was time for the longest single leg of the journey and this would literally be over the river and through the wood as I took more back roads to the north side of Kansas City and arrived at the Walgreens in Claycomo.

I was just plugged in long enough to step into the store and thank them for putting the devices up. Interestingly in the navigation map for the Leaf they left off the "H" in Chouteau Trafficway and on the ChargePoint map they list the device as being in Claycono instead of Claycomo. The next Walgreens is on Vivion Road and there's a huge Metro park 'n ride area there as well. 

And just down the street in the City of Fountains (nickname for KCMO) you can see that someone left the water running.

From north of the river I drove back into the heart of the city. I was planning on stopping and using the device at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. Unfortunately that device is in their parking garage. I say unfortunate because that's a $5 parking fee. If I wanted to visit the Nelson or take the family I would gladly pay the fee because it's a very nice structure and access to the museum is free. However, this was just opportunity charging and a drive around town. That's not worth $5. So I continued on across Brush Creek to UMKC because I knew there were plenty of devices there. They are up to six devices each with dual handles so 12 cars can charge at any one time. In other words, all the Leaf's in KC at once...ok that's a little exaggeration. I was disappointed that for the second weekend in a row the device in the Rockhill garage was blocked by construction barriers. 

The device is active on the ChargePoint network but I guess there are signs and painting still to do. I was going to pull in and charge anyway figuring the lot was empty but there was a car to the right of the picture so I couldn't pull through. So instead I went down the street to the Cherry Street Garage with its access off Oak Street. I'm still trying to figure that one out. I thought about charging over at the Atterbury Student Success Center like I did last weekend but I was happy where I was.

All in all it was an enjoyable trip. It's fun to get around in the city and see parts that you've forgotten about or never visited. Searching for EVSE's is a lot of fun. It's great to see the support for the cars growing and the "Oh you have an electric car? Neat." comments are also growing in frequency.

**I just got an email from the IBEW, that's a 5kWh solar array. With the winter angle of the sun they're pulling 3.5 instead of 5 they get during the summer. Neat, I want one.


Signing off for today
KSNOGAS
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