Our trip today
Today we were doing something referred to in Dutch as kilometervreten, perhaps best translated to English as gobbling up miles, as we spent that extra day up here to hike to the Svartisen glacier, we have to make up for time a little bit. Our boat from Oslo to Kiel is on September 11th at 14:00, and while we do have some time between now and then, we also have a lot of things to do. A lot of places to see. A lot of people to meet. For today though, the blogpost will be somewhat basic, because, eh, we didn’t do much.
The drive was 475km or so and we started the day fully charged because we plugged in Tessa the evening before; we left it parked with 361km in the battery, and this morning at 08:58am when we were ready to leave it had 356km left, so one night of hanging out in Mo i Rana costs 5km of range. Over the last 5'755km we have consumed 1'062.3kWh of electricity, which means Tessa is rocking 185Wh per kilometer, a very low number in my experience, and this is probably because the speed limit in Norway is 80km/h and we can often reach 72km/h or thereabouts while criss-crossing the fjords. Anyway, we parked Tessa at 21:30 so it has been here for 11.5hrs, 5km of range loss is 925Wh so we can calculate that the car consumes 80 Watts in standby, while keeping its system running with cell/mobile data turned on.
In the morning I fabricated a fix for the driver’s seat doorhandle which is no longer presenting itself, although it is making a whirring sound so it’s at least trying, and I appreciate that. On the intertubes I found a few videos on what this might be, but consensus is that this is a common occurence on older Model S cars, the repair is non-obvious, but a quick-fix is to loop some duct-tape around the handle, to pull it out when you need to open the door - because although the handle doesn’t present itself, it does actually allow you to open the door just fine.
We drive southbound E6 and hit Brekkvasselv (god-bless-you), which has a supercharger. There’s only one other car here, and it’s a CCS-only charger, once again I am delighted by this. I make my now patent-pending Trunk-salad and Paul does a quick pitstop, only to emerge from the local gas station with a medley of olives, garlic and feta cheese. It goes straight in the salad, and we stretch our legs while eating this delicious treat of a lunch. If only all of our meals where this healthy (or affordable!)
After lunch I have a Good Idea™, and re-use some of the tape from this morning to stick the ninth (!) Papa-smurf to our windshield. Ever since we’ve been road-tripping, we would stick a red Papa-smurf to our windshield, and he would guide us on our way. However, Tessa’s windshield must be overly slippery, because our previous Papas-Smurf (Papa-Smurfs?) kept flying off the windshield within a few kilometers of sticking them on there .. but now I made this one a little unescapable cage using three strips of tape. This Smurf ain’t going nowhere: YOU SHALL GUIDE US!
The weather continues to be great, lots of blue skies and some fluffy clouds, with temps of 17C / 63F, really perfect driving weather. And as such, we arrive in Trondheim at 16:45 or so. We check in to the Scandic Nidelven, and hang out for a little bit in the room watching TV and rummaging around. Paul had made us a dinner reservation at Olivia’s just across the footbridge on the other side of the harbor at 18:30. We get there on the dot, they seat us, and we proceed to pig-out. I have the Carpaccio di Manzo, followed by a Pizza Quattro Formaggi, and Paul takes the Caprese di Olivia followed by Pollo alla Fiorentina. We get stuck for desert, and after a brief moment we decide to eat some Focaccia, at which point we have a little debate about the pronunciation of Focaccia.
After dinner, I definitely have to burn off some calories (perhaps also some alcohol, the wine was tasty!), so we take a walk around town. I know there’s an “old town” and an “old bridge”, and we’re all about visiting old stuff. Take the North Cape, for example, we visited it and it has been there for like, ever. So we make our way across five distinct geocaches in this old area of Trondheim, and we get to see some pretty slick views of the city, and of the marina / harbor with the old bridge. We also pay a visit to the Vår Frue Kirke, but we don’t find any old women there: I give it one star on Yelp.
And there you have it. I managed to write a whole blog post about pretty much nothing at all just by pasting a bunch of random pictures of what we saw today. And the best thing is, you read it. Thanks :)
