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Day 33: Tesla Repairs and Route 66

 Thursday, Oct 6, 2022

First order of business after checking out of the hotel was to reach the Tesla service center in Tulsa for my 9:30am appointment to investigate the creaking sound. The technician test drove for a minute and said it was a problem with the upper control arm, which is apparently a common issue with early Model 3 cars. They replaced both front control arms, a new, updated version and sure enough the creaking sound was gone. However, it took them almost 4 hours to finish and I left the service center at 1:30pm. 

With half the day gone, I had to scale back my original plan to drive all day along the historic Route 66. Instead, I drove through a few small sections of it and took some pictures. There are many different museums, wall murals, sculptures, road signs and other nostalgic oddities at various points along Route 66. I just scratched the surface on all this history and folklore.

 

 




After a couple of hours looking at some Route 66 memorabilia, I moved on to my goal of mapping out a route to Carlsbad Caverns without losing a extra day due to the service center delay. There are no Tesla superchargers anywhere near Carlsbad, so I had to plan this out carefully.  In a real-time wrinkle, Tesla navigation said that the Lubbock supercharger was temporarily out of order and it was rerouting me, which would add 200+ miles to the route. I decided to take a chance and assume that the Lubbock supercharger would be back in action when I needed it the next day. It was after 5pm when I decided on Childress, Texas as the destination today and booked a hotel for the night. 

 The whole day was stressful and uncertain and I had to force myself to stay calm.  I decided to relax and have an early dinner at Lucille's Roadhouse, a Route-66 themed restaurant next to the Weatherford Tesla supercharger.

The raw numbers for the day:

  • 357 miles driving, 3800 steps walking
  • 1 Tesla supercharger stop, Tesla destination charger previous night at hotel
  • 2 states - Oklahoma, Texas

 

Comments

  1. ManeeshaOctober 9, 2022 at 7:06 PM

    Did you try yoga? It is slightly more boring than stress though.

    ReplyDelete
  2. VisheshOctober 9, 2022 at 7:33 PM

    Wow, that was so much uncertainty and stress! I felt nervous reading the past few entries about the creaking sound, even knowing that you've successfully progressed in your journey since then.

    ReplyDelete

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