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Shirley Neary's avatar

I'm smiling for sure🥰. I used your overlapping interests theory today as I thought about my own marriage.

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Douglas Burns's avatar

What a wonderful read

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Julie Gammack's avatar

Thanks, Doug!

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Sharon Goldford's avatar

Julie, I laughed and laughed! Thank you! Great story! I could picture your whole trip. I am sure Dudley had a great adventure! Loved it!

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Julie Gammack's avatar

Oh, good. We need more laughter, eh?

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Ed Tibbetts's avatar

What a great story, Julie!

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Tim Grover's avatar

You need to add the Jayhawks to your Playlist!

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Julie Gammack's avatar

I should have added River to River and Charity Nebbe's podcasts to the shared interest category in the Venn diagram!

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J. Dudley Gilbert's avatar

Dudley, here. I was sure glad to get home to my he-human!

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Cyrus Winters's avatar

I have a similar experience. I had just purchased an EV, and decided to take it to Fairfield on a cold February day so that my wife and I could do some work on my late mothers home and her estate. We arrived with 17 miles of charge left, but I had done my research (sort of) and knew that there were 4 chargers in town. I dropped Shirley off, stopped at a local business, then headed to the charger. It was there I discovered that this was not a quick charger. It helpfully told me that it would take 14 hours to charge. There was a snowstorm coming in, and we did not have 14 hours. I tried all four stations (including one at MIU that was powered by solar) before parking behind a Kum and Go and connecting to the last option. This charger increased my range .2 miles every 10 minutes. I sat there 4 hours to get enough charge to make it to HyVee in Oskaloosa. Once I got there I discovered that the chargers would not work. I found a charger at the local ford dealer that charged at .4 miles every 10 minutes. I had 4 miles of range left. I drove without heat to get that extra few miles that I needed. It was now nearly 10:00 pm. We sat there long enough to get to Knoxville, which DID have working high speed chargers. We drove the rest of the way to West Des Moines with heat, and arrived home at 1:30 am. We were supposed to be back at 3:30 pm. It was quite a lesson.

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Jim Sayers's avatar

This sounds like the definition of range anxiety.

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Cyrus Winters's avatar

Exactly so.

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J. Dudley Gilbert's avatar

Oh my!

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Mary C. McCarthy's avatar

Casey's at Early is one of my frequent pitstops. Although I subscribe to the Storm Lake Times-Pilot, I always buy an issue at Early. Tactical reading maneuver. The podcasts of Down Ballot, Monday Potluck, etc are my ride time listening. All thanks to Julie, Richard, and the Writers' Collaborative my travels across Iowa are easier and more enlightening.

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Audrey Mueller's avatar

Julie,

Your solo road trip sounds exactly like Bill and I. We don’t have a dog and we don’t have an EV, but he can drive to Texas (17hrs) and only stop for gas 3 times! And he does it through the night!

Though some of my best writing happens on these trips, still not a fan.

Audrey Mueller

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