Last Leg and Home Again

With all new tires, we headed to Greensboro, the site of the first Woolworth sit-ins against segregation in public accommodations.   

On February 1, 1960 Four African-American students from NC A&T College sat at the lunch counter, each ordering a coffee and a donut. They were refused service and refused to leave until closing (5:30).

The next day 60 more students joined them, then there were hundreds. The students were polite and non-violent; hecklers pulled their hair and threatened them. Several whites were arrested. The protests continued until July, when the local Woolworth manager relented, mostly because the store was losing money and so his salary had been cut.

News to me was that this segregation was not due to Jim Crow laws, but "merely" local racism. The local store manager could, and did, change the rule, without needing authorization from any government, and probably not even corporate . Woolworth did not change the policy company-wide: Jackson Mississippi was still segregated in 1963 and had violent counter demonstrations to sit-ins. 

Sit-ins sprouted up all over the South in 1960, mostly at lunch counters. Integrated public accommodations finally became federal law in 1964. Nashville is proud to be the second city with sit-ins demanding integration.

The Greensboro Woolworth is now the International Civil Rights Museum, a big budget entity. No photos allowed, and no walking around: guided tours only. The museum says this is the original lunch counter, but I think it is newer and shinier and more polished than even when the store originally opened in 1929. The docent was quite polished and kept to precise script for about an hour and a half, covering hundreds of years, which was sometimes a bit tedious for us as we were pretty familiar with the subjects. Almost nothing had tags or description, every photo or item was described by the docent, nothing to read.  Overall, very well presented, especially if one didn't know much about the Civil Rights protests before arriving. 

Barbara found about  the small  town of Danville, which happened to be right on our way north. Something about a library got desegregated, whatever. I thought it was going to be a 15 minute stop, just  a glorified roadside  Historical  Highway Marker. We spent over three hours there, even though we had a lot of miles to cover to get to Appomattox Court house.

The Sutherland mansion was by far the most expensive house in town before the Civil War. By far the most expensive house, it was appraised at something like 10 times the second most expensive house in town. In the beginning of April of 1865, the Confederacy was finally collapsing. Traitor Robert E. Lee notified Traitor Jeff Davis that he couldn't guarantee that Richmond, the Confederate capital, was safe, so Traitor Davis fled with his minions to Danville VA, right on the NC border. 

This house became the "capital" of the Confederacy for a week, until Traitor Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Traitor Davis fled again, finally captured in rural Georgia dressed in women's clothing a month later. He was trying to get to Havana to create a government in exile, raise an army, and re-attack the USA so he could enslave more people. Unfortunately he was not hanged on the spot as a traitor, and the Civil War continues to this day.

An interesting part of the museum was about Camilla Williams, a local girl who hit the big time. She learned how to sign in church, got noticed and received formal operatic training, and became the first African-American opera singer hired by a major opera company - by the New York City Opera, for the title role in Madame Butterfly. Her career soared and performed all over the world and at Eisenhower's White House. She later served as a Cultural Ambassador to Africa.

The library was segregated (as typical in the South). A good exhibit illustrated the efforts to desegregate it, without having the National Guard present. The Flag Display presented the Civil War flags accurately, something rarely seen. There was one historical (and tattered) square Battle flag, embroidered with the regiments number, and appropriately labeled in context.

Across the hall, the Women's Auxiliary of the KKK, aka United Daughters of the Confederacy, had a deeded meeting space. These state-sponsored terrorists receive $800,000 per year from the Virginia State Treasury to further promote the "Lost Cause",  ie, why slavery wasn't that bad. Some Virginia governor said they could have the room forever, festooned with modern rectangular redneck swastikas. 

It's appalling that a museum that promotes civil rights and local history is still burdened to host on-going active racist terrorism. These "sweet ladies" probably do/did not personally burn crosses themselves, but they sure did sew their men's costumes, feed them, procreate with them and educate children to be racist ever since Reconstruction ended in the 1870s.

Onward to Appomattox Court House, where Traitor Lee lost the battle and surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia on April 9th. The actual signing did not happen in the local court house; the name of the town is Appomattox Court House. The National Park Service has rebuilt many of the structures extant at the time of the surrender. The original town had been abandoned after the war, and the current town of Appomattox Court House is a few miles away. 

While the surrender was widely reported as the end of bloodiest war in US history, some other Confederate generals did not surrender until May and later. Traitor Lee was asked, and refused, to facilitate the surrender of the other armies. We visited the May 11 battle site at Palmetto Ranch in Texas. The last Confederate surrender was November 6th.

Onward to Washington! No wokeness; we went to see Julia Child's kitchen in the Smithsonian. Worth a visit if you are a foodie. 

Trivia: Macon GA has MANY more cherry blossoms than DC or Newark NJ

And now we are back in Rockport (Maine, not Texas). We've winterized Boma -- it may snow in April -- and getting organized to get back to Criehaven. This is my last blog post for a while. We are planning a trip to northern Maine in August.

Summary and FAQ

How far did we drive? We drove the car 14,737 miles. We towed the trailer about 8,277 miles, and explored locally 6,460 miles. We were on the road 145 days.

How much energy did we use? The car used 6,661 kWh of electricity, at an average usage of 0.452 kWh/mile. If we had paid typical residential electricity rates (13¢/kWh) for all the energy consumed, the total energy cost would have been about $866. 

If we didn't have free Supercharging, the Supercharging cost would have been about $825.  Power at campgrounds is usually included in the site rental, so there was no extra charge. Our actual total cost of power was about $14. (One campground charged all guests for electricity separately). 

We stopped at 53 Tesla Superchargers, and received an estimated 3,300 kWh of energy. The balance of the energy we got from campgrounds.

For comparison, a pickup towing a trailer at 15 mpg and $3.50 fuel cost 23¢ per mile, for a total of  $3,390. The Tesla at 25¢/kWh energy at Superchargers costs 11¢ per mile, for a total of $825.

Our total direct fossil fuel use was about 2 and a half BBQ-sized (20 lb) propane tanks. We used some propane for cooking and heat. Most of our heat and cooking was electric, from campgrounds. We also used about three bags of charcoal for the grill.

Where did you stay? We mostly stayed at paid campgrounds, both private (72 nights) and government (56 nights). We spent four nights at Harvest Hosts, which are nominally "free" but guests are expected to spend at least $20 on their products, such as wine. We spent twelve nights in family and friend's driveways in NJ and RI. We did not spend any nights at rest stops or Walmarts.

We slept at 43 locations. Our longest stops were Houston (11 nights), Miami (10), Brownsville (10),  and San Antonio (7). We went through 16 states, staying in Texas for 58 nights and Florida for 27.

We made a lot of reservations without much forethought, and learned a lot. We have now decided that we mostly prefer state campgrounds over commercial. Different choices for different folks.

How much do camp spots cost?  Varies a lot. Most parks were about $20-50 a night. The most expensive stops were in the Florida Keys and New Orleans, about $120 night. We have the National Park Service and Texas State camp cards, which reduced costs significantly.

Where did we charge? We specifically looked for campgrounds with 240 volt 50 amp service, which use a 14-50 receptacle. I guesstimate half of all campgrounds have this service. We stopped at a few campgrounds with only 120 volt electricity, which take two to four days to fully charge. The Harvest Hosts have no electricity. In these cases we had planned for an extra Supercharger stop.

Tesla Superchargers exist every 50 to 100 miles along major highways, and they always work. Since we were purposely going in the slow lane, we had extra challenges in some places finding charging, especially in west Texas and rural Mississippi. If we had stuck to Interstates, no worries.

Non-Tesla non-free commercial chargers were problematic. I tried about five different times, and was not successful at any. 

I have stopped at hundreds of Tesla Superchargers, and always was successful. Occasionally a pedestal or two would be down, but since Tesla chargers usually have eight or more pedestals, it was not a problem. Non-Tesla chargers often have only one or two Chademo charging pedestals.

When I bought my Tesla in 2018, there was one Supercharger in the Maine. Now there are ten. 

Did we see other Teslas towing? No. Many people came over to chat, as they had never seen one, either. We also got a lot of unsolicited compliments on our trailer, a Safari Condo. We saw about five other Safari Condos in campgrounds.