Best Friends, Baseball, Botanical Gardens, Museums, and NASCAR! What a week it has been! Definitely a car theme going on this week!
I was so blessed this week to have my best friend of over 44 years join us in Arizona for some baseball and girl time. Thank you to Pat and Leela for making the trip-it was great having you meet Coach Addy and to spend a few days together. Watching the Angels play the Padres at Peoria stadium was great-we all agree that the smaller stadiums really are much more enjoyable that the huge stadiums back home. The Japanese Friendship Garden and the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix were beautiful, peaceful and provided the perfect backdrop for two friends to walk and chat. The Phoenix Art Museum was a perfect ending to the day! And I can’t forget to mention the meatballs at the Scicilian Butcher were the best that I have had so far on our trip!
Wine and appetizers in Coach Addy and visiting the beautiful Japanese Friendship Garden
Hot Tip #1:
Appreciate other’s point of view…One of the things that I love about art, and especially modern art, is how two people can be looking at the same piece and have two completely different reactions. Such was the case as Leela and I walked into a room at the Phoenix Art Museum where the installation of Cornelia Parker’s “The Mass (Colder Darker Matter)" was on display. This piece is constructed from the charred remains of a Texas church that was struck by lightning. The work is described in the exhibition brochure as “chunks and splinters of charcoal suspended from the ceiling to form the illusion of a cube, dense at the center, thinking at the edges; it appears at once flat and three dimensional , but never solid, almost disintegrating before your eyes.” Leela’s immediate response was how the installation evoked peace to her, I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing-I found the piece to be very chaotic and anything but peaceful! Gotta love art and you gotta love the emotions that art evokes and the discussions that come as a result of a piece of art. Visit Art Museums wherever you go and go with someone if possible-different perspectives are what make it special.
The Mass (Colder, Darker Matter-Phoenix Museum of Art
Thursday, we met up with a couple who we knew from the old Mini E days. They are currently staying in the Phoenix area and invited us to lunch to talk about electric cars and the evolution of this journey that we have all been on together since 2009. That’s right, we have been driving electric since 2009! We had a great lunch reminiscing about the beginning of the BMWi program (when there were only 450 electric cars on the road and NO public chargers) and sharing our stories of the past 14 years to a time when 20% of all new cars sold in California are electric and there are over 145,000 individual public charging ports! (and that doesn’t count all of the houses who have car chargers, which is where one primarily charges their car!) What a journey!
For those of you who don’t know the story, Peder was a test driver for BMW when they first started getting into the electric car space in 2009. The mini E was developed for field trials. There were over 9,500 people who applied to lease the 450 Mini E’s that were available (200 on the West Coast and 250 on the East Coast.) The participants were pioneers as they really were the only drivers of all electric cars on the road at the time. BMW called them Pioneers, and then later Electronauts, they were required to participate in online surveys and discussions and to bring the vehicle into the dealerships for regular checkups and data dumping. Talk about being a lab rat-the engineers knew everywhere you went, how you drove the car and anything else they found important to their study! The field testing was part of the "BMW Project i" which was followed in January 2012 by a similar trial with the BMW ActiveE (which I fell in love with when I saw it unveiled and informed Peder that I would be driving this car, but that's another story) and then the last phase of the project was the development of the BMW i3 that was available for purchase/leasing to the general public (we bought two of them, one for each of us). Peder and I are both proud of our contributions to the development of Electric Vehicles. Here is a link to more information about the Mini E test program and the BMW Project i. And if you are really interested, below are the links to the 4 part short documentary series: Wherever You Want to Go, that Peder had the honor of appearing in, that talks about the beginning of the journey and what key visionaries were thinking about how the future of mobility would progress. Pretty fun for us to go back and watch them. Keep in mind that this documentary was filmed 12 years ago!
Hot Tip #2-Being married to a visionary is never boring; being married to a visionary who actually is a part of making visions a reality is down right exciting. Peder has always told me, from the first time we met, that he doesn’t know what comes next in his life, but he knows it will be incredible. His partnership with BMW and his contributions to the electric car space have been many and meaningful. It’s been great being a part of it!
Wherever You Want to Go:
Part 1- The New City
Part 3- Reinventing Mobility
You may remember me mentioning last week that we were gifted tickets to NASCAR for this weekend. So early Saturday morning, we headed out to the Phoenix Raceway. I had no idea what to expect, but as you all know, we are on an adventure and I am all about trying new and different experiences. OMG! What an experience this was! First of all, I must thank Kris and Bill (Jamie’s in-laws) for inviting us. They were one of about 50 motor coaches that were right up against the track at turn 2. Which meant that we had an awesome view of the track, cars, and the drivers. We were able to sit in our own chairs, bbq our own food, eat our own snacks and drink our own beer. They have everything you need to make this a top notch experience (including the very cool headphones that are noise reducing AND allow you to hear the announcers calling the race!) I’m not sure that I would have enjoyed the experience as much had we been in the stands and not right next to the track. I immediately felt the cool factor of being at the raceway and when the cars started their engines and went around that track, I was hooked! It is an explosion of the senses: the smell of rubber, the sound of the engines verberating throughout your body, watching just how incredibly fast the cars are really going around the track and the overall feeling of awe and excitement as you take it all in. Saturday was all about the Xfinity Series qualifying and race. It was great to see Sammy Smith win the race and make history as the youngest racer to do so-he’s only 17 and still in high school! We also got to watch the Cup Series qualifying rounds; the Cup Series race is on Sunday. Needless to say, we had an epic time. So much so that I must get this blog post finished and posted, as we are heading back to the raceway today! NASCAR BABY! It’s an Adventure!
Hot Tip #2 When experiencing something new, sometimes it’s good to just let it happen and be surprised, and sometimes it makes sense to learn more about the experience before you get there. I am so glad that I spent some time researching NASCAR and had some idea about what the day was all about. In this case, it allowed me to appreciate the experience even more! And as I’ve said before, keep an open mind. I think Peder said it best, “If there is one thing that I would never have imagined Julie doing, it would be NASCAR, let alone liking it!”
Lesson Learned: Life on the road with your spouse is awesome, but having your best friend visit is even more awesome!
Bummer of the Week: All good things must come to an end…It was awesome seeing Leela, but saying goodbye and knowing that we won’t see each other for a while was definitely a bummer!
Highlight(s) of the Week: Going to NASCAR and seeing it through the eyes of people who really love this sport and follow it closely. Thank you Kris and Bill for providing us with this incredible experience!
A follow up from last week...A HUGE SHOUT OUT TO T-MOBILE! We have really been struggling with our mobile hotspot and internet connectivity since we left on our adventure. This past week, we spent hours on the phone with their Tech Support, exchanged our device (which was only slightly better) and ultimately came up with a better solution that is $50.00 cheeper a month and seems to be rock solid. Additionally, T-Mobile partially reimbursed us for the inconsistent service for the past three months. Super happy with their tech support and their customer service!
Next week: More Best Friends to visit. Peder's best friend from elementary school will be here with his wife and their son. We just keep counting our blessings while On the Open Road!
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