Today was our summer vacation. It was a magnificent summer day, perfect for an ideal Sunday drive. We drove to and back from the Ivy Lea Club on the St. Lawrence River adjacent the 1000 Islands Parkway near Gananoque, Ontario. We left home immediately after a hurried breakfast around ten o’clock this morning.

It’s now just minutes after two o’clock in the afternoon and we’re almost home again (we’ve interrupted our travel plans to conduct a brief investigation of chilled soups at Farm Boy at the corner of Carp and Hazeldean Roads in Stittsville).

If it took us 1½ hours each way, to and from the Ivy Lea Club, that would consume 3 hours total to cover about 250Km.  We lingered briefly at the Ivy Lea Club on this occasion (we hadn’t an appetite for lobster rolls). The subsequent diversion to Prescott (where we had intended to go to Katarina’s Café for an espresso but didn’t find a suitable parking space) added several minutes to the total, nicely accommodating the cumulative total of 4 hours since our departure this morning. Disregarding the hour for toddling and delay, the important feature is that the car (when fully charged) is good for about 6 hours or 500Km (which is the most we normally travel in a day so it would not inhibit a subsequent overnight charging at a hotel for example).

The weather today is balmy to the max! What little white clouds mingle threateningly on the horizon are soon overtaken by the azure cape within the breezy summer formula. Everyone is wearing casual and colourful clothing, cottons that exude comfort.

Part of our focus today was to see how far we could go with our new EV (Electric Vehicle) on a full charge. Last evening I modified the MyCadillac App to charge to 100% which I recall gave us this morning prior to departure 555Km. We’re now almost home again and the car reports 298Kms remaining – which, upon having plugged the car in again immediately upon our return to charge to 80% (the recommended target charge level) – approximately matches the information that at 50% charge the anticipated distance is 300 Km (approaching the 555Km or 600Km model when rounded up for convenience to 100%).

An alternative calculation is that 80% of 600Km is 480Km which just about matches the limits I have seen before. If – in the interest of safety and convenience – I were to change the 100% to 500Km, 50% to 250Km and 80% to 400Km, I believe I have a more reliable scope for future travel by EV.

In the background to this seemingly mindless activity has been a discussion of the Cadillac “Supported Networks” for Public Charging, the preferred outlets being the Tesla Superchargers which require the NACS (North American Charging Standard) DC adapter which we carry in the boot. Today we hadn’t the need to stop at a Public Charging station. But getting ourselves familiar with the boundaries of EV travel is imperative if, for example, we should be inclined to venture to the east coast along the south shore of Nova Scotia.

For the moment however we haven’t a compelling interest in travel of any description. Limiting ourselves to our current boundaries is strangely appealing.  Perhaps it speaks to the effect of age; or, recoiling from the current international disputes which plague our country; or, maybe we’re simple exhausted. One cannot ignore as well the changing dynamics of travel, limitations wrought by physical restrictions and psychological projections. The other dreadful blight upon the image is that thing called reality; namely, it is increasingly difficult to escape the texture of truth. Truth – though poetically modified – is in its most distilled mode a somewhat bracing concept. Yet what makes the concepts all the more provocative is the attraction of what is before one’s eyes. I find it very hard to compete on any level with the wavering corn stalks and the mottled blue river winding upwards.