Indiana: Day Four

Indiana had seen enough of Terri and I, so we decided to spread the love to Michigan. That's right, we hit the open road and headed to St. Louis, Michigan, where Apex Marine makes Qwest and Gillgetter boats.

 

The reason that we wanted to stop in was because Apex Marine has gone green. In the form of a new electric motor. They have partnered with Torqueedo and have introduced one of the first high powered electric engines in the world on a pontoon.

 
As we were driving up, Terri and I discussed that we didn't know what to think.

 

I can't tell a lie on this blog. It would be a crime against our loyal readers.

We kinda thought we would be cruising around the lake at two to five miles per hour. Which, when you have been on twin Merc 300's the day before, seems a little underwhelming.

 

But since we love the Earth and Apex Marine, we wanted to see what this was all about. Plus, when we got there, they had a story I wrote displayed in the foyer. As if I didn't already love Apex enough.

 

Back to the boat. We didn't like it.

 

We LOVED it.

 

Not only did we hit 21 miles per hour with THREE people onboard, we learned a lot about the future of electric engines and pontoons. The coolest part is how smart the engine is. As you leave your dock, you set it as your home coordinate on the GPS. The battery automatically conserves itself so that you can always get back to that point. If you get too far away from your home coordinate, it will reduce the speed of the boat so that you can travel all the way back to the original dock.

 

What the what? As someone who routinely runs out of gas, I was excited about this feature. You'll read more about this in PDB, so subscribe now.

 

I'm not above a shameless plug.

 

As we headed back to Indiana, Terri and I had A LOT of time on our hands. We also had an email from Brady in our inbox.

 

Talking about his last rental car.

 

It was basically a clown car. It only needed one windshield wiper and the trunk wasn't big enough for his suitcase. He was gone for 11 days and did 2500 miles in a car that isn't as big as a Prius. In the pictures that I'm not allowed to show you, the top of the car hits him barely above the knee.

 

For those of you who don't know, Brady's a very tall guy. 6'6" if I had to guess.

 

So we decided to make sure BK felt the love and show him our rental car.

 

But our rental car is a Chevy Cruze, which is nice, but not overly special. So we drove through parking lots until we found something a little better.

 

MERCEDES better.

 

Side note: Terri and I would make good detectives if any of you need our services. 

 

Terri jumped out of the car and pretended to put our keys in the Mercedes while I snapped a picture (with my iPhone).

 

Do brand new Mercedes even take keys anymore? I kinda doubt it.

 

It was all good until the owner showed up and asked us to back away from his car.

 

Awkwardsauce.

 

Once we were safe in our own car, we emailed the picture to the co-workers, letting them know because Brady saved so much money with his rental, we were able to upgrade ourselves.

 

Our publisher, Greg, probably had a heart attack when he opened the email.

 

Terri and I were laughing so hard, we couldn't breathe.

 

This story is really to just to give you insight on how she and I think. The point is that if we have three hours alone together in a car, things are going to get cray cray.

 

By this point in the day, it was time for dinner, so we decided to get all local and eat Pizza Hut. It was right next door to our hotel, which made it local to Fort Wayne. In our hometown you have to drive, like, ten minutes to get to Pizza Hut.

 

Pizza Hut, right next door to the Holiday Inn. We love Fort Wayne.