Richfield – My ActiveE Made Me Accidentally Environmental

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 23

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the twenty-third in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 22, click here.

Day 23 – Drive on Sunday, May 24, 2015

Yesterday’s drive was fun and scary at the same time. We decided to head South on I-15 when we reach it rather than North and through a longer way back to Southern California. The question at the start of the day is where do we stop tonight?

There are many National Parks to visit in Utah and we got to the one that was top of my list. Mainly because I like to drive through this process and not necessarily get out of the car, I’m kind of funny that way. The only other place I wanted to drive through in Utah was Monument Valley. Unfortunately, we drove a different direction from that location when we left Moab and proceeded to stay the night in Richfield, a location several hundred miles away. It seems like the superchargers between Blanding, UT and Flagstaff, AZ would be a really hard stretch (251 miles per Google) and though the car on a max charge can do 255 miles, I didn’t want to backtrack to Moab and beyond. Additionally, I’m not sure as to the state of the three mobile providers that we have for that 251 Mile stretch (in case we needed to call for help.) We decided to abandon that area of the country for this trip.

We had a “fuzzy plan” of perhaps staying in Vegas for the night and just doing the “usual” Vegas things. Oh wait, Vegas is like “Fight Club,” after all, “What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.”

Holiday Inn Express Richfield

Either way, after the fiasco of a stay that was the Omni Hotel Interlocken, we were glad to have had the comfort and consistency of the Holiday Inn Express. Though the hotel is considered a “limited service” class of hotel, their hospitality was top notch.

Additionally being a hosting site for the supercharger is a huge plus.

Unlike the “gentleman” we met at the Moab Best Western, we practiced “Best Practices” of parking our vehicle away from the supercharger stall when we’re not charging. Notice our Blue Model S, just by the entrance and the tree on the right, as it sat there waiting for us to move it to start the morning’s charge.

Richfield Supercharger

Colder weather in the UT desert. Notice the dashed yellow lines for power and regenerative braking. This means that supercharging will also be slower until the pack warms up.

We used 1.353 kWh to move the car to the supercharger stall, but we’ll get that back in a blink when we charge it.

The car firmly parked in the stall with our filled out Pluginamerica EV Card on the dash while I head back to the room to get ready for the drive ahead. The speed limits in UT are 80 MPH and we have to travel about 160 miles to St. George as we figured to skip Beaver on this drive, so we range charged to full.

Must be early or folks are sleeping in. Relative to other hotels that we’ve stayed at on this trip, there are still a lot of people at the hotel when we got up.

No other cars were with us at the supercharger though.

So, I got back up to the room and here’s a picture of the car supercharging by itself.

Before heading out, we decided to pay closer attention to the condition of our car after yesterday’s drive.

You can see the effect of the wind on how the dirt is moved around.

We reached out to Mark Larsen, a fellow EV and Solar rEVolutionary to see if he can meet us today and were in luck. Looks like our schedules match up and we can meet up. We were not able to meet up on the way East over three weeks ago.

We still get 255 miles on a range charge and we timed it so that we roll out when full. Though the Beaver, UT Supercharger is between Richfield and St. George, we opted to skip it as we have enough charge to get to Richfield, even with the insane Utah speed limits.

It’s interesting to continue to see snow in May.

The clouds today are not as threatening as yesterday’s clouds, but it still manages to block quite a bit of sunlight. Rain is threatened today, but compared to what we had in the Rockies, we’re ready for anything.

As I mentioned earlier we definitely know that we’re in Utah, the speed limit is 80 MPH. (P85, P85+, P85D speedsters, the speed limits alone might be reason enough for you to visit Utah on a Tesla/supercharger powered roadtrip.)

My wife managed to capture a picture of the Beaver Supercharger as I was zooming by at 80 MPH. That’s pretty impressive. We didn’t slow down and this was using the Optical Zoom on our digital camera as I was speeding by Beaver, UT.

Besides, we’ve already stopped off at all the superchargers on this route and made our entries in the beta of the (now released) Teslarati App for iOS.

It didn’t look like anyone was supercharging there right now. I wondered whether we should’ve stopped for a wash at the car wash that is supercharger adjacent in Beaver.

A nice sign for Beaver, UT.

It’s Sunday on a holiday weekend, so I don’t expect there to be any construction at these construction zones.

We spotted some smoke from the distance. I wonder whether these fires were “controlled” and what it was that they were burning if it was.

We spotted a bunch of cows on the side of the freeway. The cattle on the side of the Utah road doesn’t seem to be as “free range” as the ones in the other states that we’ve passed through. I often think of the Far Side comics as I pass by cows on the side of the freeway. I wonder what they’re thinking.

What are they burning? We spotted a second set of smoke and fires.

As we were getting closer to St. George, in Cedar City, UT, we spotted a strange sight on the side of the Freeway.

A lighthouse on the side of I-15. Apparently, this is not the ONLY lighthouse in Utah off the side of I-15. Because I was searching for the answer when I was researching this lighthouse and the first hit on the search was one North of Salt Lake City. Here is what others have written about it. We just continued on, we had a meet-up in St. George to make.

Normally if one were to see 80 MPH on the speedometer, one could surmise that we were speeding. Not so in Utah, besides we just hit 42,500 miles on the odometer there. Not only were we going 80 MPH, our 30 mile average consumption was less than 200 Wh/mi. That’s fast AND efficient.

Each state in the Union has a distinctive feel to its place. We noticed that there seems to be a change with every state crossing that we’ve done. And Southern Utah and these deep red hues speak of the St. George area for us.

Just North of St. George is a BIG Walmart distribution center when we originally passed it on Day 1 of our drive, I was impressed by it, but forgot to take a photograph. I suppose when you operate one of the world’s largest retail establishment, you need really large distribution centers and I was impressed with the size of this location. Traversing the freeway at 80 MPH we were still able to capture the center in three shots.

When we made the exit toward, St. George’s, we spot a really large D on the side of the hill. We passed a “P”, a “C”, and some other letters. Considering all the humor regarding the D launch event, figured to capture another D on our blog.

We arrived in St. George making the long trek across town to get to the oasis that is Starbucks and the Tesla Supercharger. In contrast with the various other supercharger locations on this trip, the St. George location seems to be a ways off from the highway. I suppose that Tesla had to find a willing participant to host the site and we’re glad that Starbucks and their landlord was good enough to oblige.

St. George Supercharger

Traveling at 80 MPH for most of the drive was fun, but I was more impressed with the 290 Wh/mi figure that we were able to sustain. Even with some light rain on the drive.

Since the area around the Las Vegas Supercharger felt unsafe, we decided to get as much a charge as possible. Besides, we were going to be meeting Mark Larsen in real life. So, we had pleasant EV company to discuss all things EV and Solar with. Mark has done a great job creating and maintaining a graphic representation of EV sales through the years.

Aside from Twitter, Mark also writes on his own website. Before the establishment of the Tesla Superchargers in St. George, Mark was one of the first people to share his plug on Plugshare to provide folks with a charge when they visit Utah.

Both Mark and I are big fans of the Transport Evolved, so it was nice for a couple of rEVolutionaries to meet up at the St. George Supercharger (my wife is taking the picture of the two of us.)

Another Model S from Riverside, CA pulled in during our meetup to get a charge and head back South. They were friendly enough, but we didn’t spend much time talking to them. They were up in the area playing golf and out for the holiday weekend.

After getting our charge and spending time with a fellow rEVolutionary, we headed off to Vegas. At this point, we were planning on playing it by ear. Hotel rates in Vegas were a little higher because of the holiday, but not too bad. Additionally, we wanted to see how we felt when we got there since we knew that traffic between Vegas and Southern California on Monday would probably be worse than the traffic today or on Tuesday.

The drive between Utah and Arizona is through a canyon pass that was under construction. No active work being done on a Sunday during a holiday weekend, but the number of lanes was restricted.

We missed taking a photo of the Arizona State line, but we’re not missing the crossing into Nevada.

What is that mirage (not the Mirage, just a mirage) that we see?

It was strange to see Vegas from this view. It’s not the angle we’re used to seeing on the drive from California. We usually see the Strip first, but that’s because we approach it from the South. We’re coming in from the North and we see Downtown Las Vegas first.

Under the auspices of “Whatever Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas.” I can neither confirm nor deny any “gaming” activities that occurred between seeing Downtown Las Vegas and stopping off at the Las Vegas Supercharger. But, between you and I, I was doing pretty well at the table that I sat in… If you know what I mean. 😉 However, not well enough to stay in Vegas for another couple of days. We decided to head home. We’ve been out for 23 days at this point and the allure of the “short” drive home from Vegas was overwhelming.

Las Vegas Supercharger

We could have made the drive to Primm Supercharger from where we were (it’s approximately 40 miles) but we decided to get an insurance charge. After all, it was in the desert on our first day that we decided to charge often and charge lots.

We arrived at a near full house at the Las Vegas Supercharger. We didn’t take a photograph of the charger stalls at this time because folks were all in their cars. We did notice that the car from Riverside that was charging beside us when we arrived was the same one that we met in St. George earlier in the day. They lapped us, i.e. we left them charging when we left St. George. We greeted them when they got out of their car to unplug from the supercharger as they prepared to leave. Because of the heat many stay in their cars in Vegas and run their air conditioning while supercharging.

We had the detour, which I can neither confirm, nor deny, and now we met up with them again at the Las Vegas Supercharger.

Satisfied with our insurance charge, we skipped the famous Las Vegas Strip and headed to Primm.

However, my wife was able to take photographs of some of The Strip properties as we passed it from the freeway, The Mirage.

We skipped New York, New York.

We skipped The Excalibur.

And we skipped Luxor. Though it’s pretty cool to have a pyramid in the shot. I sent this photograph to my East Coast cousins telling them that I must’ve made a wrong turn somewhere (implying Egypt, of course.)

Primm Supercharger

And a short drive of about 40 miles later, we find ourselves at the border of Nevada and California at the Primm Superchargers.

There’s plenty to do at Primm while supercharging. Aside from “gaming” there is a big outlet mall attached to the Primm Valley Resort and Casino. We opted to do the activity which shall remain nameless. Let me just say that we ended the “gaming” part of the trip with $0.77 in profit. (Penny slot machines really do pay out in pennies. Though you don’t get the coins anymore, it’s printed out on a claim ticket that you have to redeem at the casino cashier cage.)

It’s been a while, but my wife graciously offered to drive the leg back into California. So, I accepted. I’ve seen some of her photographs (as you have too as she’s been the main photographer for this blog) from the trip and I needed to ensure that I didn’t embarrass her. So, I made sure to capture the state line photograph. (Oh the pressure…)

I did a two device technique for the crossing back to California shot and was glad with both of them.

Up next is that huge solar farm at the border of California and Nevada that’s been in operation for a year or so.

Good for us California, but not good enough! Let’s get more! (I’m a Californian, I can complain about the progress.)

It’s my turn for the sunset pictures. There are several more on Flickr, but these are the ones that I thought to share on the blog.

As we expected, the Sunday of a three day weekend usually shifts the traffic to Monday and the traffic this evening was quite moderate for this trip.

With all the newfound time that I found in being in the passenger seat, I start to do some photographic compositions of “The Moon and I”

or, just the moon.

Some more sunsets. My theory on photography is akin to the theory of the thousand monkeys typing the works of Shakespeare. A good composition “could happen” in volume. That’s one of the great things about the exponentially cheaper cost of digital photography versus the last time I took a cross country trip and the photographs had to be shot on film (and the cost to develop, etc.)

Back then film was expensive. Additionally, I was barely an adult, and still needing assistance from my mom. Her rule with photographs was that there better be someone we “know” in the shot. So, I wasn’t much for “nature” photography or anything like that. So, boy am I glad that digital photography is now the norm.

I can do this picture in two shots that I am calling “Passing a Truck 1” and

“Passing a Truck 2”. Yes, that’s the same truck. I had a LOT of time to snap away, I’m not driving this leg, remember.

I was supposed to rest and nap, but I couldn’t. I was having too much fun taking pictures. And getting loopy as we got closer to home.

And just after sunset we reached the Barstow Supercharger. Now, the handy-dandy navigation trip planner originally had us routing to the Rancho Cucamonga Supercharger, but we know from experience that we can make it home on a full charge in Barstow, so we ignored the beta software again and just charged up.

Barstow Supercharger

We arrived in Barstow with plenty to spare and plenty of time to charge.

As we charged away at the site, another Model S pulled up to the hotel next door and was letting its passengers out for the night before he pulled into a couple of stalls over from us.

In the meantime, a new brown 70D pulled up on the newer stalls (not covered by the solar canopy.) Since we haven’t seen that color before, I stepped out and introduced myself and my wife and had a pleasant conversation with the father and son that arrived in the 70D. They were on a long Sunday drive that the son was using to convince his dad to go Tesla. The son is a Service Concierge at the Palm Springs Tesla location and they took some back way to the supercharger from there. We spent the time helping the son make the case for Tesla before we wished them well as they were on their way to dinner. Here’s to hoping that the dad followed his son’s advice.

Long Beach, CA

We arrived in our home city just passed 11:00 PM and decided to counter our Atlantic Ocean view with a photo of the car by the Pacific. We headed to Seal Beach for the beach parking lot shot, but it was too late and dark. So, we opted for a Marina shot in Long Beach for our arrival night.

Besides, readers of previous days of this blog know what time it is when our shots are REALLY blurry. And after 23 days on the road, it is definitely time to get to sleep.

We were fairly efficient on the last leg from Barstow to Long Beach and more efficient than how we’ve been driving around home for the day (304 Wh/mi.)

After 23 days on the road. 25 other states visited. 8,245 miles. As varied an experience that we’ve had in our various hotels, it was great to once again sleep on our bed and be home.

We’re taking tomorrow off, it’s a Holiday after all, and publish our trip conclusions and such on Tuesday, three hours later than we’ve been publishing. So, come back and join us for that, will you?

As we’ve neared the end of this series of posts, after the post on Tuesday, I will be updating the blog somewhat randomly. So, if you’re interested in being notified, just subscribe to the blog (there’s a choice to do so in the sidebar) or follow me on Twitter, I tend to auto-tweet new posts there.

Go on to Lessons Learned.

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 22

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the twenty-second in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Missed Day 21, click here.

Day 22 – Drive on Saturday, May 23, 2015

Omni Hotel Interlocken

If yesterday’s Hyatt Place is the picture of consistency, the Omni Hotel Interlocken is its inverse. We have had nothing but great experience with our lodging at the other Omni Hotels that we’ve stayed at. That’s how we were able to complete enough nights to have a “free night certificate” for last night’s stay. It was free. However, even that price was “too expensive” for the disappointment that was our stay at the Omni Hotel Interlocken.

If you intend on staying at this part of Denver (Broomfield, CO) metro area and expect to stay at a “full service hotel.” Let me advise you to look elsewhere. This hotel needs improvement, a lot of improvement.

After parking with 199 miles of rated range last night, we’re starting the day at 196 miles, we lost three miles of rated range last night.

When we drove out on our first day, we consciously wanted to drive far from Southern California. If you remember, we drove 808 miles on our first day. What that day did was sacrifice some of the most beautiful views in the West, the Utah desert. Today’s goal is to have a plan for either heading home or routing ourselves to the Pacific Northwest. Our main inflection point to make that decision is either Richfield or Beaver, UT.

The next few supercharger stops will be the same ones that we took on our trip East. With one exception. We would like to make it to Arches National Park near Moab, UT before or around sunset this evening. After that, it’s either spend the night in Moab, Green River, or Richfield, UT.

As we were climbing into the Rockies, one of the exits close to the Denver Metro area had a funny sign about a Buffalo or Bison Herd (we were unable to take a picture of the sign.)

However, we were able to take a picture of the herd as we drove by.

Heading West on I-70 from the Denver Metro area, means a change from the city scenes to the mountain scenes. Like the Buffalo or Bison herd in the previous photograph.

It was fairly light rain, to start.

However, it looks like we were going to be encountering some “weather” on the way to Silverthorne, and perhaps beyond.

It was getting harder to enjoy the sights outside of the car when the weather starts to be a challenge.

Some rain starts to turn into showers, and in as cold as it is, some showers turned into snow showers.

I’ve driven in rain before, not often until this trip (Southern California is in a drought after all). I’ve driven in snow, not with the Model S, mind you. But I’ve hardly ever driven in snow showers, and this drive to Silverthorne was the first time that I’ve ever done such a drive in the Model S.

So, I figured to take my time and go as slow as the traffic will allow it. We picked the white SUV on the right lane as it was going conservatively, but not irritatingly so. Additionally, I figured that the SUV is about as heavy as the Model S, so it should react somewhat similarly as the Model S in the current road conditions.

The weather was quite tough and I was glad that we had a good buffer of rated range miles so that the only thing I had to worry about was the weather and be comfortable in our available charge.

Did someone not send the memo to tell Colorado that it’s already LATE MAY.

There’s still snow on the runaway truck ramp

We used a lot of energy getting to Silverthorne, but it makes for some great energy graphs.

Just like that, the weather cleared. It’s as if Silverthorne had a protective bubble from the weather. We said goodbye to our white SUV guide and exited at Silverthorne.

Silverthorne Supercharger

We arrived at the Silverthorne Supercharger during the outlet mall’s open hours is different than the last time we stopped here. Rather than just stay in the car while we charged, we figured to stretch our legs and check out the shops.

It might only be approximately 90 miles between Silverthorne Supercharger and Glenwood Springs Supercharger, but with the way the weather’s been and the elevation changes, I’m charging it up.

So, the differential between what we consumed on our drive and the rated range is about 31 miles. The drive from the hotel to Silverthorne was about 76 miles with a consumption of 387 Wh/mi.

As I mentioned, we got to stretch our legs. We felt welcome at the Colorado Welcome Center.

We took the time to enjoy the dry, cool weather at Silverthorne.

By the time we got back to our car, we had some company.

These pictures are a reminder of my wife’s suggestion to Tesla that it might be nice for the supercharger stalls to have the name of the location on them for these sort of photo opportunities.

So, the next supercharger in Glenwood Springs are 92 miles away.

We have enough for bad weather and elevation and more. This is significantly more than the 100 mile “whatever” buffer that we’ve settled on.

But first, it was time to take a picture of dry, happy travelers.

So with 233 miles of Rated Range in the tank, we drove off toward Glenwood Springs Supercharger.

The last time we were at the Breckenridge exit, it was Winter. We didn’t stop off at Breckenridge, CO on this trip, but the thing with Breckenridge is the altitude sickness when visiting the resort. Each time I visit Breckenridge from Southern California, I have to take at least a day and a half to adjust to the altitude. So, if you’re prone to bad altitude sickness, be prepared for it when you visit Breckenridge.

We’re passing another set of ski runs that would’ve been fun to ski. Unless it was the same ski run that we photographed on Day 2.

IMG_20150523_132306

The drive to Glenwood Springs Supercharger is made easier by the fellow Grey Colorado Model S.

When the weather turned bad again, we figured to follow the Grey Colorado Model S. He looked like he knew what he was doing.

This sort of energy usage tells us that there are lots of ups and downs on this route.

There is hope and a clearing ahead.

Through inclement weather and clear and sunny routes, it’s always more pleasant to be driving behind another Model S. No fumes.

I wonder if he’s getting tired of the Blue Califonia plated Model S behind him.

Now that’s the sight that I was expecting for Colorado in May, and not the snow showers we were being challenged by earlier.

Still some snow on those mountains.

I wonder if that Grey Colorado Model S will be supercharging at Glenwood Springs with us.

My wife is getting good at these interior panoramic shots.

Before we enter into the White River National Forest part of this drive, we spotted a familiar sight on the Southern side of I-70. Costco Hot Dogs, anyone? Not us.

Just before the Glenwood Springs is the White River National Forest, it is the coolest part of this drive. And it looks like the Grey Model S really enjoyed it ’cause they pretty much disappeared ahead of us.

The speed limit on this leg seems unusually low for me, it was difficult to stay there. The drive was too tempting. Here’s a fun video of the ride through a tunnel with us. Please don’t mind the person singing along to the music, he didn’t know that he was being filmed. 😉

With much to see above, we remembered to take some photographs through the panoramic roof.

And with that, we reached Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

Looks like our Grey Colorado Model S did exit at Glenwood Springs.

We crossed over a bridge and saw some rapid seeking adventurers enjoying the Colorado River.

Glenwood Springs Supercharger

The Glenwood Springs Supercharger were empty when we arrived here.

Our drive to Glenwood Springs was surprisingly efficient at 232 Wh/mi. Adding the 93 miles consumed to the 156 remaining rated range puts us at a start mile of 249 miles, since we left Silverthorne at 233 miles mean that the consumption rate was quite efficient.

It was interesting that we were alone supercharging. The Grey Model S parked in one of the regular spots in the same parking lot and met with people who they obviously knew. We didn’t get a chance to thank the Grey Model S folks for being our guide through the weather. I figured that they must be locals, because they drove off without stopping off at the supercharger.

We charged up to a bit before we rolled out to Grand Junction since it’s only 91 miles.

We really enjoyed the calm weather that we had on the drive to Grand Junction. The calm weather was a welcome respite from the rain and snow showers that we went through the first two legs of today’s drive.

Always like spotting solar panels, I wonder what these ones were used for.

This drive to Grand Junction gets us really close to the Colorado River.

We’re really close to Grand Junction now…

We were able to take a photograph of the grapes and Colorado wine country.

Grand Junction Supercharger

When we got to Grand Junction, we figured to look up some hotels in the Moab area, but they were all booked up. The challenge with making plans at the last minute during a holiday weekend is the higher demand areas get full fast. We looked at Green River, but settled on the Holiday Inn Express at Richfield. After all, we seek to give back to those that are enabling the operation and expansion of the Tesla Supercharger network.

We met with a Green Colorado Model S that was on its way as we arrived. They were friendly and on their way toward Denver.

Our charge was close to 90% as we roll out to our first new stop on this drive Moab Supercharger. Which means a chance to add another entry in the beta of the (now released) Teslarati App for iOS.

The last time we did this drive, the route was at the end of our 808 mile Day 1 adventure.

We know that we’re back in Utah because the speed limits start to increase.

We didn’t see this sign the last time we left Colorado, then again that was later at night.

So, we crossed into Utah again. It is such a cool state sign.

And we got an even better shot of the welcome to Utah sign.

We saw a rest stop and decided to stop and take a photo of the car with a desert background.

Yeah, it was a little windy here.

We figure to take a few more Model S nature shots.

Or at least shots of the car in a Utah rest stop.

The weather was better than what we’ve had earlier on our drive, but it was still cloudy. But at least it was dry.

Things kept looking up as we were getting closer to Moab. The weather was clearing up and we still have a bit of sunlight as we headed into Moab for the sunset.

The rocks were amazing, and we’re not even at Arches National Park, yet.

The folks were making use of the smooth sand to sled down. The ~~dessert~~ [thanks for the edit Brian H, I do tend toward desserts] desert toward Moab looked strangely full of people. It probably has to do with the Memorial Day Weekend.

The entrance to Arches is before the Moab supercharger, I don’t know how many miles the drive around the Arches National Park is, but we wanted to have enough to do the drive and head to Green River for the night.

So, we tried to find the information out at the visitor center for the park. We stopped by first before we went to the Moab Supercharger, however, it was after hours and the visitor center was closed.

Since the visitor center was closed, we couldn’t pick up a map, so I took pictures of the map to help us find our way on the drive.

Even though we have three different mobile providers on our trip, I don’t expect ANY coverage on mobile during the drive into Arches National Park.

Rather than find any information from the visitor center, I actually got the information that we needed from a fellow visitor. They said that the drive around was approximately 40 miles. Now, we had about 90 miles of range left in the car, so we had enough to do the drive, but I wanted to also have enough to get to Green River, so we headed into Moab to get a charge.

The drive to Moab would have been faster, but since the town was full for the weekend, it did take a little bit longer because of the traffic.

Moab Supercharger

The Moab Supercharger is located in the parking lot of the Best Western in Moab.

After we plugged in, the occupants of the SUV parked by our car at the superchargers arrived and was admiring our car and the white Model S parked beside us. The SUV was filled by a family that was visiting Moab from Colorado. They were curious about the Model S and EVs and we took the time to talk to them about Model S and EVs in general.

We found a White Nevada Model S occupying a charging stall. After we finished our conversation with the SUV family, the owner of the white Model S came out to check on his car.

Apparently this person was staying at the hotel. Rather than move from the supercharger to a parking spot, he mentioned that he was planning on using the supercharger stall as his spot for the evening. He made the comment that he’s never seen the supercharger stalls full the last few times that he has visited this location. I reminded him that perhaps it would be a good idea to put his contact information on his car, just in case four other Model S showed up to use the chargers, he scoffed at what I presume was his way of taking the suggestion under advisement. He was not the friendliest or most considerate person we’ve met on this trip.

And with the necessary and buffer charge completed, we rolled back out to Arches National Park.

Arches National Park

Not being much of a “nature” guy, I really enjoy the Arches National Park way of visiting. Many of the places in the park can be visited by driving through the park. No hiking required.

So, we entered the park and headed in with the express purpose of “having a nice drive” and to get some great pictures of our car for the Model S Nature Pictures thread on Tesla Motors Club.

The navigation had signal near the entrance to the park, but we will soon lose it when we get deeper into the drive.

We were soon reminded that not only do we have a panoramic roof that we can OPEN that panoramic roof for better, untinted shots of the view.

We took many pictures of our visit to Arches National Park, so enjoy. They say that a picture is worth a 1,000 words, and it’s not often that you will find me “speechless.”

I imagine that in the future the National Park system may want to consider the fact that EVs have less of an impact on driving routes like this than our ICE brethren. Unfortunately that is not the case right now.

These rock formations looked like a sculpture of people facing to the right from the shot above. And they look like they’re in a meeting in this closer shot.

Not sure if we can get to another stop for our Model S Nature Pictures, we stopped off in the first one that had space.

This one is in the Ancient Sand Dunes part of the park.

IMG_20150523_195006

Our next stop was the Balanced Rock section.

Can you spot the rainbow in the next couple of pictures?

We headed down to the valley for the Delicate Arch.

We tried to see if we can see the Delicate Arch from the car. However on the way there there were several warnings of flash floods and evidence of roads that were washed out (not pictured, unfortunately). Since we’ve been through a bit of weather before we got here and those rain clouds look like they’re getting closer, we decided to find a different place to take another set of Model S Nature Pictures thread worthy shots.

We figured to find another point on higher ground so we don’t have to worry about it.

Our next stop was at the aptly named Panorama Point.

And the next shots are what we plan to enter into Model S Nature Pictures thread.

Now it’s just a matter of picking which one(s).

We were at our final stop before sunset.

Arches National Park is what I envision when I think of Utah.

Time to start heading out of the park as the darkness will drop quickly in the dessert.

Heading out

We made it back to the parking lot of the visitor center as the rain started to fall.

And I for one was glad to be away from the “flash flood” signs that we passed inside the park.

I took the opportunity to see what our energy consumption was on the drive within Arches. So, it looks like we used less than the 40 rated miles that we had been told the drive would take. Then again, we didn’t drive all the routes.

It looks like our drive through Arches was fun. Take a look at the energy consumption chart on the right. However, the 278 Wh/mi since the charge says that we had fun efficiently.

With the sun setting fast, we were on our way back to Green River.

Green River Supercharger

The last time that we charged at Green River Supercharger it was the middle of the night, now it’s just the night.

We got to the Green River Supercharger and decided to make our decision on whether to continue the trip North and through the Coast or choose the more direct route home.

After much consideration we figured that it was time to head toward home. We still have to figure out whether we’re staying in Utah longer or just head to Vegas tomorrow.

Holiday Inn Express Richfield

We didn’t figure out what to do on the drive to Richfield. It’s been a long day and the drive to the Holiday Inn Express actually consumed more energy than the drive through Colorado and the Rockies.

The great thing about checking into a hotel that is supercharger equipped is that we don’t have to worry about the vampire loss. Besides, we can always park at the supercharger stall overnight if its more convenient for us. (Just kidding) ;-).

Go on to Day 23. Click here.

Here, There, and EVerywhere – Day 01

A quick note of thanks to the Beatles for inspiring the title for this series of posts. This is the first in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

A few weeks prior to the start of our trip, a bunch of Teslas decided to get together at Ocean City, MD for the third annual Tesla Road Trip. These folks were the same group that set out to debunk the controversial NY Times Supercharging hack job that was written early in the Model S launch.

We wanted to join them, but didn’t have the time to do so at their event. However, this was without much consternation and effort to plan a Coast-to-Coast U.S. Roundtrip. This is the first in a series of posts written about our trip that will be published four weeks to the day of the trip.

Day 1 – Drive on Saturday, May 2, 2015

Aside from the pre-trip planning that I wrote about in the previous post there were some things we wanted to do and document before we leave home.

How clean the car is (because, we don’t expect it to stay that way throughout the trip)

And what the car statistics are… i.e.

The car’s mileage at departure is 34,697 miles and the Rated Range at 90% daily charge was 229 miles (didn’t do a Max charge for the start of the trip, but it has been around 254 to 255 miles the last time that we did.) Additionally, our average consumption since the factory has gone back to 308 Wh per mile

Figured to also use the Trip meters on the car for additional logging. So, we logged that Trip A is used from the statistics since we picked up the car at the factory. We will reset Trip B and used that for the current daily totals. And the automated Since Last Charge is exactly that. Which means, plug it in for a few minutes, and that counter resets back to zero.

Additionally, we also were approached by our friends at teslarati.com to help with the beta version of the (now released) Teslarati App for the iPhone. Namely, help fill out the information for each spot as we get to it with hints. We committed to at least including a photograph for the site.

So, what is our route… Today? or in general? The answer is complicated. But, to map out scenarios, we used the EV Trip Planner website to help map out guidelines and what we could expect on this trip. So, we figured to use that as a draft and we plotted our trip.

So, to answer the question. The goal for the trip, at least in the immediate plan, was to make it to Grand Junction, CO for the evening. Furthermore, we wanted to be around Akron, OH by Friday, May 8, but felt confident that we could be there by Tuesday evening, so figured that we would go all the way to New Jersey and be back in Akron, OH by Friday and then head back to the East Coast on Sunday, May 10. Since we figured that all plans have to be flexible as to the situation, I only made two other hotel reservations after Grand Junction, CO. They are, Sunday evening to be in Rapid City, SD and Madison, WI on Monday evening and not much else until we got on the road.

EV Trip Planner advised a stop at the Rancho Cucamonga Supercharger, but we’ve done the drive to Las Vegas and back before (as Southern California residents often do) and decided to just charge to 90% and roll out around 9am.

Of course as we rolled out of home on our trip, we realized that May 2nd may not have been the best day to travel toward Las Vegas. There are a ton of sports going on this day.

1) The Pacquiao-Mayweather fight was going on in Vegas.
2) Game 7 of the first Round NBA series between the Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs
3) The Kentucky Derby

There may have been something else, but I forget. So, we rolled out anyway, with the expectation of traffic for these sporting events.

Barstow Supercharger.

So, approximately 124 miles later…

We’re in Barstow. Well, that was easy.

A few changes have happened in Barstow since we were last here.

1) The construction of the additional 4 Superchargers was completed.

2) The location now has a solar panel canopy over the original four stalls.

We arrived around 10:30 AM and Chili’s was closed until 11:00 AM. Had to use the “facilities”, so I went to the Country Inn and Suites on the other side of the parking lot and they graciously let me use the “facilities”.

Since we were still on a familiar part of our trip, we figured that we would test out the “Beta” Navigation through superchargers option that was rolled out as part of the latest Over the Air (OTA) Firmware upgrade

One of the things it does is when you plug in, it gives you an estimate in time of how long to charge so that you get enough to continue your journey. Additionally, the latest version of the software also gives an estimate (while supercharging) of the time it will take to get to full.

With the latest release, the system will let you know when it thinks that you’re ready to go. It pops up with this message:

We didn’t unplug right away, we added a few more miles, of “just in case miles”.

While waiting at Barstow, we met this nice couple from Nevada on their way to California. They made some recommendations on the route and we made a note of their advice. They had a nice white Model S with some Carbon Fiber wrap on it.

So, we rolled out toward Primm, NV with the recommended charge plus a small buffer and went merrily on our way.

Even R2-D2 was happy…

That is, until we saw the following message:

So, we thought… That’s not a good sign. So, we slowed down. Experts have noted that 62 miles per hour is the “ideal” mix of travel speed and “refuel” time to optimize time spent “moving forward” with “stopped and charging.” We were going a bit faster than that.

My wife, who was driving at the time, did what we do when we need to “eek out” those miles and found a slower moving, larger vehicle. (Now this was easier back when we drove the Active E, a LOT easier in the Roadster, not so much in a Model S.) However, being the experienced EV driver that she is, we did fine.

So, she picked a few trailers, big rigs, and campers to get behind and the differential in what our expected State of Charge (SOC) on reaching Primm, NV will be. The nasty “slow down” message went away, but the feeling that it gave stayed behind. That is, until we hit some “traffic.”

We never did hit the “now” expected traffic for the “sports” day for Las Vegas betting, but between Baker and Primm, NV, there was some traffic and we crawled to a stop. Now the beta software wanted us to slow down, but we were STOPPED.

and we were operating with the margin that we added on top of the beta Navigation recommendations (plus a few miles that we added ourselves) so we did what any experienced EV users would do and lightened the accessory load on the car and turned off air conditioning, unplugged all devices and waited until the traffic cleared.

We passed the time by taking nice pictures out of the window.

(as well as re-thinking our initial plan of following the Beta software.) Part of me was wondering if our trip was over before it even began at this point. (not going to lie to you, it was tense in the car, my better half wanted to go with our “usual” buffer of at least 40 miles, if not more, and I wanted to give the Beta a “chance”.)

Needless to say, after this “experiment” we went back to our “regular” method of adding at least 40-60 miles to the range. (since we’re on vacation and decided to have the option to “go off trail” we upped this to 100 miles, where possible, i.e. where the range to the next SC is lesser than 155 miles away.)

The downhill ride toward Primm, NV had a lot of regeneration on it that we were gaining rated miles as we neared it. Took some fun shots of the rather impressive Solar Farm that was built and activated recently at the California and Nevada borders.

Additionally, there were some folks that were enjoying the desert that fine Saturday. Now, if they used an EV to bring their land yachts/sand yachts then they could have been powered by all renewable energy. One could only hope. But considering the number of folks who bring ATVs, and the like, have to be thankful for those enjoying the desert with wind power instead.

Primm Supercharger

So, our next stop was at “the Border”. Primm, NV has been a popular Southern California to Vegas or back stop for as long as I’ve been an “adult” and it’s gone through a bust to boom to bust cycle. The superchargers are located in the edge of the parking lot near McDonald’s and the gas station. There are a total of eight superchargers there and there are “lots” to do in the area.

The Primm Valley Casino and Resort has a factory outlet mall attached to it for those that do not feel like gambling or “gaming” as they call it.

Needless to say, with the challenge that we faced with the drive from Barstow and leaving with less than what we’re comfortable with, my wife had to be very efficient in her Model S drive, and as you can see, she was. Averaging 292 Wh per mile on a series of climbs and descents is pretty impressive.

As you can see, our 40 mile “regular” buffer would not have been enough.

So, this is where we decided to really just go ahead and up our buffer for this trip and not worry about it again. The algorithm that Tesla has created are for those that can follow the car and be as efficient as it wants them to be, but we’re not in a rush, and we’re on a vacation, for crying out loud.

Las Vegas Supercharger

The Las Vegas Supercharger is only 44 miles away from the Primm Supercharger. Not really worth a stop. But, when heading into Utah, and after our “experiment”, we both agreed to get a supercharge “security” charge in Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Supercharger is in the middle of Downtown Las Vegas, in a “sketchy” part of town.

As “sketchy” as the location is, it is quite busy. But like superchargers in the LA area, there are a lot of folks getting charge here.

However, like in most urban superchargers, we all pretty much stayed in our cars and didn’t socialize with the other Model S charging at the location.

I was surprised to enter Arizona on the way to Utah, didn’t really think about it. But get camera ready as the canyon passes in the 15 are very iconic West

St George Supercharger

So, the first supercharger stop outside of our “normal” range of travel is the supercharger in St. George, UT. This supercharger is different from others in that the location is deep within the city and further off the highway. Now, if we used the app from teslarati.com that we were beta testing or the fairly reliable plugshare app, it would’ve mentioned the Starbucks prominently, but we used the in-car navigation and it gets a little confusing to find superchargers in that way.

Regardless, we found the chargers.

I would advise those that are backing into these chargers to be wary, as the curb is a hazard and they really should put air suspension on “high” as one backs into the spots. Additionally, the Starbucks drive-through is in front of these chargers, so watch out for the curving curb of the drive-through.

You can see the curved Starbucks curve here.

This next shot is one of our favorite ones and have shared it on a few forums and Twitter. It’s as close to nature as we’ve been on the trip, so far. There’s a thread on teslamotorsclub.com called Model S Nature Pictures that I was hoping to post a few of our pictures in.

The Tesla beta navigation recommend a very limited stop, however, we recommend a longer one because you get 75- 80 mph speed limit on the drive to Beaver. The inclines feel steep and we’re pretty inefficient in wh use, but a lot of fun to go Zoom, if you ditch Tesla’s recommended charging pattern. Additionally, Utah has some of the highest speed limits and MANY motorists tend to go faster.

Beaver Supercharger

Now, the navigation had us going to Beaver next and skipping Richfield, but, we had a heck of a day so far, so decided to hit both. Boy, was I glad to. The Beaver Supercharger had a Dairy Queen and one of the first ones to have a car wash adjacent to it. So, if you feel like washing your car, this would be a good stop.

Trying to keep up with the speed limit at 80 mph, and a climb will yield a higher than normal average usage of 367 Wh per mile.

However, stopping at this location can reward the traveler with Dairy Queen Ice Cream…

So…

What can I say? I haven’t had DQ in a while.

Richfield Supercharger

The next stop at Richfield has a brand new Holiday Inn Express at the location. We made a mental note of how friendly the staff was when I went inside to use the “facilities” and decided to swap driving duties at this location. The better half has been driving all day, and it’s my turn to drive.

581.5 miles of driving and the stress between Barstow and Primm, I got lucky with finding my wife and partner-in-crime. 😉

If we had not already booked a hotel in Grand Junction, CO I would’ve proposed that we stop at Richfield, UT. However, we had booked a hotel in Grand Junction, CO and pressed on.

Green River Supercharger

Now the next stop was a bit stressful because it was another of those locations that was difficult to find. Even harder in the dark. The four supercharging stations of the Green River UT Supercharger are in a dark parking lot of the John Wesley Powell River History Museum.

Another one of those locations that we had to use plugshare.com to find the location.

We arrived here around 2:00 AM and boy were we tired. I took a quick cat-nap while charging, while my wife stayed awake.

Doubletree Grand Junction CO

So, looking at our mileage and distance from our hotel, made us decide to drive directly to our hotel in Grand Junction for the evening.

The hotel looked like a beacon in the desert and we decided to stop for the night.

Parked the car with full 89 miles of range left and turned the car to full sleep mode (turned off the “always connected” option) as we turned in ourselves.

And the promise of “Doubletree cookies” at the end of this very, very long 808 mile day.

Go on to Day 2. Click here.