Grants Pass, OR to Ukiah, CA – 325 miles Our furthest day…so far.

It’s Saturday, Feb 23rd,  and I but it feels like it can be any day of the week.   After giving the Tesla a thorough cleaning inside and out, we head for the coast in a southwesterly direction on US-199 to Crescent City.  The surrounding landscape is very pretty farmland and as we get closer to the coast we begin to come across redwoods and forests.  We stop in at O’Brien Store & Post Office, for a quick sandwich and to snap photos.

Arriving to Crescent City we pass through town and briefly stop by the park in front of the beach along the peninsula.  It’s a quiet town and we want to make time so we continue, South onto US-101 which hugs the Coast.   From Crescent City southward the coastline is breathtaking and we stop to snap photos at several spots.  I insist on detouring to visit Lady Bird Johnson Grove in the Redwood National Park.  It’s my first time through this area and Juan’s too.  We snap more shots of big trees.

We arrive to our target town Arcata site of an important charging stop as well as dinner.   Our charger data base tells us there’s a 240V 50Ah charging station in an Arcata municipal parking lot, but we have concerns because various resources mention this charger requires registration in-advance with the city in order to acquire the combination code to the padlock which protects the breaker box.  Calling in advance on a Saturday to City Hall, we locate a local employee but she is not able to provide any news about the EV charger or the registration process.

After about 10 minutes driving around downtown, we locate the lot &  the box.   Telltale signs usually involve searching for a “Reserved for EV” or “Electric Vehicle” sign.  It’s, hidden behind the wall of a garbage bin and it’s….UNLOCKED!!!.  In truth, it’s not an EV charger, but rather an electric outlet.  Finally, we have found our first NEMA 14-50 50Ah outlet and we are very excited to connect to it with our Tesla charging cable.  The Tesla comes with both the NEMA 14-50 and the 110V household adapters which snap onto the charging cable.  We wonder what other adapters we might need during the course of this trip, but don’t yet have.

This is charging at its purest- connecting to an outlet and flipping on the breaker!!   No account, no credit card, no phone calls to customer service, no start button to push.   The car quickly starts sucking on electricity and our Tesla mobile app soon is soon shows it’s charging at 28 miles per hour.   We are quite impressed, and excited we might actually be able to make it to Ukiah before midnight.    All of the EV Level 2 chargers we had encountered so far, did no better than 13 to 19 miles per hour.   This made me wonder,  why do all the EV Level 2 charges max out at 30Ah?  Too bad for the Tesla.   The Model S with its single onboard charger can pull 40Ah, which means you need to connect to a 50Ah service in order to draw the 40Ah.   Another problem with these EV chargers is they don’t reach 240V.  Often, they seem to range between 209 to 230V.   The lower voltage results in a slower charge- less miles per hour.   In any case, we are very excited to be charging at over 50% the mileage rate as compared to a typical EV charger.   Later when we check on the car from our mobile app, it’s charging at 32 miles per hour!!!

We mill around Arcata, first to a wine bar and later to a great Vietnamese restaurant, Pho Hoang.  From the bartender at the wine bar, I learned Arcata is perhaps best known for its weed.   I’m sure town officials are heartsick at this thought, on the other hand, I’m sure you can ask 500 bartenders all across the West Coast and they’ll all tell you their town is best known for the same thing.    Look up Arcata online and I’m sure you can learn all about this nice little town.   After a nice dinner, a visit to the local organic food market and some frozen yogurt, we manage to charge the Tesla a few hours, we and we take off with 180+ miles on our battery pack, with our sights set on Ukiah (166 miles).

Ok, I’m sure seasoned Tesla owners are cringing at the thought of the outcome here.   Well, first of all we didn’t anticipate all of the hill climbing and more hill climbing.  Secondly, we forgot to consider how the decreasing temperature down to 30 deg. fahr. later in the night might impact negatively.  Even so, we figured we would economize by driving 50mph on cruise control, which later we reduced to 42mph and by 12 midnight we were certain we wouldn’t make it all the way to Ukiah.   Briefly, stopping in Laytonville, to survey the situation, we calculate a deficit of at least 20 miles for arriving to our final destination.  The local police are kind enough to pull up next to our car-to question us, learn our predicament and recommend an RV park only 24 miles away headed in our direction.   We have around 30miles on the battery pack at this point.   Strangely a police vehicle ends up tailing us all the way to Willits.  Talk about creepy.

Arriving into Willits the same police officers are now escorting us to the KOA RV park, a few miles off the main road.  The place appears locked down for the night and the entrance is gated.  Finally, a woman’s voice- the night time mgr. crows over the intercom and we negotiate a price of $15 and she opens the gate to let us in.   The cops leave and our butts appear to be saved!!   Pulling in at 1:00Am into space 20, we connect to the 240V 50Ah source with our NEMA 14-50 adapter plug & cable, and quickly started sucking in juice at 28 miles per hour.

I’ll tell you the Tesla Model S seats are fairly comfortable when fully reclined.   Juan goes off to the bathroom, I get comfortable falling asleep; when Juan returns and  opens the door it sets off the Tesla alarm and the horn starts honking.  It’s one thirty AM in an RV park, we are surrounded by sleeping neighbors in their RV’s and this god awefully loud horn is sounding off.   Fortunately, I manage to shut it down by the forth honk and luckily, no one comes out of their RV to sound off on us.   We sleep for around 90 minutes and pull away around 3:00AM with close to 50 miles in the tank.   Finally, arriving to Ukiah at 3:30AM at our Super 8 motel, we have to wake up the night mgr. to get our room. 

  Before calling it a night we connect to the EV charger located in the motel parking lot.   Hopefully, this will be our low point of our charging experiences for the roadtrip.

Antique police car, Obrien’s General Store & Post Office.  Actually, their police was eliminated in 2012.  Maybe this was the last squad car.

Same stop, O'brien, OR. Population 546, but they probably have more cows.

Leaving Oregon, entering California on Redwood Hwy 199.

Pacific Ocean at Crescent City peninsula, beach front park, midday.

This is Warren. He's riding his bicycle from Los Angeles to Seattle. Another guy was two minutes ahead of Warren, he started out from San Diego.

Juan, trying to comprehend why someone might bike so far. Warren does it because he can. Fortunately, he doesn't have that Forest Gump beard.

Warren a few years from now, circa 2015.

Pacific Coast beach front, south Crescent City.

Not much of a hug if you can't get your arms around it.

Juan crossing a wooden bridge at the Eleanor Roosevelt Redwood Grove in Redwood National Park.

Arcata public, electrical outlets, designated for EV charging. The is the first and only time we see a 240V 50Ah NEMA 14-50 receptacle outside of an RV park to charge cars. I have since installed the same setup in my office back in Miami, FL. At this Arcarta, electric source the Tesla charges at 28 mph.

We drove right through here, albiet at night and we couldn't see a thing. This is a stock photo of what we missed.