teslatrips - Tumblr blog

[teslatrips]

SLC to Portland Oregon. And back again

In our fourth week of being Tesla owners, we decided it was time to take a longer trip and we headed to Portland to visit J’s family. It’s a long drive and for the European in me, it’s a really boring drive too till you get to the Columbia River. Then it starts to look really nice.

Anyway, we decided to head out on a Wednesday after J got off work. We thought we would sleep in Boise and head back on the road when we wake up and we’d get there early afternoon. How naive we were.

We headed out just fine, but obviously, it was rush hour, so it tool more that 40 minutes to get out of the city. The kids fell asleep ok and we were having a good time. We had agreed a few days before to get sleeping bags and sleep in the car to be more efficient since there is so much space with all the seats down. We got a cute ladybug sleeping bag for A and S would sleep in mine since he is still rather small (but is probably the word I am looking for). 

It was around 10 pm that we reached Twin Falls and decided to stay there and sleep. We gently removed the children from the car seats and put them in the back so we could move the car seats to the front and fold down the middle row. The plan was that the children would sleep through all this and we would get everything ready, then lay down next to the sleeping angels, get about 6 hours of sleep and then hit the road again. I know you are reading this and laughing your ass off.

Yeah, so… as soon as the kids detected that some shit was going on they woke up and were at their most awake because suddenly from boring road trip in the dark, it was OMG!!! WE ARE CAMPING IN THE TESLA!!! THIS IS SO EXCITING!!! I CAN NEVER SLEEP AGAIN!!! I’ll skip to 2.30 am when they were finally asleep. That strategy will be revisited for future trips. I will say this much though, it was comfortable and even with the odd toddler sleeping positions, it worked just fine. Just for two people it would be fantastic! we did bring our yoga mats to put under the sleeping bags and I found it more comfortable than most hotel beds. Plus, we were camping in the Tesla and it was so exciting!

The rest of the trip and the return trip were fairly uneventful, with four notable observations that i have:

1. the trunk makes an excellent baby changing station. you can set up the supplies to the side and have a diaper changing routine every time you charge;

2. it is important to leave about 15 to 20 inches of space when you back towards a charging station. We had a situation of backing up too close to the sign and me not being careful enough that resulted in the trunk door getting too close to the sign and there is a chip in the paint now and the rest of the ride was very silent;

3. J says that the way you drive it contributes to efficiency and he is still in the process of finding out what is the optimal way to drive it so it will perform best. Of course, once there will be more superchargers, we won’t have to worry much about not making it to the next stop;

4. I was not car sick at all on the way back when i had to be on the middle bench between the kids, as my mother in law was traveling with us. One completely uninformed and unprofessional explanation I have on the matter is that the windows are so large and the car is so long it feels you are in the front even on the middle seat. More anecdotal evidence will be collected at a later date. 

[teslatrips]

It still feels like a space ship.

[teslatrips]

The Elonsexuals

One of the first things J and I discovered we had in common when we met was our love for Elon Musk. Mine came from my thesis research on his advancements in space travel, and J’s came from his love for cars, in particular the Teslas. We spent many hours talking about Nikola Tesla and his brilliance and many more hours about how fortunate we are to witness all these advancements and how Elon is changing the world, with our own eyes, even from afar. 

Fast forward five years, two children and several work promotions, we now have our own beautiful Tesla that we have called Francine. 

And this is how that happened. When the model 3s became available, we put in a reservation and eagerly awaited our lovely little car, deciding which features we would like to have. Then, O came by for a visit and we decided to rent a Tesla and go on a road trip to the Grand Canyon and Vegas. We found an affordable X on Turo and for four days we traveled in style. We were mesmerized and amazed by every little thing and called our friends and family to come see it and join in the wonder of this technological masterpiece. 

It was cautious, it was efficient and most of all, it was beautiful. But with a 230 mile range, we had to carefully plan our route around the Grand Canyon because there are no chargers or superchargers on either side of the Grand Canyon. So we traveled from SLC through Richfield and Panguich and Page and Flagstaff and then to the South Rim. When we were done looking at the great big hole in the ground, we had to go back to Flagstaff and charge and then to Kingman and Vegas. From Vegas to SLC through St. George it was much easier and there was no backtracking.

Some smartass friends pointed out that the superchanging made a trip much longer and it was a real downside. But said smartass friends had not in fact experienced our road trip and how much fun we had stopping and being able to go for a walk, or take a nap or just go for ice cream cause there a DQ right there. J loved the advanced cruise control mostly because he could look out the window more and enjoy the scenery, especially in that area between Page and Flagstaff - that was an amazing view.

So, here we are, after the road trip, back in our Subaru that we used to adore, feeling kind of meh about it. The Subaru seats, that were once J favourite car seats ever, had been dethroned by the Tesla pilot seats. The speed and agility of the Subaru was no longer impressive because it was greatly surpassed by the amazing Tesla. That’s when J said he’d be ok to let go of the Subaru when the 3 arrives. But merely three months later we decided we really wanted an X (well, to be honest, J wanted an S, but the 7 seat option was quite appealing for a family like ours), and with having our financial situation change for the better, we sold the Subaru and we got an X. And so we now travel more because we really really love not having to pay for gas.