The one with the eco-friendly road trip - Day 3

Dec 25, 2016

We began Christmas day with a drive south to the Newton B. Drury scenic parkway, about 35 miles south of our pitstop to sight more redwoods, this time part of the Prairie Creek state park. The drive along the redwoods was interspersed with multiple trails at sporadic intervals, so we halted every now and then, getting out of the car and taking pictures. Again, as with our experience at Humboldt state park down south, the views were breathtaking.

En route to the Newton B. Drury scenic parkway. In the distance is the False Klamath rock.

"Big tree" - 1500 years old, 300 feet tall

Three redwoods in a cluster

We wrapped up our redwood expedition by 1pm and drove back to Crescent city to Supercharge. We then started driving northward, to proceed to Portland, our next pitstop. 330 miles to go.

Our first leg was through the north rim of Jedediah Smith redwoods state park, where we drove about 75 miles on CA 199, before meeting the I-5 N towards Portland at Grants Pass, OR. 

We briefly halted at a Safeway in Grants Pass around 4.30pm (which also housed a Starbucks) to pick up food - today being Christmas day our options were limited - in fact we were lucky these stores were open in the first place. We also Supercharged at Grants Pass, and got some delish chocolate lava cake with vanilla ice cream at a local diner (which was also surprisingly open).

We were on our way again around 5.30pm, bound for our next Supercharger station in Springfield, OR, which we duly reached closer to 8 pm. We tanked up the battery, and decided to skip the Woodburn, OR Supercharger since we only had 108 miles to go. We finally reached Portland a little past 10pm, and checked into our pitstop.

Over 400 miles driven today on a worthy steed. We're going to remember this trip.

Expect Portland diaries over the next couple of days.  

The one with the eco-friendly road trip - Day 2

Dec 24, 2016.

I've got to mention this - the BestWestern Bayshore Inn at Eureka, CA has got to be one of the better BestWesterns in the country. The overall look and feel and the comfort level in the room were certainly aboveboard.

We Supercharged first thing in the morning ahead of our drive north to Redwood National Park. Picked up sandwiches at a family-owned cafe called Hole in the Wall, turned out to be pretty amazing and filling sandwiches. 

The drive to the Redwood National Park visitor center was quite scenic.

A park ranger at the visitor center told us we could either do the Fern Canyon or the redwood hikes (but not both) given the limited amount of winter sunlight. We'd seen redwoods yesterday, so we picked Fern Canyon. Forget driving all the way to Fern Canyon, he said - looks like a landslide had forced a shutdown of the road to the canyon, and we had to hike 6 miles round trip instead. Game on.

Wasn't too long a drive - was only about 40 miles on 101N from our hotel, and 3 miles on a curvy one-lane road riddled with dents that forced us to go easy on the gas (does the term apply to electric vehicles?). But the scenes leading up to the parking lot were ones to behold. 

We started the hike to Fern Canyon around 1.30pm. A part of the trail to the canyon had been closed off due to a recent landslide, so we ended up taking a parallel route by the beach. 

When in doubt - follow the footsteps.

At long last, we saw this sign.

Absence of a sign post beyond this landmark meant we meandered on to a different trail and lost our way for a half hour, before doubling back. We finally followed a stream we had initially ignored to Fern Canyon.

I couldn't make it all the way to the end of the canyon however, I got cold feet. No no, literally cold feet. You see, while Hema was clad appropriately in boots for the hike that involved wading through streams at slightly above ankle-level, I was not. My hiking shoes were nowhere sufficient to keep the water out. My toes turned numb with the cold water (was 6ºC). Ended up removing my socks on our way back. While the sun made its way down, we hiked the 3 miles back to the car. We spotted a big elk bull on our drive back!

There was no way we could make the redwood drive today. That's therefore on the roster for tomorrow. We reached Crescent City a little after 6 pm. The Good Harvest Cafe looked like the only place that was open on account of places shutting down early on Christmas eve, so we dined there and checked into pitstop for the night.

More tomorrow.

The one with the eco-friendly road trip - Day 1

Destination Seattle!

We hit the road late evening on Dec 22. While this is our first road trip, this is also a stress-test of sorts for our Tesla Model S 60, which has seen fewer than 3000 Silicon Valley miles. The range of our Model S is a modest 210 miles (rated) - but in reality the actual range, depending on the speed/outside temperature is around 170-180 miles. This trip has been planned around Tesla Supercharger stations in CA.

En route, we Supercharged at Petaluma, CA. 25 mins to top up the battery to 210 miles, thank you very much. Our first pitstop was Ukiah, CA, about 150 miles north of Mountain View, the city we call home. 

Packing our bags the next morning from Ukiah, towards our next halt at Eureka, CA, about 150 miles north of here. En route, we made multiple stops along the Avenue of the Giants at Humboldt Redwoods State Park.

Trying to make it all the way to Eureka might be cutting it too fine with the 60 kWh battery, so we decided to find a charging point midway. We found a 14-50 NEMA outlet at Benbow Inn about 80 miles into our drive, and also belched on some dessert. Christmas decorations completely lit up the inn.

Amidst very heavy rains, we made it to the Avenue of the Giants in Humboldt Redwoods State park around 3 in the afternoon. 'Twas gorgeous.

The last picture shows a redwood with burls, or lumps that indicate a stressed redwood. 

We reached Eureka, CA around 5pm, and Supercharged the battery back to 210 miles, and checked into our pitstop. Stepped out for a scrumptious dinner at Annie's Cambodian Cuisine before turning in for the night.

Crêpe and stir fry noodles

Tomorrow is another day.