Day 1 Tesla Model 3 — Colorado through Pacific Northwest USA | 4600 mi Road Trip
Today we will be driving the longest single day of driving we have ever attempted! We are going to drive all the way to Moab, UT and Arches National Monument. We have a parks pass, so we figured we could camp there for free. This is early June and we thought that the tourist crowds would be minimal. We were wrong.
Silverthorne Supercharger, Again
We start out by charging the car up to 90% at Silverthorne. Get a coffee and some emails done and we are on our way. Maybe 20 minutes.
We target our next stop as Glenwood Springs and plan to use the hot springs. The Tesla says we get there with 70%
The first big hurdle is Vail Pass. No problem.
Glenwood Springs
We park in Glenwood, but the spring water looks like it will smell up our clothes with sulphur. Do not need that. We use the in-car web app to do a little searching. We find the Hippy Dippy Hot Springs that is free, so we decide to check that out. Do a navigation search, and sure enough, the Tesla finds it. We drive up there but it seems like just a rock pool with a folding chair with some naked dudes. All downstream of the local dump. Ok, no. Time for lunch.
Easily done in the Tesla!
Grand Junction Supercharger
Nothing special about this charger. We got there with about 65% charge after leaving Silverthorne with 90% That includes Vail Pass, Glenwood Canyon and I70 into Grand Junction in 90 degree heat.
The car is getting phenomenal mileage. Heat, altitude, Air Con, and speed have some effect on distance, but not much.
Arches National Monument
We arrived about 7 PM and the park is closed. And ALL campgrounds are full. Ok. We will come back tomorrow morning.
Moab Super Charger
The Moab charger is actually really nice. Downtown in the parking lot of a Best Western. When we plug in, something strange happened to the car. I heard a loud buzz and then the computer went blank. I thought I had killed the car. Turns out, it just rebooted itself and was fine 5 minutes later. Do not know what caused it but has been fine ever since.
We plug in, walk around town a bit, come back to a fully charged car.
Finding a campground
So, this has become a common thing for us. Once we arrive somewhere or are about to arrive, we start looking for campgrounds using the Web browser in the car. It has a great cell service and we get internet 99% of the time even in remote deserts, high mountains or desolate highways. We do a search and find some campgrounds up by the Colorado river just outside town. This is one of the most spectacular drives I have ever seen.
Of course we did not find any open camp sites. We tried quite a few, but nothing open. Back to the Google. We find another campground outside town called Slickrock. Moab’s oldest and largest campground.
Slickrock Campground
We get a site around 9:30 PM and it is almost dark. This is a high desert camp with no trees or shade. Lots of big rock formations. This campground is used by mountain bikers, dirt bikers and ATVs. I would think it gets very noisy in the daytime, but at night it was very quiet. Think Cowboys and Indians type terrain.
This was very different sleeping than we had the first night in 32 degree weather. Tonight the temperature is nearly 90 degrees. We set the ‘thermostat’ to about 68 degrees. It was very comfortable in the car. Not too hot at all. Used about 10% or less in battery charge. Tomorrow we tour the Arches.
