4500 mile towing journey - Portland to Tucson and back; with side trips.

COdogman said:

1. The ocean is 2 miles above sea level.

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VSG said:

Know thy datum: https://www.esri.com/news/arcuser/0703/geoid1of3.html

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CharonPDX said:

Summary: The new and improved Tow Mode was applied in the middle of my trip. It was useful in some ways, needs serious improvement in others. No "left me stranded" charging problems, but EA did have one *MAJOR* foul-up that wasted half a day. The West Coast is pretty great for charging infrastructure, but a couple legs did require specific planning, and I did check all planned stops on PlugShare to make sure they weren't broken - I did do one reroute-from-planned due to that, skipping a 2-stall-only location that had multiple worrying recent reviews. Overall, a great trip with only a couple minor hiccups. Of note: Mexico has zero rapid charging. Thankfully the hotel I stayed at had L2.

Backstory:

Last year, when my Rivian config was locked, my aunt and uncle were on their way from their home South of Tucson to Portland. Their truck was stolen in Las Vegas. Knowing my Rivian was imminent, I offered them to borrow our old Ford F-250. (My uncle is a contractor, the tools in the bed were probably equal in value to the truck that was stolen.) He accepted. When they were done up in Portland, he said he’d happily buy my truck from me if his doesn’t reappear. Long story short: He bought my old F-250.

After a year with our Rivian and our big 28’ travel trailer, plus our kids all growed up and moved out, the old trailer was overkill, so we got an 18’ teardrop to replace it. My aunt said they’d been looking for something to replace their late ‘90s Class C RV, so offered to buy our old trailer - since she knew our old truck had no problem towing it. So they drove up to Portland (avoiding Vegas) to pick it up. Two days before heading back, my wife asked if they had any interest heading down the coast and we would caravan with them to the Redwoods before heading back. My uncle said they greatly preferred the Eastern route to the coast, so no. My aunt then suggested we come down with them and stay with them for a week or so, we hadn’t been since before COVID.

My wife heartily said “Sure!” I should note this conversation occurred after multiple flaming Spanish Coffees... So, both of us being “off work” we decided to give it a shot. Give the new trailer a real trial-by-fire. (I had camped in it a couple weekends to various events, but my wife hadn’t yet stayed in it at all.) So I spent the next day mapping everything out to see if the route my uncle liked to take was actually possible while towing. He preferred to go through Nevada than even Eastern California, but that route simply isn’t possible in an EV towing at the moment; but Eastern California down US-395 has a nice string of Rivian Adventure Network, so I suggested that route. He agreed that would be fine. So we planned a first night’s stop at a campground outside Yuba City that’s part of a campground chain we both have membership in, a second night’s stop at a “Harvest Host” location outside Barstow, then arrive at their house the third day.

This was overly-optimistic.

My new truck with new trailer (Rivian R1T towing 18' NüCamp T@B 400) in front of my old truck with my old trailer (1997 Ford F-250 7.3 Powerstroke towing 28' Coachmen Apex Ultra-Lite.)

Day one: A good start.

Got a very early start. They were staying at my sister’s house, so we met up in a parking lot along the route. Planned the first stop for the Rivian Adventure Network in Madras, Oregon. Bonus: We’d be arriving just as the annular eclipse was at its peak!

Drove down US-20 and US-97 in Oregon and Northern California stopping at four RAN along the way. All worked flawlessly. I appreciated the trailer stalls at all. Of note was Crescent, OR, whose RAN is set up as three pull-through aisles. So three vehicles with trailers could all charge at once; or up to six non-trailer.

While in theory we could have made it to our campground after the Mount Shasta RAN, I wanted to play it safe just in case we couldn’t charge at the campground and we topped off at an EA in Chico. It, of course, was downrated in speed. My uncle was getting antsy waiting for all the charging, so he went on to the campground to check us in while I added power. (We were NOT able to charge at the campground.) We arrived at around 10 PM, and planned on getting started at 7 AM the next morning.

Day two: Eastern California and first problems.

We got up early, and my uncle was so antsy, he didn’t want to wait for us, or take 395 through Eastern California, so we split apart in the morning. (They were on a bit of a time crunch and had to get home in three days. I think my *AUNT* appreciated the more frequent and longer stops, but oh well.) So they took off for Nevada, and we actually spent a little more time at camp before leaving.

Topped up at an EA in Yuba City, which went well. Stopped at the Truckee RAN, which was also great. (Also, great little coffee shop in that strip mall.) Had to charge up to 95% to make sure we’d make the next charger, an EA in Bridgeport, CA. Had a nice drive around Lake Tahoe, got to Bridgeport kind of late, and the EA was dog slow - then erred out. My wife was getting antsy from all the driving that we decided to just find a local campground and stay the night there. It was one with 50 Amp service, so we just charged overnight.

Day three: Down Eastern California flawlessly until the end.

Woke up to find out the campground is right on a lake/reservoir. Nice view!

Due to a slight misunderstanding on my part, we drove past the wrong side of the Sierra Nevadas to drive through Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon parks. We’ve been to them before, but my wife was hoping - since we weren’t in such a big hurry - to visit them. Oops.

Hit all the RANs down US-395 in Eastern California. All great charging, although the one in Bishop, CA is at a little shopping center where the “trailer” stall is just two parking spots back-to-back that have been declared the trailer stall. Locals apparently didn’t get the memo and a car was parked in the “back half” of the stall, preventing me from pulling through.

So I had to park in one of the regular stalls partly blocking an aisle. (This would be a recurring theme at EA. - FORESHADOWING)

Hit the RAN in Olancha, which is behind a gas station. Only three stalls (the only RAN I hit the entire journey with only 3 instead of 6,) but huge parking lot behind, so all three could be used by vehicles with trailers. We decided to push through longer than originally planned; hit two more RAN, and made it to a campground in our membership chain in Palm Springs. Unfortunately, discovered that this campground had an absolute “no check in after 8 PM” rule. As we pulled up at 8:30. And while I was trying to figure that out, my wife got a call that she had left her purse behind at a shop we had been at earlier in the day.

Snuck into the campground (walked to a site where people were hanging out outside their RV “hey, I forgot the gate code…”) and had the night guard confront me for entering after check-in. Needless to say, I was angry and tired and stressed for a variety of reasons, and wasn’t very nice to him. (I have never had any of this chain have a “no check in after <x> PM”, and nothing on the website or confirmation email said anything about it.)

Day four: Arrival

Morning came, my wife got up early and drove to the shop (only about 30 min away) to pick up her purse, and we spoke with the day manager. He was much nicer than the night guy. Except wait, he was the same guy. Whatever. He must have looked up our account and discovered that my aunt (who our membership is an auxiliary of) has been a member of this chain since 1970 when the chain was less than a year old, and is one of their longest-tenured members.

Made the trek across the desert, stopping at the RANs in Quartzsite and Gila Bend, and rolled in to the Tucson Outlets EA with 3% to top off before going the last 40 miles to my aunt’s house.


Spent a week at my aunt’s, living out of the trailer. Pretty uneventful. Did some day trips to various things (Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, the art shops in Tubac, etc,) and charged at a slower EVgo in Tucson and the one local DC charger in the town my aunt lives in, a ChargePoint at the local Ford dealership. (Three weeks later, and I’m still the latest two check-ins at that Ford dealer and the EVgo in Tucson on PlugShare.) After a couple days, we had to move to a proper RV park a mile away, since we couldn’t stay parked in front of their house for more than 72 hours. Thankfully, we could charge up on the 50 Amp outlet at the RV park.


Side-trip to Mexico:
After a week, the choice was “head home” or “go with my aunt and uncle to their other home in Puerto Peñasco (Rocky Point) Mexico. We chose Mexico. This meant leaving the trailer behind, since the drive was 215 miles, and there were zero DC chargers along the route. (We did discover later that there is a hotel with an L2 within reach of both ends of the trip - maybe a future trip we just take two days to get there each way.) They have a large group they go down with, about a dozen RVs and trucks-with-trailers, they all have permanent spots at an RV park on the beach. So we caravaned along with them. Got *INCREDIBLE* efficiency doing 55 MPH on these backroads drafting behind a big travel trailer, though - 3.86 mi/kWh compared to the 1.1-1.2 we had been getting with the trailer.

The hotel we stayed at had a Tesla L2 charger (not an official “Tesla Destination Charger”, just a standard purchased wall unit that you had to pay at the front desk and a maintenance guy would go flip on the breaker for.) We used it the first day to get enough charge to ensure we could head home, but spent most days at the RV park next door to the hotel, and the last two days enough people had cleared out that we found an open 50A outlet to charge off rather than pay the hotel. (The hotel and RV park are part of the same “resort”.)

Spent a week there, just lounging on the beach and going to the tourist-trap shops in town. This is the “Most American” town in Mexico, seeing as it is also called “Arizona’s beach”. Everywhere takes dollars, everyone speaks English. Heck, the residents of the RV park (about 99% Americans) even hold trick-or-treating for local kids.

The only downsides of the trip? The Mexican car insurance - $500 for one week. And the fact that when we got back into the US, a US Government license plate car was annoyed at me for going the speed limit, and zoomed past me the instant the lanes allowed passing, cutting me off to get back in the lane even though there was plenty of room in front - and kicking a rock up causing a rock chip on my windshield.


The Road Home, curse you EA!:

After spending another day at my aunt’s doing laundry and recharging at the Ford dealer again, we headed home. This time we took a different route (more new-to-us RAN!) We decided to go up to the Grand Canyon, then across straight to US-101 and go up the coast, hitting the Redwoods that were the original idea of the trip.

Well, it started off badly. We’d charged up the night before departing at the ChargePoint at the Ford dealer, got to about 80%, which was more than plenty to make it to the Tucson Outlet Mall EA in the morning. Arrived at the EA and…..

Huh, that’s odd. Must be the cord. Tried the other cord on the stall, nope. Tried the two cords for the next stall over. Nope. Moved to another stall and tried the four cords I could reach there. Same error. Uh oh.

I thought (obviously) that something was wrong with the truck. Called Rivian support. They had me try a few things (notably “reset the truck” and “have the truck go to sleep and try again”) that took about 2 hours. Just as I was giving up, assuming I’d have to get the truck to the service center in Phoenix (of course on the FAR side of Phoenix,) another Rivian (also towing! Also from the Pacific Northwest!) pulled in.

And he got the same error. WTF? A variety of other brand vehicles all had no problem charging. It was just us two Rivians. So at this point, I figure it’s really an EA issue. Us two Rivians spent another 30-45 minutes troubleshooting with EA, who were zero help.

The other Rivian was heading the opposite direction of me, so he headed in to Tucson to find one of the lower-power EVgo. I decided to try to make it North to Casa Grande where there is both an EVgo and another EA.

I squeaked into the 50 kW EVgo:

Thank goodness, it charged. I added enough to make it to the EA and back (just in case all EA would fail) and the other EA worked fine. *WHEW*. But this whole fiasco threw the whole day out the window. Our original plan was to stop at a campground outside Flagstaff, then spend the following day at the Grand Canyon, stay at a hotel near the Grand Canyon, and continue from there.

We decided to try to make it all the way to the hotel near the Grand Canyon and just stay there two days.

Stopped at the Sedona RAN on the way, the first RAN I’ve seen with *NO* trailer parking spot at all. Rolled in to the hotel at 1 AM. It had one J1772 plus two Tesla Destination chargers. The J1772 was ICEd, thankfully I had my TeslaTap.

Spent the next day at the Canyon.

Go West Young Truck!

Got a reasonable start the following day. Hit the Kingman RAN, another “the trailer stall is just two adjacent parking spots”, thankfully here it was far enough from any of the businesses that neither side of it was ICEd. Decided to go through Las Vegas to hit the RAN there, partly because ABRP said it would only take 15 minutes more than “the direct route” that would have had me stopping at a dodgy EA. The Vegas RAN site itself is great - with a great trailer pull-through; but it is at the back of a mall, and going through the mall “roads” to get to it was painful. Skinny, roundabouts, and nasty speed bumps. Stopped at an EVgo in Baker on our way to a Harvest Host location (a 50s theme diner with a huge parking lot,) only to have the first one I plugged in to only give me ~30kW. I called EVgo to get the session fee waived, and had to explain to the person repeatedly “no, it isn’t my vehicle’s fault - I just want to make sure the dollar fee is waived before I switch to another stall. If that one is slow, I’ll just accept the slowness.” The other stall was fast.

Slept in the parking lot of a diner. The food was good.

To the Coast!

The next day, we wanted to make it to the coast - but had a stop in Bakersfield to visit an old friend. Stopped at the Barstow RAN again (the first repeat RAN of the trip.) And at an EA in Mojave that looks like it had an awning over it at one point - but was now missing. Chatted with a nice elderly couple in a Hyundai Ioniq 5 who were on a road trip themselves.

Left Bakersfield, charged up (had my first ever “wait for a stall to open up” experience, started the journey up the Carrizo Plain to Pismo Beach where we had a campground booked. I wanted to top up at an EA on the outskirts of Bakersfield just to play it safe (at Enos & Taft Highway) only to find a line of 10 vehicles waiting. Nope, never mind. I should be able to make it to Santa Maria’s EA, right?

Started up the mountain pass, and my range was dropping fast. I looked at the map, and it looked like after going up through the valley, I’d have to go over another mountain pass. Rivian’s Navigation insisted I had enough range to make it all the way to my campground in Oceano. :doubt: Not the first time Rivian navigation tried to strand me. I decided to go way slow - 10 under the speed limit. Only as I was approaching the mountains did I finally stop holding my breath and convince myself I could actually make it to the charger. (But I had my destination set to the very closest L2 charger - just in case. As I got to where I was sure the mountains were supposed to be, they never appeared. I thought for sure this road would go through mountains - but apparently there was a little valley the road snaked through so I never had to climb. All my worry, and I needn’t have bothered. Made it to the EA in Santa Maria with plenty of range to spare. I probably *COULD* have made it to the campground. Although good thing I did stop at the EA - the campground had a very clear “no charging EVs” sign on every 50A post.

Up the coast to the Bay.

Started up the coast on 101; stopped in Pismo Beach for some beach driving action. Then took a somewhat easy day getting to a friend’s in San Jose. And slept in a real bed again at his house. Pretty uneventful other than the last charging stop at an EVgo with one dual-head 350kW stall plus two “CCS-or-CHAdeMO” stalls. Only to find an eTransit in one of the 350kW spots, and an Energica motorcycle in the other - but plugged into the CCS-or-CHAdeMO charger! Which means one of the two 350kW connectors was available for use (albeit load shared) but unavailable due to the motorcycle’s parking job. *SIGH*.

Charged up on the other CCS-or-CHAdeMO for a few minutes before the eTransit driver showed up and left, so I moved over there.

To the Redwoods! Via Karenville and smoke.

After the restful night in my friend’s bed, started up 101 again. First charge stop…. And there’s that Energica again. At *ANOTHER* EVgo. This one only had 50kW stalls (one 150kW stall broken.) We didn’t need a ton of charge to keep going, so the slowness wasn’t too bad. The Energica rider did come by while we were there and we chatted. We both recognized each other’s vehicles from the previous night. (He had come back to unplug and leave when my wife and I were in the trailer making dinner.) I let him know that at EVgo, 350kW can use both cables at once, please don’t block. He apologized profusely.

The next charge stop wasn’t so polite…

Stopped in a town I shall forever refer to as “Karenville”. An EA in a Safeway parking lot. In my PlugShare research, I had seen photos during the day of the parking spots beyond the charge stalls being empty, and was hopeful. No such luck. I had to partially block the aisle. Cars could still get around me though.

Unfortunately, I had a job interview, so as soon as I plugged in, I went into the trailer for that. And my wife went into Safeway to do some grocery shopping. When she got back, just as I was wrapping up my interview, (with the CEO of the company, ironically he lived just a few miles away!) a police officer was writing a ticket. Apparently “multiple people” had called to complain about our parking job. When I stepped out of the trailer, the officer remarked “you mean he was in there the whole time!” (Nobody ever knocked on the trailer door - and my blinds were open - people walking by could have seen I was in there.) He insisted we move immediately.

AFAIK, this ticket is BS. It looks like it’s a combination of “public parking enforcement plus private” - it has both actual California vehicle code violations (blocking a fire hydrant, parking in a handicapped without a tag, etc) plus some codes I can’t find any reference to. “NMC 18.7-14 - Improperly parked in a space/Not a marked space” that I think are private enforcement. And in this whole county, ALL parking enforcement is handled through a private company whose website is super-dodgy. I’m definitely fighting this one.

Angrily left that, continued North…. A few minutes later, I see smoke out my right mirror - I have completely blown a trailer tire. Took about two hours getting that replaced.

We had been hoping to make it to the Redwoods this day. Now that’s looking doubtful. But I did find a campground about an hour South of the Redwoods that looks promising. We managed to make it there, stopping at the Ukiah, CA RAN, which was *SUPER* sketchy. Portland has a serious homeless problem, but Ukiah seemed to make even Portland look unproblematic.

Made it to our campsite in Fortuna, only half a mile from the RAN; no 50 Amp, so no campsite charging. It was pretty late, and I commented to my wife “I should go top off at the RAN in case they turn on billing tomorrow.” She talked me out of it.

Almost Home:

I shouldn’t have listened to her. Got up, went to the RAN….. “$0.36/kWh” DAMMIT! Could have saved ~$30 if I’d gone the night before. Oh well.

Had a good time in the Redwoods. Stopped at a visitor center, asked a ranger for good trails to take the dog on. He suggested one. “Does it have a place to park our trailer?” “Sure, just drive up the access road about a quarter mile and you’ll see a turnaround, just park along the road there.”

Get to the access road, and it has a “no RVs, no trailers” sign. Uh…. Well, the ranger told me I could, so I did. That was one massively potholey road. A bunch of stuff spilled about in the trailer, but amazingly nothing broke.

Continued up -101, stopping at a couple more RAN along the way, making it to one of our regular campgrounds on the Oregon Coast for the last night of the trip.

Home Again

The last day’s drive was fairly uneventful, other than running into the usual Oregon rain. Had one last stop along the way. We had a pig that a friend had raised that he had taken to the butcher right as we left on this adventure. Our pig products were ready to be picked up, so we swung by Cornelius, Oregon on our way home where the butcher had it ready to go. Filled up every cooler and refrigerator and “cold grocery bag” we had along. But only another hour to get home, and it was cold out, so we felt fine.

Got home - almost went to the RAN a couple miles from home to add one more RAN to the trip, but home electricity is cheaper than RAN, so I skipped it.

Conclusion:

Would I do this again? Alone, sure. With my wife? No. We used to do long road trips all the time. Nonstop from Portland to Denver (stopping only for gas/food/bathroom,) nonstop or one-stop Portland to Nebraska. Nonstop or one-stop Portland to Tucson. She just can’t handle that much any more. I think our future trailer trips will be solely within the Pacific Northwest.

I forgot to reset my Trip B until the first charge stop, so add 110 miles to this:

The new “Trailers” view got added when I was at my aunt’s house, so the distance traveled with trailer should be pretty much doubled here:

Lowest 2‽? I drove INTO the ocean! Oh well, I guess that accounts for the GPS receiver being above the axle. And I’m pretty sure I went over at least one mountain pass in Arizona that was over 7000 ft. Again, add 110 miles (and 2 hours) to this.

Total charging cost was $750 almost exactly on the nose. My uncle paid about $700 for just the leg down in diesel. The fact that we were able to charge at campgrounds a couple times helped.

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CharonPDX said:

Summary: The new and improved Tow Mode was applied in the middle of my trip. It was useful in some ways, needs serious improvement in others. No "left me stranded" charging problems, but EA did have one *MAJOR* foul-up that wasted half a day. The West Coast is pretty great for charging infrastructure, but a couple legs did require specific planning, and I did check all planned stops on PlugShare to make sure they weren't broken - I did do one reroute-from-planned due to that, skipping a 2-stall-only location that had multiple worrying recent reviews. Overall, a great trip with only a couple minor hiccups. Of note: Mexico has zero rapid charging. Thankfully the hotel I stayed at had L2.

Backstory:

Last year, when my Rivian config was locked, my aunt and uncle were on their way from their home South of Tucson to Portland. Their truck was stolen in Las Vegas. Knowing my Rivian was imminent, I offered them to borrow our old Ford F-250. (My uncle is a contractor, the tools in the bed were probably equal in value to the truck that was stolen.) He accepted. When they were done up in Portland, he said he’d happily buy my truck from me if his doesn’t reappear. Long story short: He bought my old F-250.

After a year with our Rivian and our big 28’ travel trailer, plus our kids all growed up and moved out, the old trailer was overkill, so we got an 18’ teardrop to replace it. My aunt said they’d been looking for something to replace their late ‘90s Class C RV, so offered to buy our old trailer - since she knew our old truck had no problem towing it. So they drove up to Portland (avoiding Vegas) to pick it up. Two days before heading back, my wife asked if they had any interest heading down the coast and we would caravan with them to the Redwoods before heading back. My uncle said they greatly preferred the Eastern route to the coast, so no. My aunt then suggested we come down with them and stay with them for a week or so, we hadn’t been since before COVID.

My wife heartily said “Sure!” I should note this conversation occurred after multiple flaming Spanish Coffees... So, both of us being “off work” we decided to give it a shot. Give the new trailer a real trial-by-fire. (I had camped in it a couple weekends to various events, but my wife hadn’t yet stayed in it at all.) So I spent the next day mapping everything out to see if the route my uncle liked to take was actually possible while towing. He preferred to go through Nevada than even Eastern California, but that route simply isn’t possible in an EV towing at the moment; but Eastern California down US-395 has a nice string of Rivian Adventure Network, so I suggested that route. He agreed that would be fine. So we planned a first night’s stop at a campground outside Yuba City that’s part of a campground chain we both have membership in, a second night’s stop at a “Harvest Host” location outside Barstow, then arrive at their house the third day.

This was overly-optimistic.

My new truck with new trailer (Rivian R1T towing 18' NüCamp T@B 400) in front of my old truck with my old trailer (1997 Ford F-250 7.3 Powerstroke towing 28' Coachmen Apex Ultra-Lite.)

Day one: A good start.

Got a very early start. They were staying at my sister’s house, so we met up in a parking lot along the route. Planned the first stop for the Rivian Adventure Network in Madras, Oregon. Bonus: We’d be arriving just as the annular eclipse was at its peak!

Drove down US-20 and US-97 in Oregon and Northern California stopping at four RAN along the way. All worked flawlessly. I appreciated the trailer stalls at all. Of note was Crescent, OR, whose RAN is set up as three pull-through aisles. So three vehicles with trailers could all charge at once; or up to six non-trailer.

While in theory we could have made it to our campground after the Mount Shasta RAN, I wanted to play it safe just in case we couldn’t charge at the campground and we topped off at an EA in Chico. It, of course, was downrated in speed. My uncle was getting antsy waiting for all the charging, so he went on to the campground to check us in while I added power. (We were NOT able to charge at the campground.) We arrived at around 10 PM, and planned on getting started at 7 AM the next morning.

Day two: Eastern California and first problems.

We got up early, and my uncle was so antsy, he didn’t want to wait for us, or take 395 through Eastern California, so we split apart in the morning. (They were on a bit of a time crunch and had to get home in three days. I think my *AUNT* appreciated the more frequent and longer stops, but oh well.) So they took off for Nevada, and we actually spent a little more time at camp before leaving.

Topped up at an EA in Yuba City, which went well. Stopped at the Truckee RAN, which was also great. (Also, great little coffee shop in that strip mall.) Had to charge up to 95% to make sure we’d make the next charger, an EA in Bridgeport, CA. Had a nice drive around Lake Tahoe, got to Bridgeport kind of late, and the EA was dog slow - then erred out. My wife was getting antsy from all the driving that we decided to just find a local campground and stay the night there. It was one with 50 Amp service, so we just charged overnight.

Day three: Down Eastern California flawlessly until the end.

Woke up to find out the campground is right on a lake/reservoir. Nice view!

Due to a slight misunderstanding on my part, we drove past the wrong side of the Sierra Nevadas to drive through Yosemite, Sequoia, and Kings Canyon parks. We’ve been to them before, but my wife was hoping - since we weren’t in such a big hurry - to visit them. Oops.

Hit all the RANs down US-395 in Eastern California. All great charging, although the one in Bishop, CA is at a little shopping center where the “trailer” stall is just two parking spots back-to-back that have been declared the trailer stall. Locals apparently didn’t get the memo and a car was parked in the “back half” of the stall, preventing me from pulling through.

So I had to park in one of the regular stalls partly blocking an aisle. (This would be a recurring theme at EA. - FORESHADOWING)

Hit the RAN in Olancha, which is behind a gas station. Only three stalls (the only RAN I hit the entire journey with only 3 instead of 6,) but huge parking lot behind, so all three could be used by vehicles with trailers. We decided to push through longer than originally planned; hit two more RAN, and made it to a campground in our membership chain in Palm Springs. Unfortunately, discovered that this campground had an absolute “no check in after 8 PM” rule. As we pulled up at 8:30. And while I was trying to figure that out, my wife got a call that she had left her purse behind at a shop we had been at earlier in the day.

Snuck into the campground (walked to a site where people were hanging out outside their RV “hey, I forgot the gate code…”) and had the night guard confront me for entering after check-in. Needless to say, I was angry and tired and stressed for a variety of reasons, and wasn’t very nice to him. (I have never had any of this chain have a “no check in after <x> PM”, and nothing on the website or confirmation email said anything about it.)

Day four: Arrival

Morning came, my wife got up early and drove to the shop (only about 30 min away) to pick up her purse, and we spoke with the day manager. He was much nicer than the night guy. Except wait, he was the same guy. Whatever. He must have looked up our account and discovered that my aunt (who our membership is an auxiliary of) has been a member of this chain since 1970 when the chain was less than a year old, and is one of their longest-tenured members.

Made the trek across the desert, stopping at the RANs in Quartzsite and Gila Bend, and rolled in to the Tucson Outlets EA with 3% to top off before going the last 40 miles to my aunt’s house.


Spent a week at my aunt’s, living out of the trailer. Pretty uneventful. Did some day trips to various things (Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, the art shops in Tubac, etc,) and charged at a slower EVgo in Tucson and the one local DC charger in the town my aunt lives in, a ChargePoint at the local Ford dealership. (Three weeks later, and I’m still the latest two check-ins at that Ford dealer and the EVgo in Tucson on PlugShare.) After a couple days, we had to move to a proper RV park a mile away, since we couldn’t stay parked in front of their house for more than 72 hours. Thankfully, we could charge up on the 50 Amp outlet at the RV park.


Side-trip to Mexico:
After a week, the choice was “head home” or “go with my aunt and uncle to their other home in Puerto Peñasco (Rocky Point) Mexico. We chose Mexico. This meant leaving the trailer behind, since the drive was 215 miles, and there were zero DC chargers along the route. (We did discover later that there is a hotel with an L2 within reach of both ends of the trip - maybe a future trip we just take two days to get there each way.) They have a large group they go down with, about a dozen RVs and trucks-with-trailers, they all have permanent spots at an RV park on the beach. So we caravaned along with them. Got *INCREDIBLE* efficiency doing 55 MPH on these backroads drafting behind a big travel trailer, though - 3.86 mi/kWh compared to the 1.1-1.2 we had been getting with the trailer.

The hotel we stayed at had a Tesla L2 charger (not an official “Tesla Destination Charger”, just a standard purchased wall unit that you had to pay at the front desk and a maintenance guy would go flip on the breaker for.) We used it the first day to get enough charge to ensure we could head home, but spent most days at the RV park next door to the hotel, and the last two days enough people had cleared out that we found an open 50A outlet to charge off rather than pay the hotel. (The hotel and RV park are part of the same “resort”.)

Spent a week there, just lounging on the beach and going to the tourist-trap shops in town. This is the “Most American” town in Mexico, seeing as it is also called “Arizona’s beach”. Everywhere takes dollars, everyone speaks English. Heck, the residents of the RV park (about 99% Americans) even hold trick-or-treating for local kids.

The only downsides of the trip? The Mexican car insurance - $500 for one week. And the fact that when we got back into the US, a US Government license plate car was annoyed at me for going the speed limit, and zoomed past me the instant the lanes allowed passing, cutting me off to get back in the lane even though there was plenty of room in front - and kicking a rock up causing a rock chip on my windshield.


The Road Home, curse you EA!:

After spending another day at my aunt’s doing laundry and recharging at the Ford dealer again, we headed home. This time we took a different route (more new-to-us RAN!) We decided to go up to the Grand Canyon, then across straight to US-101 and go up the coast, hitting the Redwoods that were the original idea of the trip.

Well, it started off badly. We’d charged up the night before departing at the ChargePoint at the Ford dealer, got to about 80%, which was more than plenty to make it to the Tucson Outlet Mall EA in the morning. Arrived at the EA and…..

Huh, that’s odd. Must be the cord. Tried the other cord on the stall, nope. Tried the two cords for the next stall over. Nope. Moved to another stall and tried the four cords I could reach there. Same error. Uh oh.

I thought (obviously) that something was wrong with the truck. Called Rivian support. They had me try a few things (notably “reset the truck” and “have the truck go to sleep and try again”) that took about 2 hours. Just as I was giving up, assuming I’d have to get the truck to the service center in Phoenix (of course on the FAR side of Phoenix,) another Rivian (also towing! Also from the Pacific Northwest!) pulled in.

And he got the same error. WTF? A variety of other brand vehicles all had no problem charging. It was just us two Rivians. So at this point, I figure it’s really an EA issue. Us two Rivians spent another 30-45 minutes troubleshooting with EA, who were zero help.

The other Rivian was heading the opposite direction of me, so he headed in to Tucson to find one of the lower-power EVgo. I decided to try to make it North to Casa Grande where there is both an EVgo and another EA.

I squeaked into the 50 kW EVgo:

Thank goodness, it charged. I added enough to make it to the EA and back (just in case all EA would fail) and the other EA worked fine. *WHEW*. But this whole fiasco threw the whole day out the window. Our original plan was to stop at a campground outside Flagstaff, then spend the following day at the Grand Canyon, stay at a hotel near the Grand Canyon, and continue from there.

We decided to try to make it all the way to the hotel near the Grand Canyon and just stay there two days.

Stopped at the Sedona RAN on the way, the first RAN I’ve seen with *NO* trailer parking spot at all. Rolled in to the hotel at 1 AM. It had one J1772 plus two Tesla Destination chargers. The J1772 was ICEd, thankfully I had my TeslaTap.

Spent the next day at the Canyon.

Go West Young Truck!

Got a reasonable start the following day. Hit the Kingman RAN, another “the trailer stall is just two adjacent parking spots”, thankfully here it was far enough from any of the businesses that neither side of it was ICEd. Decided to go through Las Vegas to hit the RAN there, partly because ABRP said it would only take 15 minutes more than “the direct route” that would have had me stopping at a dodgy EA. The Vegas RAN site itself is great - with a great trailer pull-through; but it is at the back of a mall, and going through the mall “roads” to get to it was painful. Skinny, roundabouts, and nasty speed bumps. Stopped at an EVgo in Baker on our way to a Harvest Host location (a 50s theme diner with a huge parking lot,) only to have the first one I plugged in to only give me ~30kW. I called EVgo to get the session fee waived, and had to explain to the person repeatedly “no, it isn’t my vehicle’s fault - I just want to make sure the dollar fee is waived before I switch to another stall. If that one is slow, I’ll just accept the slowness.” The other stall was fast.

Slept in the parking lot of a diner. The food was good.

To the Coast!

The next day, we wanted to make it to the coast - but had a stop in Bakersfield to visit an old friend. Stopped at the Barstow RAN again (the first repeat RAN of the trip.) And at an EA in Mojave that looks like it had an awning over it at one point - but was now missing. Chatted with a nice elderly couple in a Hyundai Ioniq 5 who were on a road trip themselves.

Left Bakersfield, charged up (had my first ever “wait for a stall to open up” experience, started the journey up the Carrizo Plain to Pismo Beach where we had a campground booked. I wanted to top up at an EA on the outskirts of Bakersfield just to play it safe (at Enos & Taft Highway) only to find a line of 10 vehicles waiting. Nope, never mind. I should be able to make it to Santa Maria’s EA, right?

Started up the mountain pass, and my range was dropping fast. I looked at the map, and it looked like after going up through the valley, I’d have to go over another mountain pass. Rivian’s Navigation insisted I had enough range to make it all the way to my campground in Oceano. :doubt: Not the first time Rivian navigation tried to strand me. I decided to go way slow - 10 under the speed limit. Only as I was approaching the mountains did I finally stop holding my breath and convince myself I could actually make it to the charger. (But I had my destination set to the very closest L2 charger - just in case. As I got to where I was sure the mountains were supposed to be, they never appeared. I thought for sure this road would go through mountains - but apparently there was a little valley the road snaked through so I never had to climb. All my worry, and I needn’t have bothered. Made it to the EA in Santa Maria with plenty of range to spare. I probably *COULD* have made it to the campground. Although good thing I did stop at the EA - the campground had a very clear “no charging EVs” sign on every 50A post.

Up the coast to the Bay.

Started up the coast on 101; stopped in Pismo Beach for some beach driving action. Then took a somewhat easy day getting to a friend’s in San Jose. And slept in a real bed again at his house. Pretty uneventful other than the last charging stop at an EVgo with one dual-head 350kW stall plus two “CCS-or-CHAdeMO” stalls. Only to find an eTransit in one of the 350kW spots, and an Energica motorcycle in the other - but plugged into the CCS-or-CHAdeMO charger! Which means one of the two 350kW connectors was available for use (albeit load shared) but unavailable due to the motorcycle’s parking job. *SIGH*.

Charged up on the other CCS-or-CHAdeMO for a few minutes before the eTransit driver showed up and left, so I moved over there.

To the Redwoods! Via Karenville and smoke.

After the restful night in my friend’s bed, started up 101 again. First charge stop…. And there’s that Energica again. At *ANOTHER* EVgo. This one only had 50kW stalls (one 150kW stall broken.) We didn’t need a ton of charge to keep going, so the slowness wasn’t too bad. The Energica rider did come by while we were there and we chatted. We both recognized each other’s vehicles from the previous night. (He had come back to unplug and leave when my wife and I were in the trailer making dinner.) I let him know that at EVgo, 350kW can use both cables at once, please don’t block. He apologized profusely.

The next charge stop wasn’t so polite…

Stopped in a town I shall forever refer to as “Karenville”. An EA in a Safeway parking lot. In my PlugShare research, I had seen photos during the day of the parking spots beyond the charge stalls being empty, and was hopeful. No such luck. I had to partially block the aisle. Cars could still get around me though.

Unfortunately, I had a job interview, so as soon as I plugged in, I went into the trailer for that. And my wife went into Safeway to do some grocery shopping. When she got back, just as I was wrapping up my interview, (with the CEO of the company, ironically he lived just a few miles away!) a police officer was writing a ticket. Apparently “multiple people” had called to complain about our parking job. When I stepped out of the trailer, the officer remarked “you mean he was in there the whole time!” (Nobody ever knocked on the trailer door - and my blinds were open - people walking by could have seen I was in there.) He insisted we move immediately.

AFAIK, this ticket is BS. It looks like it’s a combination of “public parking enforcement plus private” - it has both actual California vehicle code violations (blocking a fire hydrant, parking in a handicapped without a tag, etc) plus some codes I can’t find any reference to. “NMC 18.7-14 - Improperly parked in a space/Not a marked space” that I think are private enforcement. And in this whole county, ALL parking enforcement is handled through a private company whose website is super-dodgy. I’m definitely fighting this one.

Angrily left that, continued North…. A few minutes later, I see smoke out my right mirror - I have completely blown a trailer tire. Took about two hours getting that replaced.

We had been hoping to make it to the Redwoods this day. Now that’s looking doubtful. But I did find a campground about an hour South of the Redwoods that looks promising. We managed to make it there, stopping at the Ukiah, CA RAN, which was *SUPER* sketchy. Portland has a serious homeless problem, but Ukiah seemed to make even Portland look unproblematic.

Made it to our campsite in Fortuna, only half a mile from the RAN; no 50 Amp, so no campsite charging. It was pretty late, and I commented to my wife “I should go top off at the RAN in case they turn on billing tomorrow.” She talked me out of it.

Almost Home:

I shouldn’t have listened to her. Got up, went to the RAN….. “$0.36/kWh” DAMMIT! Could have saved ~$30 if I’d gone the night before. Oh well.

Had a good time in the Redwoods. Stopped at a visitor center, asked a ranger for good trails to take the dog on. He suggested one. “Does it have a place to park our trailer?” “Sure, just drive up the access road about a quarter mile and you’ll see a turnaround, just park along the road there.”

Get to the access road, and it has a “no RVs, no trailers” sign. Uh…. Well, the ranger told me I could, so I did. That was one massively potholey road. A bunch of stuff spilled about in the trailer, but amazingly nothing broke.

Continued up -101, stopping at a couple more RAN along the way, making it to one of our regular campgrounds on the Oregon Coast for the last night of the trip.

Home Again

The last day’s drive was fairly uneventful, other than running into the usual Oregon rain. Had one last stop along the way. We had a pig that a friend had raised that he had taken to the butcher right as we left on this adventure. Our pig products were ready to be picked up, so we swung by Cornelius, Oregon on our way home where the butcher had it ready to go. Filled up every cooler and refrigerator and “cold grocery bag” we had along. But only another hour to get home, and it was cold out, so we felt fine.

Got home - almost went to the RAN a couple miles from home to add one more RAN to the trip, but home electricity is cheaper than RAN, so I skipped it.

Conclusion:

Would I do this again? Alone, sure. With my wife? No. We used to do long road trips all the time. Nonstop from Portland to Denver (stopping only for gas/food/bathroom,) nonstop or one-stop Portland to Nebraska. Nonstop or one-stop Portland to Tucson. She just can’t handle that much any more. I think our future trailer trips will be solely within the Pacific Northwest.

I forgot to reset my Trip B until the first charge stop, so add 110 miles to this:

The new “Trailers” view got added when I was at my aunt’s house, so the distance traveled with trailer should be pretty much doubled here:

Lowest 2‽? I drove INTO the ocean! Oh well, I guess that accounts for the GPS receiver being above the axle. And I’m pretty sure I went over at least one mountain pass in Arizona that was over 7000 ft. Again, add 110 miles (and 2 hours) to this.

Total charging cost was $750 almost exactly on the nose. My uncle paid about $700 for just the leg down in diesel. The fact that we were able to charge at campgrounds a couple times helped.

[Awesome write up, reading it made feeling like I was there, I have the same Tab 400 Boondock travel trailer and plan on making some adventurous travels next summer including “Harvast Host” and many other campground's . It’s a learning curve going from a Roof Top Tent camping to an actual small RV and when to plug in the R1T or not as a lot of places don’t allow it. Thanks Again, happy trails. I’ll be sure to avoid Karenville.

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Mark_AZR1T said:

This should be a STICKY thread....impressive! Thank you! We enjoy Rocky Point! $500 Mexican Insurance!!!

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