For Your Consideration - 10k Mile EV Road Trip + 65th GRAMMY Awards®

Ambler Couple Braves Crazy Weather Conditions on 10,000 Mile All EV (Electric Vehicle) Road Trip

­Debra Lee & Rick Denzien

In mid-May 2022, we set out on a 3-week “bucket list” road trip to see national parks in Colorado, Utah, Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota, travelling 10,000 miles and covering 13 states from our home in Ambler and back. We got over 152 miles “per gallon” (gas car equivalency) at 80% less than the cost of gas. This was our third long-distance road tour in a 4-door sedan Tesla Model 3, but this trip put the efficiency and safety of our all-electric vehicle to the test with multiple hair-raising road conditions.

Like our past two trips (California, 8,000 miles in 2019; and Florida Keys 3,000 miles in pre-pandemic 2020), it was easy finding Tesla Superchargers, an expansive network of charge stations throughout North America. The car’s mapping software automatically directed us to Superchargers, with each stop taking only 15-30 minutes, perfect timing for a stretch, restroom, or meal break. Superchargers are conveniently located off interstates at rest and gas stops, restaurants, hotels, and more.

We drove 15-hours on the first leg of our trip, taking turns driving and sleeping. We set up a comfortable memory foam mattress from the trunk across a lowered back car seat, roomy enough for someone 6’6”.

Our first overnight stop was at a hotel with a destination charger (which can be used with any EV model) near St. Louis, MO, in Mark Twain country between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.

The next day was our first “weather” encounter with a sudden flash flood, enroute to Gateway Arch National Park. We found ourselves driving through a washed-out railroad underpass on a back route into St. Louis, just as road crews began rerouting traffic. The Tesla waded through several feet of flood water and debris without stalling or other mechanical trouble. Phew!

From Missouri, we drove into Kansas, to our next overnight stop. It was getting late and past dinner time, so we used our navigation to find take-out just before closing. We must have been an odd sight, eating on a bench at 9:30pm at an intersection in Junction City, KS, as a police car circled the block a couple times.

The weather forecast for our next destination, Denver, CO, was a blizzard. As we continued through Kansas past endless grain elevators and rail cars stretching for miles, we lost internet connectivity. Fortunately, it did not affect the navigation. We could see the weather front 80 miles out. As we neared the Colorado border, elevation increased, visibility decreased with freezing rain and snow, and temperatures radically dropped into the low-mid 30s! The blizzard hit full force as we entered Denver, with 6” accumulation the next morning, causing tree damage and electric outages (fortunately not at our Airbnb)– and which mostly melted by afternoon. (Meantime, back home in Ambler, there was a 97-degree heat wave).

We were awed by Colorado’s spectacular beauty, including Rocky Mountain National Park, and delighted by moose sightings. A lone bull moose seemed curious about our lone car driving through a flash snowstorm on an Arapaho National Forest Park road. We saw him cut through the woods to get a better view of us around the bend.

From Colorado, we drove 10-hours to Zion National Park in southwestern Utah. The hot desert climate was a huge contrast, but EVs don’t run “hot,” and the climate controls kept us cool while the car’s carbon bio filters kept the dust out. After a mountain canyon hike, back at our car in the parking lot, a park ranger came by, thinking we had engine troubles because the front hood was open. Instead of an engine like in gas cars, the Tesla has a storage space called a “frunk.” We had a good laugh with him when he saw the situation and took time to answer his questions about EVs.

As we continued north through Utah to our next destination in Idaho Falls, ID, temperatures dropped, and rain was in the forecast for the Memorial Holiday weekend. Our hotel was close to Jackson Hole, WY, where ski trails still had snow; and to Grand Teton National Park, where mountain passes were closed because of snowy road conditions, not typical for the month of May.

The following day we headed for Yellowstone National Park. Snow from the day before was still on the ground. The cold, rainy weather did not affect Old Faithful’s prompt eruption or faze the bison walking along the road. The loop to exit the park took us into the highest altitude, where 10-foot snowbanks lined the road closed the day before (melting snow caused the flooding that devastated Yellowstone the following week). We drove alongside a frozen Yellowstone Lake, surrounded by miles of burned-out forest from previous fires, making an eerie winter landscape that looked like a scene from the “Game of Thrones.” At one bend, three adult bison stepped off a ledge onto the narrow mountain road in front of us. We stopped, eyeball to eyeball, as they moved aside and gave us room to pass.

At our next stop, an Airbnb in Cody, WY, our host offered a 110-volt garage outlet to gain a few miles because we didn’t have a full charge when we arrived and had a long drive the next morning through Big Horn National Forest, to get to our next Supercharger. As we started up the mountain pass, snowplows were coming down, a sign that something was about to go sideways. As we climbed from 3,000 to 8,000 feet, we drove straight into a blizzard, and were using more electrons than normal. We had only had 40 miles of range left to cover 75+ miles to the charge station. But the law of gravity, what goes up must go down, works well for electric cars -- as we descended the mountain, the car regenerated, making its own “fuel,” recharging the battery. We ended up with a surplus of 40 miles on arrival to the Supercharger.

After our visit to Crazy Horse Monument, Mount Rushmore, and the Badlands in South Dakota, we pushed home for Ambler. Around 3:45 am in rural Minnesota, a large deer (likely killed by a semi-truck), suddenly appeared in the middle of our lane on the interstate. There was no choice but to drive over it at the 70-mph speed limit. It got caught underneath the car and dragged for a short distance, partially ripping a protective plastic shield under the car that then scraped the road. Serendipitously, when we stopped to charge, there was a multi-bay 18-wheeler truck service station in the adjoining parking lot. A mechanic was able to remove the shield. He said if this were a gas car, the oil pan would have ripped out and the engine destroyed, leaving us stranded. We put a call into Tesla who said it was okay to replace the shield when we got home.

We arrived safely home to Ambler, and our Tesla wasn’t any worse for the wear, other than the damaged shield and a crusting of squished bugs, desert dust and road dirt. Despite all road conditions, we had no body or mechanical damage, and the vehicle always performed perfectly. We saved $2,000+ in fuel, and best of all, no pollution from emissions.

For Your Consideration
American Roots Music
48 - Best Americana Performance
Aritst: Rick Denzien - Song: Melting Fields
65th GRAMMY Awards®
Listen Here: https://songwhip.com/rick-denzien/melting-fields
Grammy Members: https://vote.grammyvoting.com

To see video from our trip:
Deer Strike: https://youtu.be/tzsLWf1KQeU
Going Through a Flood: https://youtu.be/EH7V0p9kojg
Mr. Moose: https://youtu.be/2IfSf_bKcSk

Zero Emission Musicians take a Tesla:
https://thedriven.io/2019/02/20/zero-emissions-musicians-take-a-tesla-model-3-ev-on-tour/