A Cross-country Trip Gone Terribly Wrong

Ever since I retired from practicing optometry full-time (2011), I have taken cross-country drives. Usually once a year, these drives are designed around locations of photographic interest. I’ve made trips to Arches National Park, Badlands National Park, Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge, White Sands National Park, the Palouse, Bryce Canyon, Yellowstone, and several other picturesque locations across America. I make these drives completely alone. Just me and my camera gear. Maybe that seems strange, but I seem to prefer it that way. I stop when I want, go where I want, stay as long as I wish in various locations, listen to what pleases me, or just be alone with my thoughts. I made no trips in 2020 or 2021 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, so I was looking forward to a trip this year.

Several months ago, my daughter and I planned to go to Yosemite in March to do landscape and wildlife photography. Yosemite is my favorite spot on the planet. I am a Californian by birthright and I used to go to Yosemite most summers when I was growing up. My last visit to Yosemite was in January 2010. My wife took me there as a birthday present. As many times as I had been to Yosemite in the past, I had never been there in the winter and it was absolutely magical.

My daughter lives in San Diego, so the plan was to drive to San Diego, spend a few days there with my daughter and son-in-law, then Julie (my daughter) and I would drive on to Yosemite. We would spend 4 days in Yosemite, then I would drive Julie back to San Diego and I would begin my drive back to Maryland. Julie and I had reservations to stay at Yosemite Valley Lodge. Our schedule had us arriving in Yosemite on March 24th. Julie and I were really looking forward to this trip. On the drive home, I had planned for my 1st stop to be in Page, Arizona. I really like Page, and the landscape there is so photogenic. I’ve photographed Horseshoe Bend on the Colorado River once before, but I was eager to return and photograph Horseshoe Bend at sunset. I was also looking forward to returning to the slot canyons in Antelope Canyon. In addition, I have a friend who lives in Page and I had arranged for us to get together while I was in town. And, in particular, there is a Mexican restaurant in Page that I absolutely love. It is Fiesta Mexicana. If you are ever in Page, Arizona, you must eat there!

In January this year, Yosemite and the surrounding mountains experienced record-level snowfall. So much snow Yosemite was completely closed down. It didn’t worry me too much because our trip to Yosemite was still two months away and it seemed likely to me that by Spring, the weather in Yosemite would likely be, well, spring-like. But in mid-March Yosemite experienced yet another huge multi-day snowfall and the valley was completely closed once again. I contacted Yosemite Valley Lodge to ask for advice and they told me the lodge is closed, so we canceled our reservation.

Julie and I discussed alternative plans. I still wanted to make the trip out to California, so Julie and I devised a plan B. We planned a drive to Borrego Springs to photograph the “superbloom” in the mountains. The heavy rainfall in southern California was insuring a magnficent bloom of wildflowers on the mountainsides. Then, we planned a 2-day trip to Paso Robles where they were holding a very photogenic nighttime light show…here is a sampling (photo not mine).

Another element adding to the interest of this cross-country drive is that I recently purchased a Tesla Model 3, which is the vehicle I was going to be using to make this drive. Planning charger stops added a new wrinkle to the cross-country drive. I left home on Sunday, March 18th. I planned for the outbound drive to take 5 days (4 nights), and I had hotel reservations for each night on the road. My first night was spent in Knoxville, Tennessee. Night two was in Little Rock Arkansas. Night three was in Abilene, Texas. My final night on the road was planned for Las Cruces, New Mexico. The drive went quite smoothly until I was in Texas. On each day’s drive I set my destination in the Tesla GPS to be the address of the hotel I would be staying at that night. That had been working fine so far. On the drive from Abilene to Las Cruces, I was going to need to make three charger stops. My final charger stop was in a small town called Van Horn, Texas. The drive from Van Horn to Las Cruces is slightly over 3 hours. I had my charger set to fill the battery to 85% of capacity. I had it set that way because the physics of charging a Tesla battery is such that the last 15% of capacity takes much longer to fill than the prior 85%. Filling the battery to 85% of capacity means you make more frequent charger stops, but each stop is shorter in duration. I knew the drive to Las Cruces was a long one, and it was going to be taking almost my entire battery charge capacity to get there, but the GPS assurred me I had sufficient change to make it. When I arrived in Las Cruces I had only 30 miles remaining in battery charge. I immediately had my navigational system check for the nearest Tesla supercharger in Las Cruces. That’s when I realized I had a problem. It turns out there are no Tesla superchargers in Las Cruces, and the nearest charger was back in El Paso, Texas whch was a 40 mile drive back the way I came. I had 30 miles remaining on my battery and the nearest supercharger was 40 miles away. I thought to myself that maybe the navigational system telling me I had only 30 miles remaining on the existing charge was just an estimation? Anyway, I hoped that I could make it back to El Paso to get charged up. I programmed in the address of the El Paso supercharger and headed back eastward. The navigational system immediately informed me that I had insufficient charge to make it to my destination. But I headed off anyway. When the remaining charge finally hit zero I knew I needed to get off the Interstate. If I was going to be stranded, I didn’t want it to be on the Interstate. At the next offramp there happened to be a Pilot gasoline service center. I decided to pull into that service center and see if I could get a charge there. I informed the manager in the service center of my dilemma and he was quite willing to let me hook up my car’s charger to an outdoor electrical outlet. You can fill a Tesla battery using a simple 110 volt electrical outlet but it takes hours/days. However, I didn’t need to fill the battery. I just needed enough of a charge to get me the rest of the way to the El Paso supercharger whcih was only about 10 miles further up the Interstate. So, I put 2% charge into the battery. That took about 1 1/2 hours. I tried to pay the manager of the Pilot service center for the electricity I used, but he refused to take my money. I got back onto the Interstate and made it to the El Paso supercharger, but just barely. The remaining charge was reading zero when I pulled into the charging station. Whew! That was a stressful experience. I didn’t want that happening again, and from that point onward on the drive, I was much more cautious about how much charge was remaining on my battery at each stop. For example, on the drive the next day from Las Cruces to my daughter’s home in San Diego, I made 6 supercharger stops when the navigational system had indicated that I would only need three charger stops.

I arrived in San Diego on Wednesday, March 22 around 6 PM. Julie had made a 7:30 dinner reservation for that evening at C-level. C-level is a lovely ocean-front restaurant near downtown San Diego. Julie’s husband Jonathan and his daughter Delilah were going to meet us there. Shortly after we were seated in the restaurant my nose began dripping badly. There were two cats living in that restaurant and those cats were right next to us.

Only in San Diego are you going to find it perfectly acceptable to find cats living in a fancy restaurant. I pretend to have a cat allergy and I assummed my dripping nose was my cat allergy acting up. I moved to the other side of the table away from the cats, but I didn’t think too much about it. Well, it turns out my runny nose wasn’t due to the cats. The next morning I woke up with a bad sore throat, severe congestion, headache and feeling somewhat feverish. I was getting sick. I let Julie know I wasn’t feeling well. Before anything else, Julie took my temperature and tested me for COVID. The COVID test was negative and I wasn’t running a fever. That was good news, but I felt crummy. Julie’s husband was planning to leave for Japan four days hence. He was going to be a chaperone on an international high school field trip. It was good news that I didn’t have COVID, but it was critical that Jonathan didn’t catch whatever I had. So we all wore masks around the house and kept our distance from one another.

Over the next few days my flu symptoms only worsened. Julie and I canceled our plans to go to Borrego Springs and to Paso Robles. We did find some fun things to do in and around San Diego, but I was feeling crummy and not enjoying myself. I always enjoy visits with my daughter and her husband, but this trip was becoming a complete bust! Sunday, March 26th arrived and it was time for me to begin my drive back home. Wicca tried to persuade me to delay my departure from San Diego until I felt better but I was eager to get home. Julie retested me for COVID several times, and each time I tested negative. I was confident this was just an ordinary flu virus. I had re-routed myself to make the drive home as quick as possible. I had taken 5 days driving out to San Diego, with each days drive being less than 8 hours. I planned the return drive to take 4 days and each day driving 10 or 11 hours. Except for the first days drive. I planned for my first stop to be in Las Vegas, which is only a 5 1/2 hour drive from San Diego. I’m not interested in gambling, but there were a couple of things I wanted to do in Las Vegas. First, there is a gallery of graffiti near Las Vegas called “Wheel of Misfortune”. It is just outside of Boulder City near the Hoover Dam. I was eager to go there and do some photography. Secondly, I was interested in taking some photographs of the Las Vegas strip at night.

The drive to Las Vegas was uneventful. I was feeling somewhat better but still terribly congested. I drove straight to the graffiti gallery. It was out in the middle of nowhere and kind of hard to find. It was built in a quarry that was originally a place where they mined for manganese. There was a store for fishermen next to the quarry and I parked there and asked the business owner how to find the graffiti. She showed me how to find it. It required walking about a third of a mile up a gentle hill, but I was still not feeling well and the walk really wore me out. None-the-less, I did reach the graffiti gallery which was fun to explore.

While at the graffiti gallery I flew my drone, taking video from above. That video isn’t award winning by any stretch of the imagination, but I enjoyed flying my drone there.

From the Wheel of Misfortune, I drove to the Las Vegas Strip. I had a reservation for that night at the Venetian Hotel. I had never stayed there before, but I had been in the Venetian Hotel once before and thought it would be a fun place to spend the night. I wasn’t disappointed. The Venetian Hotel is truly magnificent. I had a suite in the Venetian Tower that was a bit of a splurge, but it really was worth it.

After I got myself settled into my room at the Venetian, I went back outside and caught an Uber to take me to the Strat Hotel.

The observation deck at the top of the Strat was where I intended to take photos of the Las Vegas strip at night. I bought a ticket for admission to the observation deck ($24). It was around 4PM at that point in time. There is no time limit for staying in the observation tower and there is a sandwich shop and a bar up there, so I went straight up, even though it was still several hours before sunset.

As you can see, the observation deck is all glass enclosed, but you can go up one story higher and there is an outdoor observation area that overlooks the strip. I stayed in the enclosed area until sunset and then went up to the outdoor observation area to take photographs. Here is my favorite photo from that location:

As soon as these photos were taken I caught an Uber back to the Venetian. I was in bed that night by 7:30 PM. I truly cannot remember ever being more exhausted.

The next day I drove to Alburquerque, New Mexico. The following day I drove on to Oklahoma City. Those were two VERY long days of driving. The drive eastward was further complicated by the fact that time changes as you drive east work against you, so It was often dark by the time I reached my destination for the day.

The next day, on leaving Oklahoma City, I had planned to drive to Nashville, but I discovered a problem. On the route out of Oklahoma City to Nashville, the first Tesla supercharger is in Van Buren, Oklahoma, and that is over 4 hours away. I wasn’t willing to chance a drive that long on one charge of the battery. So, I made the decision to re-route myself northward, through St. Louis. It was somewhat longer but much better access to Tesla superchargers. So, I asked Wicca to make me a hotel reservation for the following night in Indianapolis. That drive from Oklahoma City through St. Louiis to Indianapolis was over 12 hours, but it meant that my final drive from Indianapolis home would be only 9 hours.

The last day of driving was Thursday March 30th. I made one photo stop on that day of driving. I stopped at the Stone House Restaurant on the National Pike (highway 40) in Pennsylvania. That is just a short distance from where you cross the Maryland state line. I was intrigued by the half-moon up in the daytime behind this picturesque old railroad car which is in the parking lot of the restaurant:

I made it home around 6PM on Thursday, March 30th. I was dead tired, but I made it home safe and sound. I congratulated my Tesla on a job well done. The next day I had a tele-medicine visit with my primary care physician. She put me on antibiotics. It took another 4 or 5 days for the flu symptoms to completely dissipate, but I am proud to say that I am back to good health (at least as good as you can expect to be at 80 years of age)…I won’t swear to this, but I may just have made my final solo cross-country drive.