Tesla Chronicles: DAY 263: Paying for Supercharging

Okay, I'm having some serious respect for bloggers who can keep consistent with their posts. I've tried to post shorter so posting would feel more doable on a regular basis. I've tried to open a blank posting to inspire myself to write. Being consistent is tough stuff!

Again, there was no shortage of stuff to write about. My goodness -- just thinking about it, it's unfortunately I won't ever get a lot of it down in writing. But the future holds so much that I can't mourn the past. Wow, that's some serious deep stuff I need to learn over and over again.

Honestly, it's been a very hard season personally. Too many tragic passings, losing faith in humanity, and battling old demons, I had to get away.

I have been watching the road conditions on the I-5 for two weeks prior to my potential drive to California at Christmas. No more family stuff at Christmas. I'm ready to have alone time to reflect and go somewhere warm.

This would be my first road trip paying for supercharging. So unlike my last road trip, I can't be excessive with my charging. I need to learn to be efficient. It's a good skill to have.

Two days before I left, I got a big Christmas present from Tesla -- another software update. This one is significant because it came with CAMP mode! My Tesla will now keep the climate control on, along with music, lights (if I want) and will charge my electronics while I sleep.

Lots of other stuff that maybe I'll get to one day. Love the voice commands!

On Christmas Day, I honestly thought I was going to stop in Portland for a couple nights and come back. But when I got to Portland, I just didn't feel like stopping. I wanted to keep going. I took the risk and stopped to sleep at a rest area on the way down. I made sure there were lots of other vehicles there doing the same thing -- just so I would feel safer. Funny, every once in a while I heard an engine start up (to get some heat, obviously). On my way to and from the restroom, all of the cars had steamed up windows. LOL. Not my Sparky!

And then another little Easter Egg showed up about 10minutes into my camp mode!

I tweeted about it, and when it got retweeted by Vincent -- a very popular Twitter user and Tesla fan -- the "likes" really started to pick up steam. I guess I made the mistake of following more Tesla users because Twitter shut down my account under suspicious activity. Wow. What bad timing.

Later in the trip, I'll find out that Teslarati picked up my tweet and wrote an article around it.

Twitter has not responded. My account is still suspended. Wow, that just sucks. *sigh*

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-camp-mode-easter-egg-first-look/

But anyway back to my California trip. I learned a little something about controlling range anxiety -- and the fact that I still have a long way to go. I'm anxious already by nature, so I still tend to over-charge my battery at each stop and pay more money than I need to. But here's the thing...

Today, I finally tallied how much I spent on supercharging... in CAD, and it came out to $336.91. I estimated how much it would cost using A Better Route Planner, and converted to CAD, they estimate $308. The difference of around $30 to have a sense of range insurance is a small price to pay. So frankly, I think I did pretty good!

*****

So here are some pictures and videos from my trip. Enjoy.