Drive Home Day 2 (Saturday)

After 7 hours of sleep, we woke up in Mount Shasta. It was a cold night and there was snow on the peaks of Mt. Shasta. The kids got a king sized bed again, which works for them (at least better than a queen sized bed). We had breakfast in the hotel. Amelia made most of us waffles and then Melissa spilled juice on her! Haha – nice way to start the day!

Driving out we saw Mount Shasta. It had a beautiful cloud cap on top of it. I looked it up, it is a lenticular cloud and many high mountains have them. I think they call it the “Mt. Shasta Aura” here. Learn something new every day J!

Good bye California – we will miss you! We have now moved to Oregon and our next stop was Grants Pass. I have been admiring the beautiful fall colours of Oregon since we entered the state. The mountains here are similar to ours, but they have more vibrant reds and they have maple trees. Crazy that they have maple trees in Oregon, but we don’t have them in Alberta – especially since it is on our flag ;-)! I am loving the reds of the maple trees!

At Grants Pass we walked over to McDonalds for Ice Cream. The kids love stopping for ice cream (who wouldn’t)! It was very yummy! We looked for a Starbucks, but there was only one in the Safeway here so we decided to wait until our next stop to get a tea. It is sunny here – I am loving the sun for a little bit longer!

Still in the mountains, we head down to Springfield. It was so warm when we reached Springfield it was 20 C! Awesome! With the sun and no rain, we did awesome on energy consumption, we almost matched the estimate range line exactly! Well done Mike! It was so funny – Mike did an exit shot from the chargers when we were done and he ran over the pylon! It was super funny – check out the video ;-)! After the pylon incident, we went in search of a Starbucks, and it was right around the corner. Hello Chai Latte!

Driving down to Woodburn and full of tea we had to make a quick pit stop for a pee break. Thankfully there is lots of places to stop here on the I5.

When we reached Woodburn, Mike had a conference call so we waited there and charged to full to continue. This is the charger where we ate at Elmer’s last time. They liked this place a lot because they got to have breakfast for dinner. It was only 4:00 pm so we are going to push forward and have dinner at Centralia when we are more hungry.

As we drove through Portland on our way to Centralia, we ended up in the wrong lane and took a wrong turn. This got us smack dab in the middle of Portland. It is very beautiful and it gave us an opportunity to go over some of their huge bridges to get back to the interstate. We also saw that their stadium was coloured red/white and blue to remember those who died in Paris. Now that we are back on the I5, we are back on target.

Energy consumption has been a breeze today. We have sailed into each location with lots of energy to spare. The warm weather and no rain has made a huge difference – but that is about to change. On the way to Centralia, we found light rain, which did slightly affect our range.

It was dark and getting colder as we pulled into Centralia. We must be getting tired and in need of food and Mike pulled into a one-way street when we were looking for the chargers. We got out of there before it got too dicey so it was actually pretty funny! We better eat so we think straight! Everyone was hungry and the kids wanted to have a breakfast dinner, so we went to Denny’s.

The kids were so giddy when we went to dinner! They were being totally goofy! Melissa was pretending she was a Star Wars Cheerleader. She made up a cheer, which was “peew, peew, whoosh, grr!”, complete with actions. It was hilarious. I think everyone is punch drunk from spending so much time cooped up in the car!

When we got back to the car, the red Tesla from Woodburn was charging. They must be headed our way.

As we left Centralia, it started pouring rain!   It is lucky we got a full charge in Centralia because within minutes the rain and cold caused our Range Estimator to reduce its estimation from getting to Burlington with 26% charge remaining to getting there with -5% remaining. This was a bit concerning since we were only 15 minutes or so into our leg of the trip and had two hours to go! If it kept going down that fast, we will never make it!

I checked the weather to find that Washington had a flood advisory in affect for this evening, which means heavy rains until Burlington. Mike adjusted his speed to compensate and before we got to Seattle (which by the way also had a bridge lit up in red, white and blue for Paris), he had conserved enough energy to give us 15% at our destination. I guess I won’t have to push again today! We will have to take this into consideration for the next few legs of the trip and into Canada as it looks like snow.

As we pulled into Burlington, we could see a lit up white cross high above town. It was beautiful so I looked up what it was. Apparently it was put in after a little boy died from the fall from a tree in the 1950’s/60’s. They light it up now at request when someone dies and the family pays a small fee to honour their loved ones. I am sure it is lit up today to remember those who passed away in Paris yesterday. It is very beautiful.

Everyone except Mike and I were sleeping as we pulled into Burlington.   We were hoping to be in Hope by 12:00 am, but it looks like due to the weather it will be a bit later. We charged at for 55 minutes (longer than we had originally planned to compensate for the weather) and then we headed out. Next stop – Hope, BC Canada. One more charger closer to home!

We made it to the border at about 12:30 am. When we got there, the border crossing guard asked us the usual questions. When we told her we had two more kids in the back, she had us open the back hatch to see them. The cold air and the border crossing guard staring at them was a rude awakening for Amelia and Lissa for sure! Thankfully crossing the border only took 3-5 minutes and was relatively painless. It is always a stressful thing to cross the border – by plane or by car.

It seemed to take forever to get from the border to Hope, mostly because this is the last part of the drive for the night. I always thought the border was right in Hope, but it is more like an hour away. Needless to say it didn’t take us that long to get there.

It was still pouring rain when we got to the hotel. Mike dropped us off and he took the car to the super charger while we got ready for bed. We stayed at the same hotel that we were at our first night, the one that looked like an old lady’s spare room according to Amelia. Tonight though, we got the room be booked – the family room. It was huge – would easily sleep 8 people comfortably. It also had a dining room, kitchen and bathroom. It was clean, but also looked very old fashioned. It doesn’t matter – it is a room and we need sleep!

Checking the BC road cameras, we noticed that there is snow throughout the mountains.   I think tomorrow will be slow going, but hopefully the roads will be cleared by then!

So day two of our road trip home is complete. One more to go!