My daughter needed me to stay in San Francisco an extra week to help out with the children, so my wife flew back on her own. This meant another solo drive back to Boulder, Colorado. I was quite confident, however, as I did this same drive in 2019, PlugShare showed that the charger in Winnemucca had been fixed, and there were still those two new chargers at key points along the way to make my life easier. Any of you who’ve read a book or seen a movie might suspect that this foreshadows trouble. You think you’re so damn smart...

I left San Francisco early on a Saturday morning, hoping to get to Boulder sometime Monday.

The first segment to Dutch Flat, CA was mostly uneventful. The smoke from the fires was mostly gone, and the traffic was relatively light, so the drive was pretty easy. The charging station in Dutch Flat is between a gas station/super market and a large parking lot for semi-trucks. It took a couple of attempts to get charging working, but once it did, it went smoothly. I sat in my car enjoying a marvelously juicy mango, and more than half a dozen curious looks from truck drivers walking from their rigs to the store and back. I’m guessing the combination of my electric car and enthusiasm for tropical fruit was quite the novelty. After just over an hour of charging, I was ready to drive to Fernley, NV.

I arrived at the charging station in Fernley, NV after less than two hours of completely unremarkable driving. I made a banana pudding and ate a proper breakfast in my car. I’m trying not to complain about the aesthetic of so many of these chargers being in Walmart parking lots. About 45 minutes later, I was ready for Winnemucca to redeem itself with the newly fixed charger. Close to half of the drive was in a surprising amount of fog -- particularly for an afternoon in the 60’s.

Almost exactly two hours of driving later, I arrived in my old nemesis: Winnemucca. The first sign of trouble was that the credit card reader seemed to reject both of my credit cards. I called Electrify America and spent more than a half hour working with their rep on the phone as they tried several strategies to get it working (including rebooting the station, which. When it was clear that charging was a hopeless dream, I actually drove by our friends at the auto shop, but they were closed on this Saturday. I then resigned myself to having to stay the night. I was encouraged to see that the next fast charging station was about 60 miles to the east, and so was hopeful that an overnight charge, even at the painfully slow rate at 120V would give me the range I needed to get to the next station. I found a hotel with decent COVID protocol, and looked for an outlet I could plug into. I found two, both of which would require parking in a fire lane. I then found a third outlet adjacent to a handicapped parking space. With approval from the front desk (they promised I wouldn’t be towed and to contact me if the space was needed), I parked there and plugged in for the night.

The next morning, I found that the 15 1/2 hours of charge had given me just over 30% increase in battery, with a range increase of 68 miles. This leg would be the first <> of subfreezing temperatures and the potential impact on range.

I made it to the Colt Casino (very generous to call it a casino -- like calling our living room an “arena” when we do a house concert) in Battle Mountain, NV. I was pleasantly surprised that the battery seemed unfazed by the cold. My body was not so unperturbed, however, as it was 28<> and very windy, and the charging station was exposed. I charged enough to comfortably get to Elko, hoping that it would be warmer and knowing it was less exposed.

Fate would be cruel on this day as, for the first time in now four visits to the Elko charging station, I experienced an almost identical fiasco to Winnemucca the day before. Once again, the fine representative from Electrify America tried every trick at their disposal to get the charging station working, but once again, it was not to be. While I was disappointed, I was hot without hope, as there was a level two charging station in Elko. It would mean a much slower charge, and with West Wendover also having only level two charging, a long day before stopping near Salt Lake City. Two and a half hours later, the battery was only up to 34% and the range to 58 miles (an increase in 25% and 27 miles). As West Wendover was over 100 miles away, I decided to just slow charge to completion, and stay the night in Elko.

I wanted to get an early start the next morning, to allow some extra time for yet another level two charge in West Wendover. As I set off, the sun was not yet up, and it was a frigid 8<>. At least I would be driving towards the sun. From what I read, the Nissan Leaf has a heating system for the battery to keep it warm enough to function well when the outside temperature gets too cold. This system was certainly tested as along the way, as the temperature dropped to -5. I was very pleased that even sub-zero weather didn’t seem to have an impact on battery range. I had to run the defroster periodically, but sparingly, as the more battery I had when I arrived in West Wendover, the less time I’d have to spend slow charging. When I arrived in West Wendover, the temperature was up to 28<>, not quite tropical, but certainly tolerable. It was in West Wendover that I got the best news of this trip: They fast charging station was now operational. Suddenly my expected 3-4 hour charge would be closer to an hour. The charge was quick, and I was on my way to Tooele, UT.

This leg was relatively smooth, with the exception of my range getting down to 12 mile buffer. I charged at the now familiar Maverick station just off I80 about 8 miles north of Tooele. Next stop: the new fast charging station in Price, UT.

I arrived in Price with a comfortable 16% battery and 43 miles of range. The new charging station is right in the center of town at the Price city offices, and the charge is free! I charged to 90% battery, and what showed as 227 miles of range. On the 2019 trip, this leg (legs, actually as this is where things got dicey see <here>) used 73% of the battery, so 90% felt like it left lots of extra margin. As Price has an elevation of 5627 feet and Grand Junction is 4583, this would also be the largest drop in elevation on the trip East, so things looked good, so I was confident I wouldn’t again get stuck overnight plugged in to a gas station outlet again -- on to Grand Junction!

On the trip out to San Francisco, I was able to comfortably wear shorts and sleeveless shirts the whole drive. But knowing that with quarantine for COVID-19 factored in, it was possibly going to be close to November by the time I got home, I had packed a coat and some long pants for potentially chilly weather -- I was not prepared for the serious cold I was experiencing. This is by way of illustrating as to feeling like I should not turn the heater on when my mileage appeared to.

I was actually looking forward to this leg. The year before, I had driven this leg after dark, with a cataract that was distorting the vision in my left eye to an alarming degree. Here is a graphic I put together at the time that matched what I was seeing.

So with the battery seemingly performing well in the cold, having an extra buffer compared to the year before, driving in daylight, and I had stereoscopic vision -- I was feeling pretty good!

Something happened that I can’t completely explain. It wasn’t immediately clear that there was a problem. Had it been, I could have braved the cold and tapped off with a quick charge in Green River, UT (about half-way between Price and Grand Junction). But as quickly that the range was dropping quicker than it should have. I started to try to calculate the closest charge in Grand Junction (vs. the one nearest my hotel). But with the range dropping precipitasely, I became convinced that I wouldn’t even make that. I stopped at the first Grand Junction exit. My range had stopped showing miles and was just showing dashes at this point. And the percentage charge on my battery had joined the dashes club.

By now the sun had gone down and the temperature was dropping, and the wind was picking up.

The place I had stopped was a gas station with a grocery store and fast food inside. I walked around the perimeter looking for a 120V outlet to get the charge for the 8 miles to my hotel. When I had just about given up, Noticed that there was one behind the cooler where they sold ice. I plugged my car into the second outlet, but there was no power. I tried to unplug the ice machine, but it was anchored in some way I couldn’t determine.

So, here I was having gone several miles since the range display would have gone to 0, and also since the battery percentage had gone from 1% to dashes.

Upon further investigation, I found that there was I was one mile from a level two charging station. All I had to do was point my EV, with no range or battery, directly away from civilization, and drive it one mile. If I didn’t make it, at least I had the comfort of knowing that