Logistics

Buffalo Bill and New Year’s Resolutions

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Happy New Year! This injured bald eagle, Jade, resides at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming, which is also home to the museums of Annie Oakley & Buffalo Bill, Cody Firearms, Draper Natural History, Plains Indian & Whitney Western Art. While showmanship seems a bit silly to me, I love stories of exploration and adventure. My favorite museum was the Plains Indian, but there are enough exhibits to interest folks for days. While not an affiliated park or world heritage site, this is an exceptional place to visit in the American West. 

I’m feeling like a caged bird this winter, resting up at home and trying to figure out my next steps. Where can I go next? Great Lakes? Northeast? Florida? Alaska? Looking back, I visited over 1/2 of the US parks in 2022, including these favorites. Last year, I visited another 1/4 of the parks, including more favorites, and finished four regions: DC, Mid-Atlantic, Southwest and Rocky Mountain. Many of the remaining US parks are either difficult, expensive or impossible to reach in my electric car, so expect fewer US park visits this year and more world heritage sites. 

Every Monday I plan to post one visit to a world heritage, national park, or similarly important site. Doing so will require me to revisit every region, to go beyond the reach of superchargers, to cross borders and even travel by small boat. On Thursdays, I plan to post more eclectically on zero carbon travel, the climate crisis and related topics.

So, here are my top 3 New Year’s resolutions. 

  • Complete visits to American Concentration Camps
  • Visit World Heritage Sites in Mexico and Canada
  • Complete the North Atlantic & Midwest regions

Logistical challenges will undoubtedly upset some of my plans, but every visit is a new adventure. Thanks for reading, wish me luck and I wish you a Happy New Year! 

Progress Report

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  • 95,000 miles traveled in locust-covered, long range electric vehicle above
  • 3rd set of tires, 2nd windshield, and 1 speeding ticket
  • 48 states visited
  • 30 states completed all national park units
  • 3 of 9 regions completed: Mid-Atlantic, National Capital & Southwest
  • 42 of 63 national parks visited
  • 25 of 25 battlefields & military parks visited: e.g. Revolutionary War
  • 40 of 42 memorials visited
  • 71 of 75 historic sites
  • 55 of 62 historical parks (broader than historic sites)
  • 77 of 84 monuments
  • 48 of 73 recreational areas, reserves, rivers and others
  • 24 of 31 world heritage sites in USA, plus 5 in Canada

I spent $9,000 on charging, over 85% at superchargers. Heavy use of superchargers beyond the recommended daily limit has also reduced my battery capacity by 9%. Most electric car drivers charge overnight at home, so their costs are far lower. I should have cut costs with more free chargers and better route planning, but I drive capriciously, rushing around depending on weather and my curiosity. Like my mileage, my charging cost excludes borrowing an S when my 3 was in the shop and includes driving to visit family. A comparably priced new pickup truck for the same distance would have cost at least $16,000 for gas, based on average mpg and $/ gallon, more if they carried a boat or a bike like I do.

In September I plan to post a few of the affiliated trails I’ve stopped along, more west coast parks, a couple others I still need to edit, and hopefully some more Rocky Mountain parks from the road. Posting schedule will slow down in Q4 but each week will include a national park. Stay tuned for more adventures!

What About Charging?

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It’s easier than you may think. Does your car tell you when you’re about to drive too far from the nearest gas station? Does it include fuel stops in your itinerary automatically, or let you know the prices before you decide where to fuel up? When was the last time you filled up for free? Can you fuel up overnight while staying at Mesa Verde, in a campground, while eating a burger, drinking a white mocha or watching the base jumpers fly off the bridge into the Snake River Gorge in Twin Falls, Idaho, above?

I have only had a few tricky charging situations so far. One was at the Dairy Queen in Needles, California, where every time the owner updates his seasonal specials, his sign truck blocks 3 of the 4 chargers for much of the day. I asked him why he didn’t tell Tesla in advance, so that the cars would route drivers to a different charger, but that never occurred to him. I also suggested that he could park the truck on the other side of the sign and only block 2 of 12 gas pumps, and he looked at me like I was crazy. I decided not to buy any ice cream while waiting.

Recently, I was unable to contact the owner of a JuiceBox charger in Terlingua, Texas, so I just charged up a little for free. One more tricky situation was at the supercharger in Lamar, Colorado, where the town was celebrating some event and the street was temporarily blocked off. But while I was waiting, a town councilwoman came up to offer me BBQ and asked if I was enjoying the live band. I had a beer to help me survive the wait.

Like any vehicle, you can go further if you slow down or turn off heating/cooling and open the windows. To extend my range while traveling in remote areas, I use the free PlugShare App to scout out my charging options and use my adapters (standard J1772, RV 50v, RV 30v, and rarely CCS). The trick is to remember that you need to sleep somewhere on a long road trip, so just find a campground with electricity or a hotel near a slow charger and plug in over night. Tesla destination chargers can be found in some spectacular areas, and they’re often free to hotel guests. [No, I’m not compensated by Tesla in any way].

A few folks quibble that this is not entirely “zero carbon” travel, but it’s not my fault if the grid isn’t fully renewable yet. The sooner we all switch to electric vehicles, the sooner fossil fuel goes extinct. My vehicle doesn’t burn carbon, and I can’t help exhaling carbon dioxide. And to clarify my rules, I have two different goals: 1) to travel to as many places as I can without burning carbon and 2) to enjoy those places, which sometimes involves burning a little bit of carbon to get around the parks.

Most folks seem to understand that driving EV’s save money compared to gas, but I don’t think people fully appreciate the difference. While I was on my way to the restroom, a guy asked me how much it cost to fill up, so I told him usually less than $20. He said, “just like my truck”, but I know his truck costs $200 to fill up at those gas prices. And both vehicles have comparable range. Math isn’t that hard.

I tried to convince the rangers at Death Valley to do more to encourage visitors to switch to EV’s, but they said that they don’t want to force people to buy “expensive vehicles”. A $100,000 5th Wheel or $200,000 Class A rig only goes a mile or two per dollar of fuel. I go at least ten times that, over 15 miles per dollar. It’s very easy to save $10,000 in fuel costs per year switching to an EV, and even more if you go on long road trips, find free charging or use solar to recharge at home.

But the real reason to switch to EV’s is to save life on Earth. Why wait?

More Adventures This Year!

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Happy New Year! Here’s an update: About ZCT. So much for the “only Fridays” posting idea. The photo is at Paradise Point County Park, just south of Santa Cruz, CA, where I visited with my kids around Christmas. I’ve got a few more posts from the southeast to catch up on, but I’ve now visited over 250 of the 423 national park units in every region in the US. To reach the next level, I need to concentrate on paddling, go back to Virginia, hit more of the big name parks and try to figure out how to drive my EV to Alaska.

— Ned

Switching to Friday Posts until Spring

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My heroes camping in Yosemite remind me that nothing lasts forever. The colder weather, late season hurricanes, holidays and life mean that I can’t keep up this pace of daily posts, especially since some of the remaining units will require longer trips to complete. I’ll try posting on Fridays for now. With that in mind, here’s a shot of the last lunar eclipse outside my favorite hotel in Gallup.

Map of Regions

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The National Parks Passport (which National Park Travelers Club members use to save visit stamps) divides the units into nine self-explanatory regions. The club has useful information for trip planning, and I log my park visits there too. The US Department of the Interior has reorganized their park unit regions a few times into something less useful for me, so I still use the map above to organize the site geographically. And the NPTC often does a better job keeping their park unit information completely up to date, compared with the NPS.

I visited all of the lower 48 states in my electric car in the last two years and completed all units in 35 states. Every state has at least one national park unit. If you want to see my visits in your state, click the ‘Regions’ menu above and explore the sub-menus for each state.

My first region completed was National Capital with 23 units, then Southwest with 42, Mid-Atlantic with 56, Rocky Mountain with 41, Midwest with 47 and North Atlantic with 44. Each of those links takes you to a summary of my park visits there.

That leaves three extremely challenging regions to complete. The Western region includes Hawaii. The Pacific Northwest has Alaska. And the Southeast includes US territories in the Caribbean.

As I mentioned in my post on Cumberland Gap, this blog is partly an object lesson to show that traveling in an EV is a great way to visit our national parks. I can travel hundreds of miles per day, stopping briefly to charge, use the restroom and eat, and filling up costs me a fraction of my Prius. I use a CCS and a few RV plug adapters on rare occasions when they’re more convenient than a Supercharger, and I find charging locations with the PlugShare app. When I stay in state park campgrounds, I charge my car overnight without paying extra. Even if I were more concerned with my money than our climate, I would travel this way. And I love driving my Tesla.

I’ve only had range or charging trouble twice. Once in Kansas, I could not reach a park before closing due to poor planning on where to charge, but when I returned, Tesla had opened a new Supercharger nearby. (The car tells me whenever I’m heading out of range from the nearest Supercharger). Another time, the owner of the Dairy Queen in Needles California was blocking 3 out of 4 chargers all day with a truck, because he wanted to change the seasonal advertising on his sign. I called Tesla to let them know, which is what he should have done in advance. I’m not going to say traveling cross-country by EV is idiot proof, but I can do it, so it kinda is.

Delay due to fire

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Yes, I’ve temporarily moved back in with my Mom.

Why? Well, when I went in early to pick up my Tesla from the shop, there were emergency vehicles on site due to a battery fire.

The good news is that I’ve had a wonderful time here, swimming, eating seafood and relaxing. I’m restricted to the area until Tesla releases my car (not damaged). Fortunately, New Bedford (above) has the best scallops in the world.

Hope to be heading back to California shortly, with a few more posts along the way.

Boy, it’s hot

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So, my car is getting a tune-up, new tires and some new parts. Driving over 30,000 miles on some very rough roads has done some damage. Also, it’s really hot everywhere. Fortunately, my Mom is letting me stay in the northeast near the coast until I can get back on the road. After over 150 park units, it’s time to pause the blog for a couple weeks. Ciao.

Well, it’s been 9 years, time for post #2

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To be fair, I have been busy with life, work, raising kids, etc. Now, it’s finally time to focus on something bigger.

As I write, several western states are fighting wildfires, red tide has killed a swath of marine life in Florida, methane is bubbling up from defrosting “permafrost” in Siberia, Tanzania has swarms of locusts, Germany and China are recovering from massive floods, and Australia stopped the UNESCO warning that the Great Barrier Reef is in danger.

All people should care about the climate crisis, because we only have this one world to share with all other living things. For me, it feels more personal, because I’ve traveled to all those places to see wildlife. So, it breaks my heart when I learn that the Great Barrier Reef (where I got PADI certified) has lost over half the coral since I visited. I still remember how beautiful it was, and I grieve for my kids and all in the future that it’s disappearing right now.

I understand how normal living distracts us, and how difficult and expensive it is to make changes. But what are we doing? Extinctions and collapsed ecosystems are permanent, and our survival is affected as the abundance of life diminishes. Why aren’t we changing faster?

I’m committed to changing how I travel. And in this blog, I’ll describe what I do differently now, and why. We’re going to discuss the issues, try to understand, and change. I may be older now, but I’m wiser too. And I know that time’s wasting, so my next post will be quicker, I promise.

No, I’m not going to show the year.