This day was our last full day in the park. We were scheduled to leave our campsite by noon. The clouds to the west made hiking look like a pretty iffy situation, so we decided to see if Trail Ridge Road he been opened completely. When we turned the corner at Rainbow Curve Overlook, we fully expected the road to be closed, but the gate was open and the road looked dry! Another RMNP tradition for us was going to happen. We decided to go much farther than the Alpine Visitor Center. We were going to the town of Grand Lake for breakfast!
I had been telling Bonnie about seeing the road right after it had been opened, back when I was in elementary school. There were tall walls of snow next to the road, much taller than the vehicles driving next to them.
The photo below not only gives you a perspective on the size of the job, clearing snow from the road is. There are some hairpin turns which are sheer drops. The drivers of the snow plows have only long poles, that stick up out of the snow, to guide them.
When we reached the snowplowed areas, the weather, albeit cool, was nice. However, as can be seen in the previous photo, the weather to the west looked ominous. Once we arrived at Grand Lake, the weather was nice and sunny, so we enjoyed breakfast tacos outdoors.
The weather along Trail Ridge Road, on the way back from Grand Lake, had deteriorated significantly.
Regen impact
The distance from our parking spot in Grand Lake to our campsite in Glacier Basin was 48.4 miles. How would the strain of climbing and the regeneration, during descent affect our range? Our remaining range was 112 miles and at the end of the drive, we had 70 miles of range remaining. We used 42 miles of range to travel 48 miles. In other words, the ascent and descent caused our range to be impacted as if we were on level pavement (or going slightly downhill). The elevation of Grand Lake is 8,439 feet above sea level and our campground is 8,500 feet above sea level. The highest point along Trail Ridge Road is at an elevation of 12,183 feet. The range measurements were made going from Grand Lake to. our Glacier Basin campsite.
By the way, if you’re tiring of Estes Park’s traffic and commercialism, check out Grand Lake. It was a much slower pace and has an excellent lake for water sports.
Once we got back to camp, we decided to have dinner in town at a pizza truck Bonnie had read about. Its name is Manjia Mangia Pizzeria and the folks in that truck make delicious pizzas.
The bad weather bypassed Estes Park, so dining outdoors was a definite must for us and the truck was parked next to Avante Garde Aleworks a brewer of wonderful beers. Beer? Pizza? Nice evening weather? What more could we ask for?
Live music.
Yes, as we were sipping our beers and dining on great pizza, a musician started setting up his equipment. We decided right then, we wanted to hang out and enjoy everything. However, I wanted to recharge our EV so it wouldn’t need to be done before leaving town the next day. Back I went to the Tesla Superchargers located behind the Stanley Hotel. I left Bonnie at Avanti grade to keep our seats and table. As charging was reaching an end, Bonnie texted me:
I was wanting to get back but the charging had not finished. Who cares. I had more than enough to make it to Denver on the charge the car had, so I stopped charging and got ready to leave. Then I saw a Ford F-150 Lightning pull up to the chargers. His truck pulled up the the tire stops and the driver got out, grabbed the charging cable and pulled it to the truck’s charge port.
It didn’t reach, so he got back in the truck and tried again. Same result. The he tried pulling up against the curb, as he approached the charger, allowing his truck to get past the wheel stops. As I watched, he got out of the truck with a rectangular cloth case. He opened the case and it contained a selection of charger plug adapters. He pulled out the Tesla-to-CCS adapter and plugged his truck in. Something still appeared to be an issue, but I had to get back to Bonnie, Beer and music. As I passed behind the bed of the truck, I glanced over and spotted the truck’s Texas license plate.
Dang. I couldn’t leave a fellow Texan struggling.
I got out and asked the driver if he was having a problem. He said he couldn’t get the Tesla app to start the charging session. Not knowing if this particular bank was accepting non-Tesla vehicles, I asked him if he knew there were chargers in town specifically for his truck. He had been to the Estes Park Visitor Center, which had ChargePoint chargers, but he said the connector would not work with his truck. I had checked out the ChargePoint setup earlier, so I knew it had CCS and Chademo plugs. He had the PlugShare app, so we looked at the listing for the ChargePoint chargers, which listed the port types. I explained that he had probably pulled out a Chademo plug, not realizing that each charger had multiple charge ports.
He decided to head back to the ChargePoint chargers, where he would not need an adapter or to determine if this particular Tesla charger was available to non-Tesla vehicles.
Mission accomplished. I headed back to Bonnie and we enjoyed a laid back evening of pizza, beer and music. It was wonderful.
