Over the weekend, our family was all over the place. Jeff took the kids to Boise for the Nike Northwest Regional Cross Country Meet, and I went to Seattle for my sister's baby shower. The Nike meet in Boise was an optional post-season non-school-sponsored meet, so parents were in charge of driving their kids the 5 hours to Boise and any coaches went as parents. So it was perfectly acceptable for me to miss this meet, even though I did experience a good amount of FOMO (fear of missing out) while I was in Seattle. Thankfully Nike had a super sophisticated timing setup which recorded every runner's times at every kilometer and posted them to a live stream online. While I was at the baby shower on Saturday, I had my phone out and one eye on the results as they popped up on the screen. Jeff, Jay, Rose, and Amber left for Boise at 7am on Friday morning (Nov 10th--there was no school that day due to Veteran's Day).
The tricky part about our weekend was transportation. Even though we have two vehicles, our second vehicle is a 2016 Nissan Leaf all-electric car. Since the car is 7 years old, its battery does not have much of a range. It is the perfect in-town commuter car, and we love having it. But driving anywhere that's more than 10 miles from our house is not ideal. Since Seattle is 175 miles from us, I decided to fly instead of drive--the flight takes 64 minutes gate to gate, with only 35 minutes of airtime, and it's relatively affordable, especially when current WA gas prices are factored in (gas is $5/gallon in WA right now).
The Tri Cities Airport in Pasco is only 52 miles from Sunnyside, and when the electric car is fully charged its dashboard boasts an 87 mile range. So I figured I'd be able to drive to Pasco on one charge and then find a place to charge the car before heading home. Jeff helped me find and download an EV charging app to use when I had to charge the car away from home, and we found a charging station 5 miles from the airport. I gathered a down coat, a hat and gloves, and a blanket to use on the drive because using the heater in our electric car drains the battery too fast. I was ready! I headed eastward on highway 82, leaving home at 10am on Friday morning (Nov 10th).
Highway mileage hit our little electric car differently than in town driving, and as I drove along I watched the battery meter tick down at an alarmingly fast rate. As Jeff suggested, I drove at 63 miles per hour--7 mph under the speed limit--to conserve power. Still the battery ticked down. Would I make it? It was an incredibly stressful drive. I managed the stress by listening to my peppiest, most positive pump-up music playlist that I created for running. At long last I pulled into a random car dealership in Pasco and drove around the lot until I found their charging station. Then I had to download a new app and register my contact info and credit card on the app before the machine would even work. At long last I got the charger working. Then it was just a waiting game. I sat in the car for half an hour watching the battery percentage grow while sending Marco Polo messages to pass the time. The high-speed charger got my battery from 22% to 95% in 35 minutes. Not too shabby!
It was crunch time now--I needed to get to the airport and get on my plane! I drove the last 5 miles to the airport, parked, and power walked in to see the longest security line I've ever experienced in the tiny 5-gate Tri Cities Airport. Usually it takes about 4 minutes to get through security, but the line was zigzagging almost all the way to the "20 minutes from here" sign. So I hopped in line and hoped for the best. I made it to my gate and walked straight onto the plane as the second to last person to board. Whew! My clothes were packed a backpack and my personal item was a gift bag with a baby shower gift for Mel.
At the Seattle Airport, I met my Mom--her flight landed a few minutes after mine--and Mel picked us up. Mom and I stayed in an Airbnb around the corner from Mel and Braxton's townhouse, since their place was already bursting with three other house guests (Braxton's family). The weekend was full of sympathetic pregnancy reminiscing and good food. The baby shower was a sweet combination of family, old friends and more recent friends, all gathered to support and love my sweet sister Melody.
Meanwhile at Eagle Creek Park north of Boise, the races were flying! 16 kids from our cross country team went to the meet. Jay, Rose, Amber, and even Jeff ran races. Rose and Amber ran the 3k middle school race. Rose was running strong and fast all week but then caught some kind of stomach bug and barfed the morning of the meet. She toughed out the race and finished in 14:33, but didn't run how she had hoped to run. She was limp and sick for 48 hours after that. Amber dug deep to run a 16:46 3k (almost 2 miles, her longest race ever!) and finished second place in the 3rd/4th grade division! She got a medal and wore it proudly all day long. Jeff texted me the next day and told me that Amber was still wearing her medal. Adorable.
Rose sent me pictures of Amber with her medal, and it was so sweet that the sick big sister took the time and energy to document Amber's triumph when I couldn't be there to do it. I was so happy getting pictures from my family because usually I am the only one who takes pictures and I was dying a little inside thinking this meet would have zero photographic memories. Jay texted me a picture of himself with the Nike elite athlete at the meet, Elise Cranny. Even Jeff, the least-photo-centric guy in our family, sent me a picture of both the high school girls and boys on the starting line. I appreciated their efforts to include me and it soothed my itch to be in two places at once.
Jeff and the kids made the long painful 5 hour drive home from Boise AFTER an entire long day at the meet, and got home around 9:30pm on Saturday night (Nov 11th). My journey home actually ended up taking longer than theirs! I flew home on Sunday night after a bonus day going to church and spending time with my mom and sister. I got to the Seattle airport and through security 3 hours before my flight because Braxton's mom's flight was earlier and we carpooled. The airport and flight were standard and fine, but I arrived in Pasco a little before midnight and it was cold and dark and my car's battery life was questionable. The car battery was at 89% and the temperature was 35 degrees when I left the Pasco airport. I bundled up in the down coat, hat, gloves, and blanket that I had stashed in the front seat because using the heater was not an option. My battery power was already limited. By my calculation, I should have been able to drive all the way home on that 89% battery.
I don't know if it was the cold or what, but I barely made it to Prosser (20 miles from home) before the battery life was below 10% and the car was flashing me dire power warnings. "Come on, just a little further. PLEASE!" I patted the dashboard and exited the highway. I knew there was a Shell charging station in Prosser. But it was nowhere to be found at the Shell gas station. I drove all around the lot and nada, and it wasn't showing up in the charging app I had. A regular Google search led me across the street behind a Chevron gas station, where I found the Shell charging port at last. WHY the Shell charging port was behind the Chevron gas station, I will never know. Our country's infrastructure for electric cars needs some major work. Posting signs to inform drivers where charging stations are located would be a good first step.
For some reason I had to download yet another EV charging app to make the charging port work. By this point it was after midnight, and I was freezing, exhausted, and mad. I don't usually get angry when travel plans go awry, because that's the nature of travel: we are at the mercy of so many variables when we travel, it makes no sense to get mad about it. But I was a mere 20 miles from home and it was absolutely ridiculous that the two other charging apps that I had on my phone weren't working. And the charging port was tucked away behind the gas station in a weird place and I was stressed from almost not making it there in the first place. Ugh. I let the car charge halfway and then unplugged and drove home. To cap off the night, when I pulled up to our garage and went to plug in the car's charging cord, it wouldn't reach the car. I had to get back into the car, turn it back on, and pull up another 5 inches so I could charge the blasted vehicle. I was so MAD and tired, this last straw about broke my back. It was 1:00am. I went inside and smelled that my family had some stinky bacon or sausage for dinner. More smoke came out of my ears. GAG. I changed into my pajamas and took about half an hour to warm up enough to fall asleep. My Monday morning pre-seminary alarm clock went off far too soon.
It was a FUN happy weekend! As I told Mel, my travel issues did not detract from the joy of being with her for the baby shower. I love my family. Thankfully this time of situation where Jeff and I both need a long-range vehicle is so rare that this was the first time it has ever happened, because I have vowed never to drive Jeff's electric car more than 10 miles from home ever again.
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1 comment:
You are so pretty! It doesn’t matter if it’s a selfie or a staged photo — you always look great!💗
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