Summer Trip 2026 Day 11

1 August 2026

Both the Hyundai service manager and my brother strongly suggested I skip driving I-90 to Spokane WA in favor of US 2. Surprisingly, this is a much more direct route so even though it’s almost entirely a 2-lane road, it doesn’t add a huge amount of time to the trip.

The day started off at 69º and cloudy and stayed cool until I was up and over the passes east of Seattle. At that point, I was in sunshine with temps in the 80s. The clouds were pretty low to start with though; here are a couple of shots of hills disappearing into them:

Once things were sunny, I drove through the town of Leavenworth, a spot I’d been told to stop and wander around. I didn’t, for a couple of reasons. First, parking was scarce and what there was required payment. Second, it was a cute little tourist trap town trying to be a bit of Bavaria in Washington State but there were far too many tourists wandering around there for me to be interested in joining them. So on I went!

For rather a long time I was driving along the Columbia River, a beautiful route to drive, and I was able to grab this photo of the water out my side window. The color is just such a relaxing shade of blue.

By starting the day at 100%, I only needed to stop once on the drive itself to charge, and this was after 197 miles. There are 8 new Tesla V4 chargers in Coolee City at a little gas station and convenience store on the edge of nothing. I charged from 38-80% in 19 minutes, adding 40.073 kWh for $16.83. By this point, it was 85º with full sun and a very strong wind (mostly a tailwind for me, thankfully, contributing to a solid 3.8 miles/kWh for this segment).

Yes, that’s a gravel and dirt parking lot with a bit of pavement for the chargers themselves.

Tonight, I’m charging for free at my hotel near the Spokane airport and will be adding 46.893 kWh to go from 48-100%. There is a major wildfire not far north of me so there’s always the worry that I might have to evacuate in the middle of the night, but the forecast is for the winds to remain blowing the direction they are now, or at least if they do shift, they won’t blow the fire in my direction. I could see the plumes of smoke from two hours away, though, as I was driving!

This is the view from my hotel room looking towards the airport (and away from the wildfire):

I’m now 3,632 miles into my trip and my overall efficiency has nudged up a bit to 3.2 miles/kWh, thanks to today’s strong performance. Tomorrow, I continue going east and will be in Butte MT tomorrow night after crossing a timezone.