High altitude adventures crossing 8k

Generally mountain driving and bev seem mutually exclusive.

Based on my calculations in an earlier post going all the way to my property in the mountains, at a cool 5000 ft up, would skim 5 kWh just to get up there.

And then you add the horizontal distance: 70 miles.

But I haven't been there in 3 months so the need to check that my humble shed and its contents weren't vendalized become pressing. And as this 3 days weekend unfolded I finally decided to be foolish enough to try the feat.

First I checked what stations were available and found out a grand total of 6. 5 in Ramona and 1 in Santa Isabel. Probably the blink network so I grabbed a code at www.blinkcode.com just to be ready.

Initially I aimed for Santa Isabel as it was the closest but a lookup on blink's site showed nada there so I redirected my trajectory to go to Ramona first.

The drive was similar to when I went to San Diego but then I followed the 78 starting at Escondido.








I was happily surprised to arrive in Ramona with 33 miles to spare in spite of the twistes and high grade to get there.

One of the 3 blink stations seemed to work while the other 2 had a malfunctioning touch screen. Scary enough to make me sweat bullets and I was very happy when 5 kW started to be pumped in my i3.


Then I saw the time it would take to top it off...


I have never really spent any time in Ramona. For years and years it was just a town I would quickly pass through. Not anymore.

I would have to visit. Lucky for me tyre was also a Starbucks across the stations.

So I waited a few hours to top it off and off I went to Julian.

The ordeal was brutal... at least 45% of the battery went into the 4000+ ft of elevation difference over 27 miles...









In Santa Isabel the Blink stations were, for a lack of better word, dead. Blank screens over beautiful designs.

I am glad I didn't trust the chargepoint site.

And I made it to my property!


The car is actually perfect for the twisties and I don't care anymore about being slow behind someone... as the cruise control just lets me latch onto them and let them do the driving for me and relax.

I drank some beer and talked to my neighbors who wondered why I was a stranger so long, posted a few no trespassing signs and left there the gas tank I brought in.

Yes I had to buy some black goomp from the ground for the generator I tried to revive. It needs some work but it can be a last ditch resort way to pump some watts in this backcountry.


I also used the little gadget given to me by the dealer to recharge my cell.



On the way back I added another couple of hours at the same station and off I went back home with about 20 miles to spare.

Mission accomplished... the i3 can do everything my gasoline powered series 1 did, although with some time leeway.

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