We had this great idea to rent a Tesla and go visit a bunch of caves for spring break. The original plan was to go to LA and go to Universal Studios so we could compare that one to the Florida one, but the crowd calenders were on red for the whole week and we didn't want to be in huge crowds. The cave trip ended up being fantastic except for the Tesla.
We picked up the car with 92% battery on Wednesday morning, March 16th. Our first stop was Colossal Cave in Vail, AZ. We had done some research (obviously not enough) on driving a Tesla on a roadtrip and according to the Tesla website (liars!) we were good to go with just a supercharge in El Paso.
By the time we drove like 40 minutes across town to the cave, the battery was down around 70%. OK. concerning, but let's go see this cave. 
We had a guided tour with a group and it was great.
Our next stop was Bisbee. We had a 3:00 reservation for the copper mine tour. As we drove there it became apparent that we weren't going to make it and we were going to need to charge WAY sooner than El Paso (liars!!!!). We found a level 2 charging station in Tombstone and charged for like an hour which gave us just enough to get to Bisbee.
The whole way there I was researching where we could charge in Bisbee. Turns out there are two options......a level two at a hotel that you can't use unless you are a guest, and a level 2 on the street in front of someone's home. The homeowner bought it and put it there so that people with electric cars can come to Bisbee, otherwise you are totally out of luck.
Thank goodness no one was using that charger and no one was parked in front of it. After a lot of driving around to find it and trying to figure out how to use it, we plugged in and left it for 9 hours to get a full charge.
We walked about a mile through town to get to the mine.
We look fairly happy considering the trauma of the Tesla.
The tour itself was a lot of fun, but both Michael and I were at max stress about the car.
After the tour we walked to dinner, then went to check into the hotel. Once we got the kids settled in the room Michael and I walked back to the car so we could drive it to the hotel.
The hotel ended up being lovely and we had no time to actually enjoy it. We were exhausted from the day and knew we needed an early start to spend the day charging the car. Side note: never drive a Tesla on a road trip. Especially in a dead zone like New Mexico.
Elliott's 10 year 3 month photo in the room that night.
The room before we left on Thursday.
It was St. Patrick's Day and I remembered to wear green. I also didn't drink enough of the complimentary bottle of wine that came with the room, so i took it with us.
Oh, I guess Michael remembered green too. The kids did not.
So, we spend the whole day on Thursday driving and charging. Each charge was about 40 min to an hour and we had to drive significantly out of our way to get to chargers. It was awful. We charged in Wilcox, AZ then Deming, NM then El Paso, TX, then Van Horn, TX. What should have been a 7 hour trip took us 13+ hours.
As we were driving from Van Horn to Carlsbad the Tesla was telling us that we weren't going to make it and that we needed to stop and charge. The problem is that there was no where to charge. No where. We rolled into Carlsbad at 11:00 pm with about 12% battery. We expected to plug in at the hotel, but that was a lie. There was nowhere to charge, even though the app we were using said there was. Sooooooo.........back to the drawing board.
Last year there was a go fund me campaign to put a level 2 charger in Carlsbad. It was literally crowdsourced because so many people were getting stuck in the city when their cars died. Around midnight Michael drove across town to park the damn car into the level 2 in the parking lot of a McDonald's. The incredibly kind clerk from the hotel drove me over there and we picked up Michael and brought him back. Then, after a terrible night of sleep because we were both so stressed, the same clerk drove Michael back at 6 am to get the car.
This was our hotel in Carlsbad. No charger.
Up next: a whole bunch of puke, Carlsbad Caverns, more charging the Tesla.
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