Covid-19 Escapes & Trip Report Updates–Why So Silent

By Paul Gipe

It dawned on me after we’d returned from another 200-mile Covid-19 Escape that I hadn’t written a trip report in some time.

Indeed, my last trip report was in October 2020 when I reported on a new DCFC station in a remote part of the Mojave Desert. See Inyokern DCFC Station Finally Live–Opens Eastern Kern County to EVs.

Why I’ve been so silent is simple. 200-mile round trip adventures in the Bolt have just become routine. We do it every week. Whether north, south, east, or west we just charge up the night before, pack our lunch, load our hiking gear and take off.

The 250-mile range of the Bolt makes this a snap even after including a steep climb out of the San Joaquin Valley. On those occasions where we need a few extra kWh as a cushion to arrive home without inducing any range anxiety, we simply charge along the road.

Antelope Valley from the summit of Saddleback Butte, Calif.

Charging on the road has become remarkably easier for non-Tesla EVs in the past year. Several new DCFC stations have opened. For example, that single-kiosk station on the Mojave Desert I wrote about in October has been joined with a station at Brady’s nearby on Hwy 395.

I’ve summarized where we’ve driven and the hikes we’ve taken during the past year in Pandemic Peregrinations in an EV. This was for a program Nancy and I gave to the local chapter of the Sierra Club. See Pandemic Peregrinations or How We Escaped Lockdown.

Soda Lake on the Carrizo Plains National Monument.

It’s not that we’ve stopped having adventures in our Bolt, we haven’t, but I am not writing about them. In many cases now, I don’t even bother range planning. (Shocking, to me too when I think about it.) I know the Bolt and what it’s capable of so I don’t need to load A Better Routeplanner. We just go.

Sure, I am still a nerd. I have a spreadsheet listing all the places we’ve been. Here’s what we’ve done since my last trip report.

Looking over that list, some of those trips are noteworthy for any sedan let alone an EV. Some of those deserve a trip report on their on. See below.