Long Trip

On March 18th of 2022 we left mid-west Michigan at about 6:30 PM EST. We drove to southern California with one stopover and arrived at approximately 9:30 PM CST. I will leave a brief, but somewhat detailed account of our trip. We left SoCal on March 22nd about 8:30 AM and arrived home in Michigan at 12:10 AM on Thursday March 24th. We went to SoCal to pick up two Saint Bernard puppies that my daughter had acquired for us.

We took I80 on the trip out going through Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and finally California. The trip was approximately 2300 miles. On the way out, we had to pull over in Iowa and let the battery charge after getting a notice from the system. This only took a few minutes and we were on our way again. When we got into Nebraska we ran into a nasty snow/freezing rain storm. We stayed behind a truck all the way at about 30MPH. I mentioned to my wife that the headlights didn't seem very bright. Once through the storm we stopped at a rest area and checked the headlights. The entire grill was covered with over an inch of snow/ice. There was one little 2" diameter area on the passenger headlight that was bare. I wish I had taken a picture before clearing it off. In Utah, the speed limit is 80MPH and my wife did all of that while driving, once hitting 92MPH. At higher altitudes in Utah the ICE would struggle some and the EV would run out of battery. We had the check engine light go on in western Colorado. Once at lower altitudes everything was fine and the check engine light went out.

On the way back we took I10 through California and a couple of junctions to I40. The trip home was fairly uneventful other than going to a lot of rain. We had rain most of the way home from Oklahoma. We drove straight home taking turns napping. We drove through California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. The trip home took about 37 hours and 10 minutes. We averaged just over 61MPH which amazed me with puppy, gas, food, and rest area stops. I don't have averages along the way, but we averaged between 29 and 30MPG. I am quite happy with this as we were on interstates all of the way and travelled between 70 and 80+MPH.

The trip was very comfortable and my Misses and I said the Tucson definitely made the trip comfortable and relaxing. The Tucson really made the trip easy for us. My wife and I are proud of how well we made the trip as both of us are in our mid 60's. Almost 5,000 miles with one overnight stay! We aren't ready to do it again though.