North America 2021 Roadtrip #5: Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego, Los Angeles, Grover Beach, Paso Robles.
Wow am I behind! I just rolled into Eugene Oregon late this afternoon, with 9,705 miles on the Tesla. I really need to write up several posts to catch up so please bear with me!
Following on from my last post, I left Albuquerque early in the morning after giving Kati a quick test drive. I made the long, long drive to Phoenix, arriving at Dawn Michelle Atkinson, Paul and Christopher’s house after dark. Paul is Rose Dutson Lovell Atkinson’s semi-cousin, sharing 3 mothers if I remember correctly…
As you saw in the video I previously posted, I was supposed to visit Gruber Motor Company the next day. Gruber is the world leader in maintaining Tesla’s first car, the Roadster. Sadly a fire broke out the day before my arrival, destroying the building containing over 30 Tesla vehicles, parts inventory and R&D labs. Paul and Christopher and I drove over to the Gruber site to see the damage in person. Pete Gruber says the business will rise again like a Phoenix and I hope for the best.
We all went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant with massive American portions. We fully exploited every feature of the Tesla on the way over, including Fart Mode which proved very entertaining. My horn now plays La Cucaracha on the outside pedestrian speaker and I can’t find the setting to change it back!
The next morning I drove to a Phoenix shopping center to see the new Lucid Motors electric vehicle showroom. They’ve taken a page from the Tesla playbook by opening showrooms in high-end malls. The car has been in development for years and deliveries have just started this past week. The Lucid Air is truly an excellent car with great styling, luxury, range and efficiency. They’re shipping the top of the line model now, a bit on the pricey side at $169,000 but I bet they sell a bunch in China and the Middle East where rich guys get chauffeured around. A $77,000 model is coming later.
I then headed to Las Vegas with a list of things to accomplish, none of which involved gambling. I had dinner at a 7-course Moroccan restaurant that featured a COVID-masked belly dancer. I walked up and down The Strip and gave my doggie bag to a homeless man who said he didn’t like hummus. I suggested that he just push it to the side.
The next morning I drove over to the massive Tesla Supercharger at the LINQ casino, with 24 high power charging plugs and a dozen lower-power plugs. The site sits below a giant Ferris wheel and is covered with solar panels.
Next up was the hunt for Elon’s The Boring Company tunnel at the Las Vegas Convention Center. This site is so big that they paid TBC to dig a tunnel with 3 stations. The twist is that it uses human-driven Tesla cars to drive customers from station to station! I walked into the South station and waited for a car to pull up. I got in and then the driver asked me for my convention pass. I said I was just a big fan of Elon and she kicked me out because the contract for the system only allows for convention attendees to get a ride. Damn! I considered asking random people to borrow their badges, but I’m too much of a good Canadian. I walked on the surface and down into to each station and took pictures and videos. While I was there the city signed a contract to connect this short tunnel to a new one that goes up The Strip and will eventually connect every major hotel and venue to the system. There will be hundreds of Teslas circulating as each section opens up and the driver will take you quickly and directly to your destination, you don’t have to make a stop at each station along the way like a traditional subway or the existing monorail. Eventually the cars will drive in Full Self Driving mode without a human driver and I’ll definitely go back and bluff my way in when that happens!
I had my yearly status call with my investment guy, he told me my portfolio is doing better than his and he still had his Tesla Model S and his wife bought a Tesla Model Y. He told me I have “Diamond Hands” – buy Tesla stock and never sell! Well, except for the car and this trip… We keep setting all-time high values and my advice to everyone reading this is: BUY AS MUCH TESLA STOCK AS YOU CAN RIGHT NOW!
I took the open-top tour bus ride at 7pm and it went up and down The Strip in the capitalism-glow of flashing neon. It dropped us off for an hour at the old Fremont Street site where I bought three cigars as requested for later in the trip. A very talented rock band played Halloween-theme songs while dressed up like zombies.
In the morning I made the long drive down to San Diego to meet up with harp-playing Chiara Capobianco. Even her name sounds musical. We were friends back in Thailand, but she moved to America and is now living la dolce vita in the California sun.
I spent the afternoon at EV West talking electric cars with the head dude Michael Bream and Porsche 914 specialist Mark C Brems. I needed a drool cup as I looked over their inventory of motors and battery packs, in-process conversion projects and a land-speed-record electric streamliner. Mark’s yellow 914 was used in an episode of the Cosmos TV show in a flashback to Carl Sagan’s own 914. I think I convinced Mark to move to Thailand when he and his wife retire.
I went to dinner in the Gaslamp area with Chiara, her Italian Navy roommate and friend Julia. We spent the whole time talking about all of the places we’ve travelled. Chiara had played harp at the restaurant on its opening night so the owner sent us a massive appetizer plate on the house!
On a weird note, I got a message from Jordan that an accident claim was filed against the Tesla in Tennessee. Someone had crashed into a parked car, written a note with my license plate number and left the scene. The good thing is I was in Florida on that day and can show the timestamped Tesla supercharging receipts. Whew! I suspect someone was seen causing the accident, then wrote the note and faked a plate number to get away without suspicion.
The next day Chiara was playing harp at a beach wedding in La Jolla so Julia and I went down for it. It was a sweet small ceremony but very Cali with surfer dudes walking along the sand just behind the minister. Afterward we went to a crepe shop for dinner.
I then made the short drive up the coast to Huntington Beach to stay over with my solar power buddy Timothy Martinez. We had a long chat about solar people and projects from back in the day. It looks like Tim might want to buy my electric 914! He’s an American classic muscle car collector but will make an exception for my little German pocket rocket since it’s so unique and he knows how special it is to me to find a good home for it. It will be a great around-town-in-the-Cali-sun-with-the-roof-off machine for him. I need to contact EV West about upgrading the battery pack with some Tesla modules to bring it up to modern specs.
In the morning I popped up to Hawthorne, home of SpaceX and the Tesla Design Center. I’ve been here before but there’s nothing like standing 10 feet away from a rocket that went into orbit and landed itself back on Earth. As I was walking behind the SpaceX factory I came across a dumpster full of scrap rocket-grade aluminum trimmings. That’s all I’m going to say… :^)
I continued up to Grover Beach and stayed overnight with my old buddy Sean. Sean was my real estate agent when I bought and sold my Cali house and he’s been to visit me in Thailand 3 times, we’re now planning his fourth visit.
The next morning I had brunch with Carol von Ehrenkrook, a friend and fellow Huntington’s Disease spouse. I was happy to hear that she and her daughters are all doing well.
My last stop on the Central Coast was to Debra Binder and Gregory Kauffman’s house. We had a great chat catching up on everything since the last time I visited. Deb’s house was my residential address while living overseas and I was storing three plastic bins with things that I needed to save but couldn’t take to Thailand. I packed them into the car and will bring them back to Jordan’s house. It will be tricky to sleep in the back of the car now, I will have to get creative with the placement of the bins and my sleeping position.
OK, that’s the end of this segment of the trip. Next post will focus on San Francisco, Tesla, more Tesla, more Tesla and Salt Lake City.h
