Almost dead in Death Valley — Road Trip Story
Three friends, including myself, made the journey to Sin City on January 13th, 2023, just in time for my 34th birthday bash. Little did we know that our trip was about to take a series of wild twists and turns. We took a rental car and chose an Electric vehicle (EV) instead of a gas-guzzler and that my friends was what I think was our mistake number 1.
We planned to hit up either the Grand Canyon or Death Valley on our final day, mistake #2.
We went 30 mins towards Grand Canyon, found a super charger for our EV, spent 15–20 mins charging it upto maybe 60% and an idea popped in my head, mistake number 3 — Do we have to return the car with full charge ? My friend said No, so I said, Lets get going then , prolly the charge we have now would be enough, if not we can charge again somewhere on the way.
Drizzling rain in the Grand Canyon sparked a change of plans, and we headed for sunny Death Valley instead to make our mistake number 4 :P
As we cruised towards Death Valley, listening to epic tunes and taking in the breathtaking scenery, we suddenly realized that the car’s battery was running low. We found a nearby charging station and decided to charge it for maybe 10 mins and then go see Death valley before it gets dark and then come back to charge more to go to the airport.
Super Charger at the charging point was not working. The normal 220V charger was charging at 20 Miles/hour. This, we calculated, would take us 6 hours of charging to get back to Airport and my flight was in 5 hours! The other friends had flight after 7 and 8 hours respectively but it still seemed like an impossible feat. We all laughed and cried at the same time at how we got ourselves into this situation. Past memories where we missed flights started coming up, specially the one back from Malaysia, where we missed the flight due to pointless chattering in a ghost city called Putra Jaya! We couldn’t believe it was all happening again. We hadn’t changed or learnt anything in 10 years ? haha, really ? Is this really happening again ?
We checked the Maps, there was Charging point in 30 miles from where we were. There was hope. Maybe we all can still catch our flights if we get to the next charging point and use the super charger. We headed for hope and laughed in the car thinking what would happen if the super charger was broke in the next charging point too ? haha and we manifested that thought into reality lol i.e no charging points were working. Infact that charging point was closed a long ago informed the locals. We pulled out our car charger and requested a nearby shop to lend us power by allowing us to connect to their outlet. The guy resisted but on insisting and explaining our situation, he agreed, we had a mini celebration ! Yay !
We plugged in our charge into the 110 V normal household outlet. Our car started charging! yay! at the rate of 1 mile/ hour :( ! Woah ! It would take us 100 hours now. Now it looked like we all would miss flights, not only me, hahaha, I was slightly relieved/happy to be honest.
I saw a Tesla, I ran up to it and spoke to the owner, he said he owned the shop we were charging at. He too expressed disappointment that chargers shown on map at that location weren’t working and said there’s one at Indian springs, the next charging station and we should try that. I asked how and where he charges his car and he said at home. So, I asked if he could let us charge at his home which he said had 220V charger. He said he wished he could help but he lives in Vegas. He left and seeing him leave I had a thought, ooh maybe I should have asked him for a ride to Vegas to catch my flight but it would be unfair to leave other friends behind, so killed that bad idea.
A passer by, interested in EVs asked about the car and we talked. He told us there was a RV camp right opposite the shop on the other side of the road where they had 220V chargers. I was suddenly happy and grateful for this new opportunity that opened up. Why was I happy ? Did I think we could charge the EV there and I can catch my flight ? Noooo way, it was still impossible to make it to my flight but I was happy that my friends could now try to make it and I could try the idea I killed a few minutes ago — that’s right, I was gonna try to get a ride to Vegas, and I was excited to try this as there was a ray of hope now after giving up. We hurried there, found someone and he let us charge there. Yay ! The result of our decision was that we wasted 1.5 hours and got the same charging speed as we would have at the first location. Still there was hope for my friends to catch their flights I felt.
We checked maps again, the next charging station was 47 miles away at Indian springs. That meant we needed 1 hour of charge + 30 to 40 mins drive to reach there + 30 mins of super charging to get to airport + 1 hour drive to Airport.
New Calculations started spinning in our heads and I concluded that they can get to their flights if they find the supercharger at next location. And somehow I was confident that they would find it as the Tesla guy mentioned about the Indian springs charger. Worst case it would be a 220V charger, which too would help them barely make it ? ! Maybe.
So, I hurried to the nearby shop and tried to find a ride and luckily an old man overheard us talking to the shop keeper. He offered me a ride ! Woah cool. I took my bag and left. I reached the airport with lot of time left for my flight to take off :D .. Success story number 1. My friends charged enough to get to next charging station, yay they had made it! I spoke to them and then left a google review on that charging station that reads as follows:
Hahahaha, damn! (Sorry! I laughed and cried) My poor friends were stuck! Not even a 220V charging point was anywhere nearby at this new location! They met some guy there and had a weird experience there and later they called a towing truck, got back to Vegas, stayed the night and took the next flight back to their homes. An expensive affair!
This is the story of how I turned my fate :P at the cost of others fate ? Haha, well, I donno. Looking back, there could have been ways in which we all could have made it to our flights. My friend whose flight was 1 hour after me said, as he saw me going he had an idea that he should have come along with me. Too late, I left and I had no phone signals on my German sim card. A little bit of my mistake too that I didn’t think about taking him along (prolly cuz the other friend, who would then have to return alone, would not like this idea maybe). Anyway if we both had left with the old couple who drove me to the airport then the other guy would have had enough time to charge and get to the airport in time to catch his flight maybe.
After reaching the airport, I offered to stay back, especially after seeing that my flight prices next day were only 80–90 Euros, but I also felt the effort of the nice old couple who dropped me off at airport would’ve gone waste but I would have stayed back, I wanted to, maybe a bit of hesistation from my friend when I asked on the phone if I should stay back would have been enough and I would have actually cuz 3 failures would have been better than 1 success and 2 failures I think.
Anyway, another interesting event for our life long memories is made! What a night it was. So much to recap and learn from it. So many decisions, so many coincidences. The memories and laughter we shared, even in the face of adversity, made it all worth it.
