Overnight in Bakersfield

When we stopped in Bakersfield Saturday evening it wasn't just to recharge the EV's battery. We were staying for the night.

We rolled into town around 6:30pm, a great time for dinner. First we checked in to our hotel, though. Staying there for the night was part of David and his family's plan. I had already done the mental arithmetic that if it were Hawk and I driving home— by which I mean I were driving home— we'd have dinner in Bakersfield and then drive all the way home, another 4 hours. Yes, that would put us at home at 11:30pm and, yes, that would be on a day I started at 4:30am, but that's how I roll. No rest for the wicked. David'd not as hardcore of a traveler, though, so we were taking it easy with an overnight stop in Bakersfield.

I've warned in past blogs that Bakersfield is a shithole town. That's a bit of a misnomer; Bakersfield is not a town. 🤣 With a population of now over 400,000 in city limits and nearly 1,000,000 in its metro area it's a budding shithole metropolis.

Our hotel, which was pretty nice inside, was still in a sketchy neighborhood. I'm not sure there are any non-sketchy neighborhoods in Bakersfield. What's sketchy? Well, the neighboring hotel was a tenement with barred windows, and our hotel had a uniformed security guard outside in the parking lot walking rounds to chase away vagrants. I saw him intercept one whom he apparently was on a first name basis with. And that was before dark.

For dinner we found some surprisingly good eats at a restaurant called The Firehouse. I had a meaty tri-tip sandwich I happily finished off with a veritable bucket of french fries I ultimately threw away 10% eaten, while David had a plate of ribs so thick he threw away his sides mostly uneaten, too.

After that we charged the car, came back to the hotel, and stayed in for the night.

Now it's Sunday morning, 8:30am. We've had breakfast, David's taking a shower, and we'll roll about 9am.

The drive home— well, home for me, anyway— is 251 miles. David's house is another 32 miles. We'll stop for recharging once on the way and arrive at my place between 1:30-2pm.

Charging Station Etiquette

I finished my trek of I would fly 500 miles and I would drive 500 more on Sunday. We left the hotel in Bakersfield at 9am. It's 251 miles from there to my house. We split the drive with a stop for recharging and lunch at an oasis near Firebaugh on I-5.

The car got better mileage on Sunday. Partly that's due to less sweltering temperatures; they ranged between about 80-93° (27-35 C) in the Central Valley during our late-morning drive through there. And partly it's because we didn't drive as fast. Yes, I-5 is a long, straight road... but it's also crowded compared to I-15 and US-58 yesterday. With slow trucks and cars all over the places there isn't as much room to open the throttle.

At the charging stop I solidified my awareness of an emergent pattern among EV owners and their behavior at charging stations. It's a dichotomy that splits mostly along the lines of EV newcomers vs. EV grizzled veterans— which you can tell based on whether they're driving an EV that looks, say, at least 2 years old vs. one that looks relatively new.

• For EV newcomers, recharging is a social event. When they hook up the charger they look around and are eager to chat with others about their vehicles and experiences. They're also conscientious about using the chargers. They pull into the spaces straight, and monitor their charge to pull out of the slot when they're done— so the next person can start charging.


• The grizzled vets are the opposite of that. They pull in quickly and carelessly, often parking diagonally across two spaces. They connect the cables without acknowledging their neighbors. They leave their cars well past the time it takes to complete a charge, continuing to block multiple spaces that others could be using. You can't ask them to move because they're nowhere to be seen— for hours.

Every charging station we visited this weekend— and we visited four of them— had both types of people. And it aligned 100% with driving a new car vs. a slightly older one.

Comet Falls, Close Up

Let's see, where was I? Sunday, Sunday, Sunday... Yes, Comet Falls!

"LOLWUT?" you might be thinking. "You found a huge waterfalls while driving an EV 500+ miles across the desert?"

LOL no, not yesterday Sunday; Sunday three Sundays ago. When we took a 3-day weekend trip to the Pacific Northwest. Yes, I'm still clearing my blog backlog with stuff from 15 days ago. (The backlog is actually way more than that counting the hikes from late June I still haven't written in detail about. 😨)



Just seeing Comet Falls from 1/4 mile away wasn't enough, especially after hiking a steep trail to get there despite passing so many smaller falls along the way. Nope, I had to get close enough to the falls that I was getting wet. ...Though in this case I don't mean going under the falls. This waterfall is a 300' drop; going under would be very dangerous. Just standing back as far as in the photo above I was getting wet with spray.

The photo above wasn't just the border of where I started getting wet with spray. It was also as close as I could get and still capture the entire main tier of the falls with my camera lens. (It's a 15mm focal length on an APS-C size sensor, BTW.) Capturing a photo closer required using my super-wide lens... which failed to work again. Aughh!!!

Sadly, just like at Covel Falls two days earlier, my camera flashed an error message when I tried attaching the wide lens. Again, like then, I tried detaching and reattaching the lens, powering off and on the camera multiple times, and brushing clean the electronic contacts on the lens and camera mount with a cloth. Nothing worked.

Dejected, I picked my way back down the narrow footpath to the main trail where Hawk was waiting. "This lens is busted again," I told her. "The first time I need it in two days after carrying it on every hike, and now, here, it breaks," I vented. "I'm thinking of just dropping it over a cliff again."

"Why not try it one more time?" she asked.

I gritted my teeth because I already had tried it, like, ten more times already. But I gave it one more go. Surprise, the damn thing worked!

With a frustrated grumble I turned around and picked my way back up the narrow footpath to the slippery vantage point overlooking the falls.



Boom!

500+500 Miles Done. Where'd My Weekend Go?

I finished my trek of I would fly 500 miles and I would drive 500 more Sunday afternoon. We left the hotel in Bakersfield at 9am, stopped for lunch and recharging near Firebaugh, and arrived at my house at 1:40pm. David came in and chatted with Hawk and me a bit before continuing on to his house another 45 minutes away.

After that I took it easy around home. Whew! It felt good to be home. But it was also frustrating because I was like, "Where'd my weekend go?" By the time David left it was too late really to start anything for the day and disappointing that I'd have to go back to work Monday morning— beginning with a 7am meeting, no less!— without having a day to relax or a day to do anything that felt properly... weekend-y.

Well, I did go out to the pool for a while with Hawk on Sunday afternoon. Then we had a leisurely dinner at home and did quiet stuff in the evening. I guess that was like a half-day of weekendliness. It definitely underscores for me why I wanted to push to do the whole drive on Saturday. I would've preferred having the whole of Sunday to do something else, even if it started with sleeping in a bit after getting home late Saturday night.