Day 3: Mount Rainier National Park

 The highlight for today was visiting Mount Rainier National Park and hiking there. My original plan was to do drive in a loop around the park, do 2 hikes - one around Paradise visitor center and a second one around Sunrise visitor center. Late afternoon I realized this was too ambitious a plan - not enough time and range anxiety for my EV. I ended up just driving from Vancouver, WA to the Paradise visitor center, do one hike there and then drive straight to Seattle.  

Today was the first range anxiety day for my EV, Tesla Model 3.  There are no Tesla superchargers in Mt Rainier park or even close to the park entrances. I fully charged to 100% at the Kelso supercharger, which is the closest one coming up on I-5.  It took about 50 minutes to charge and I used the time to have my lunch. My route through the park till the next supercharger was 230 miles. It should be doable since the full range in my car is 290 miles. However, the actual range is typically smaller by about 10%. There is a lodge close the park entrance with a Tesla destination charger, but that would be wasted time. Another bad thing is they charge $50 for 2 hours.  The Tesla navigation encouragingly said I should have 12% charge left when I reached the next supercharger. 

The drive through Mount Rainier park is beautiful, winding its way through the dense, lush green forest.  There are plenty of vista points to enjoy the views of the river, waterfalls, mountain ranges and of course, Mt Rainier itself.  I reached Paradise visitor center around 2:30pm. I decided to do the Skyline Loop Trail, which is a difficult four hour hike. It is one of the top rated hikes there and it was definitely worth it.  I had amazing views throughout and perfect weather conditions.

I got back to my car after the hike around 6:30pm. Any thoughts of doing the full loop around the park were gone. I was tired and wanted to get a hot shower in my AirBnb in Seattle as soon as possible. I drove straight to Seattle and reached around 8:30pm, with 32% range left. 

I have been enjoying home food for lunch and dinner for the last 3 days. The lovingly prepared and packed gourmet meals provided by my better half were great to ease me into my road trip. It had to run out, and the dinner today was the last of the home food. Now, I am truly on my own, eating out or preparing my own meals.

The raw numbers for the day:

• 238 miles driving, 16050 steps walking
• 2 Tesla supercharger stops
• 1 state - Washington