Adventures of a 60-year-old newly retired woman

My first vacation alone

I am a 60-year-old independent, educated woman who has worked in high powered jobs as an attorney for almost 35 years. I have been married for 36 years and have two grown children, one with special needs still living at home. I recently retired from my legal career and am experiencing many “firsts” in my new life no longer working outside the home. I always felt confident that I could analyze and tackle any situation presented at work. But this new work-free situation is one that felt uncomfortable and foreign.

I am determined to be brave and to challenge myself to experience new things. My first such adventure was to take vacation alone since my husband and son needed to stay home for work. My sister and her family were going to Mammoth Lakes for a summer vacation, carrying on a tradition my parents started. My parents, both beloved but who are now deceased, invited my two sisters and me and our families to join them for a summer adventure in the mountains. Our families really enjoyed the time together fishing, hiking, boating, biking, and other outdoor activities. In early July, my sister reminded me that “you are retired, why can’t you come”? I thought about it, discussed it with my husband and agreed that I would go to Mammoth for a week on my own.

The first challenge was to find a place to rent for only one person, not a common situation for this family-oriented destination. While I looked at VRBO options, I ultimately decided to rent a condo at Snow Creek that would be close to where my sister’s family was staying. I found only one available unit, a one bedroom with loft and two bathrooms, in the older section. It was only slightly more expensive than the other one bedroom one bath units that were in other parts of town, so I decided to book the unit for 4 nights. With that accomplished, I moved on to the next challenges.

I pride myself on my driving capabilities. I have always had a long commute to work – other than when working remotely during the pandemic. However, when we travel for vacation, my husband typically is the primary driver, with me as the reliever. So, I had to overcome the fear of being the sole driver, finding my own way from Los Angeles to Mammoth Lakes, and adding to that worry, I have a Tesla 3 and would have to figure out how to supercharge my car rather than stopping at known gas stations.

I had never supercharged my car before – I always charge my car overnight at home – and we had never ventured to take the electric car on any trip away from home. My husband suggested that I take the SUV gas vehicle to avoid the fear of not being able to fine a place to charge the car. But I love my car, it is comfortable to drive, and I feel safer in a car that “fits” me. I also wanted to tackle the challenge of a distance drive to prove to myself that I can still do whatever I put my mind to, even at 60 years old.

I started where everything starts, I Googled “driving to Mammoth Lakes in a Tesla” and found some very helpful information. The first thing I found was a YouTube video of a man driving his family from Orange County to Mammoth Lakes in their Tesla Y series. He narrated his planned trip, showed his stops at the supercharger stations, and explained his modified trip plan to add another stop because of the very slow charging capacity to reach “full charge”. I felt a little more comfortable now that I had seen how the trip could be accomplished and that it did not seem to be too difficult or add too much additional time.

I continued my education by finding information on the Tesla website about the resources available to locate supercharger stations, how to maximize efficiency of charging, how to back into the charger stall to allow the hose to reach the plug-in area, and how simple it would be to plan the trip directly on my car navigation system. I next went to my car and input my Mammoth Lakes rental address into the navigation system and the car created a trip plan that included two supercharger stops along the way. The trip plan included the capacity of the anticipated charge and how far it would be to the next supercharger before arriving at my destination. Again, this made me more comfortable that this would be doable and that I would not likely be stranded in the middle of the desert landscape without power or options for “filling up”.

So, with building confidence that I could, in fact, drive alone in my all-electric car from LA to Mammoth Lakes, I decided to take on that challenge. I packed my golf clubs and gear, hiking shoes and poles, and the rest of the clothes likely to be needed for my outdoor adventure. I had plenty of room in the car for my things and could see out of all my windows and mirrors - not something typically available when I travelled with the entire family together!

After charging my car to maximum capacity overnight, at 8:30 a.m. I loaded the address into my navigation system and learned that instead of supercharging in Mojave and Bishop as I had anticipated, it was taking me to “Inyokern” and Bishop instead. Unsure of where Inyokern was, I still decided to trust my Tesla to get me to the right place. I headed out with my audible book playing to keep me entertained. This was a big bonus for me as when the family is in the car with me, we only listen to music. Narration puts my husband to sleep – not good when he is driving.

When I reached Mojave, I started to get range anxiety, as my mileage remaining was dropping quickly. There are zero signs for Tesla charging stations along the road, so the only way to know when such a station is near, is through your car navigation system. The Tesla was telling me that I needed to travel about 5 miles off the highway to get to the station that had four charging stalls.

I followed the navigation to the charging station which was truly in the middle of nowhere. See InyoKern Supercharger station. There are no signs indicating where the stations are, so when the navigation said “turn here” I just turned and searched around for the stalls. I found three stalls (plus one handicap stall) behind a small, run-down store and backed into a charging stall, plugged in the hose and the charging immediately began. It was 102 degrees out! I ventured into the small market located adjacent to the charging station, looking for a bathroom, which I located down a windy, beat-up hallway past storage bins to a door that had one toilet in it. I was able to use the facilities and return to my car and it was still charging. I stayed in the car with the air conditioning on, watching as the battery slowly reached about 80%. It then stopped charging and I noticed a sign that said the charging stalls were limited to 80% capacity – not something YouTube, Google or Tesla had appraised me as a possibility. So even if I wanted to wait another 20 minutes to get a fuller charge, it was simply not possible.

Interestingly, the Tesla was telling me that I was ready to continue my trip, even without the fuller charge. However, now the navigation had changed and no longer had me going to a charging station at Bishop, but rather Lone Pine was where I would need to recharge again. I was confused by the change since Bishop was well within the range of the charge according to my battery read out, but I was not going to challenge the Tesla. I unplugged the car and headed out to find the highway, which was not the direction I had come from, but down a lonely road that did not appear to head anywhere. The road did take me, however, directly to the on-ramp for the highway. I sent my update and successful charge to my family so that they would know I was okay so far.

I enjoyed my audiobook for another hour and half until Lone Pine was in sight. Again I had to follow the navigation to try to locate the station. The navigation told me to turn on a street that really was a driveway into a museum parking lot. See Lone Pine Supercharger station. I did not spot any charging stations so drove around to the back of the building, and sure enough there was a charging stations with about 10 stalls that were all full! I waited for about 5 to 8 minutes for a stall to open up and again backed into the stall, plugged in the hose and the charging began. This station had no market, no bathroom, and was in the baking hot sun. Some drivers left their cars charging and walked into town to get food and drinks. I chose to stay with my car and just play games and wait for the charge to complete. I did step out to take a picture of the most stunning surrounding mountains, which included Mount Whitney. This was a totally unexpected bonus.

After about 30 minutes and charging to 219 miles so that I would have no problem getting to Mammoth Lakes with plenty of charge, I headed back out on the road. Since there were no bathroom facilities at the charging station, I had to stop at a rest stop along the way. I figured the total time to charge and stop for bathroom breaks added about 1 hour to my trip, although if I was driving a gas SUV I likely would have had to stop twice for about 20 minutes, so the difference was really more like 40 minutes, not too bad especially considering that it only cost me about $50 total for the supercharges for the entire trip.

I arrived in Mammoth without incident and reveled in my accomplishment. I actually found the supercharger station that is just outside of the main section of town and recharged so that I would not have to charge again until I was ready to leave. I did my grocery shopping, again, very strange to be shopping for one person. I only needed 3 yogurts, some bread, almond butter, sandwich meat and cheese, some fruit and a few snacks. I walked out with one bag of groceries instead of the usual 10!

I was able to get into my rental unit, notify my sister of my arrival and begin enjoying the vacation. I was really proud of myself for tackling the fear of driving alone, range anxiety and learning how to supercharge. The next adventure was my solo hike up to Crystal Lake.

To be continued . . . #lifeafterretirement