DomB
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2020
With our kids right in that school-age sweet spot, we decided to mix our standard Gore President's week trip with our friends in with stretching the proverbial legs on our new Rivian. We had a blast, made some great new memories with our family and friends, and even got in some good snow. Later in the week we traded in loose granular snow for loose sand back down on Long Island. It was quite an adventure.
Below is our story, mixing in family time, ski time, and EV adventure. We started in Nassau County, Long Island, then to North Creek, and then to some of the eastern most beaches in the state, near Montauk point.
Here are some pictures to break up the writing - First up, the calm before the storm - arriving at Gore Saturday after close but before sunset. I wanted to check out the Level 2 chargers, which are free. Depending on whether the charge spots are full (which halves the charge), you will pull 10-20 miles an hour into a Rivian. More in a Tesla (which are more efficient and have smaller batteries).
Immediately before leaving Saturday late morning, we charged to 100%, with a stated range of 303 miles in Conserve Mode (front wheel drive only). I am learning a lot about batteries, but at least with modern systems, it is fine to charge to 100% without hurting battery life so long as you will be heading out - you don't want to let the car sit for a day or more at full charge. Also, until you draw the battery down to 93%, the Rivian reduces regenerative breaking, because there isn't much room in the battery.
Here is the set up, complete with a gratuitous frunk shot:
We timed our drive to hit Saratoga Springs' Evolve NY charger, pulling charge at 206 kilowatts an hour for a short period of time (500 plus miles an hour), and letting the car get close to 100% while we were eating, for a total of a 53 minute charge. We stayed that long for convenience - while the Springs are about 200 miles from our house, the 100 or so miles we would have pulled in 10-15 minutes would have been fine to move on. But we didn't have a solid plan for charging at our VRBO, and we decided to make checking out Saratoga part of the adventure. If you are interested in the nerdy charging pictures, feel free to PM me. Basically the Rivian charges very fast to 55%, then drops a bit, drops a bit at 65%, and so on, until it is taking in 50 kilowatts an hour at the top end of the battery. If you were only focused on efficiency, you would only stop as long as needed. We had hungry kids around lunch time and a cute town, so we let the battery charge up to 98 percent.
On to Skiing! As we've done for the past five or so years (minus the lost Covid year when we skied 6 days total), we shared a house with close friends of ours. We have kids the same age and all get on well. Even though we don't live in the same town anymore, this has been a bit of a tradition for our families.
On Sunday, Day 1, we had firm snow. Most of the day brought that scratchy turn sound. It was still fun to see my kids getting more and more comfortable on skis. Here are a few pictures around Twin Fawns, one of our favorite runs, along with Little Dipper. Surprisingly, they had Fawns open, as it usually runs on only natural snow; both kids were sporting new helmets, in need of stickers:
We all had lessons booked that day, and I had an awesome lesson with Joe C. My son was lucky enough to be with Tom, and I was fortunate that we all ran into each other for a chunk of the lesson and did some skiing together. It was great fun. Joe and I skied over to the ski bowl not the report (that I confirmed right before the lesson!) that 46'er was open. It was closed! Oh well : ) . Then we hit up Sagamore, which was pretty shiny in places but fun. Great lessons and Great fun. My daughter enjoyed here lesson, and my wife pushed hers to the next day due to conditions.
Skiing Day 2, Monday, brought softer snow. We had a blast. My wife got to do an early morning lesson with Bobby D, which she really enjoyed. She more tolerates skiing out of kindness and because it also brings some good family time. But Sunday brought conditions that actually made my wife smile and ski, always a great sign. We were all over the mountain that day, with my daughter doing a few blacks, and my son's first run down Lies. He actually skied the entire run without stopping, which impressed me. We were also joined by our friends' daughter, who is his age and a great skier. This was the day I ran into a 'man in black' who was quite kind and skied with us for a few runs, including jumping into Rumor with me. After a warmup run on Lies, I did two runs down Rumor, both times without stops, which was a first for me. It was also my first time skiing Rumor without bumps, which felt kind of weird at first.
Ski Day 3 was fun and soft as well, but cut short. Brought my son and our friends' daughter down 46'er, which they rocked. Day four I was solo for a few hours, and then down to Long Island.
On Friday, we hit the beach, airing down, with all the required gear and passes. It was a test run and loads of fun.
Leaving, we aired up with the built in compressor. Over our 950 mile trek from Saturday through Friday, we got about 1.9 miles per kilowatt hour, which translates to about 255 miles of range. That was in pretty cold weather, driving how we wanted to (including a touch of inefficient beach driving), and some snow and rain.
All in all, it was a fun family adventure. We're all tired, had good family time, became better skiers, and most importantly, got after it together with smiles.
Below is our story, mixing in family time, ski time, and EV adventure. We started in Nassau County, Long Island, then to North Creek, and then to some of the eastern most beaches in the state, near Montauk point.
Here are some pictures to break up the writing - First up, the calm before the storm - arriving at Gore Saturday after close but before sunset. I wanted to check out the Level 2 chargers, which are free. Depending on whether the charge spots are full (which halves the charge), you will pull 10-20 miles an hour into a Rivian. More in a Tesla (which are more efficient and have smaller batteries).
Immediately before leaving Saturday late morning, we charged to 100%, with a stated range of 303 miles in Conserve Mode (front wheel drive only). I am learning a lot about batteries, but at least with modern systems, it is fine to charge to 100% without hurting battery life so long as you will be heading out - you don't want to let the car sit for a day or more at full charge. Also, until you draw the battery down to 93%, the Rivian reduces regenerative breaking, because there isn't much room in the battery.
Here is the set up, complete with a gratuitous frunk shot:
We timed our drive to hit Saratoga Springs' Evolve NY charger, pulling charge at 206 kilowatts an hour for a short period of time (500 plus miles an hour), and letting the car get close to 100% while we were eating, for a total of a 53 minute charge. We stayed that long for convenience - while the Springs are about 200 miles from our house, the 100 or so miles we would have pulled in 10-15 minutes would have been fine to move on. But we didn't have a solid plan for charging at our VRBO, and we decided to make checking out Saratoga part of the adventure. If you are interested in the nerdy charging pictures, feel free to PM me. Basically the Rivian charges very fast to 55%, then drops a bit, drops a bit at 65%, and so on, until it is taking in 50 kilowatts an hour at the top end of the battery. If you were only focused on efficiency, you would only stop as long as needed. We had hungry kids around lunch time and a cute town, so we let the battery charge up to 98 percent.
On to Skiing! As we've done for the past five or so years (minus the lost Covid year when we skied 6 days total), we shared a house with close friends of ours. We have kids the same age and all get on well. Even though we don't live in the same town anymore, this has been a bit of a tradition for our families.
On Sunday, Day 1, we had firm snow. Most of the day brought that scratchy turn sound. It was still fun to see my kids getting more and more comfortable on skis. Here are a few pictures around Twin Fawns, one of our favorite runs, along with Little Dipper. Surprisingly, they had Fawns open, as it usually runs on only natural snow; both kids were sporting new helmets, in need of stickers:
We all had lessons booked that day, and I had an awesome lesson with Joe C. My son was lucky enough to be with Tom, and I was fortunate that we all ran into each other for a chunk of the lesson and did some skiing together. It was great fun. Joe and I skied over to the ski bowl not the report (that I confirmed right before the lesson!) that 46'er was open. It was closed! Oh well : ) . Then we hit up Sagamore, which was pretty shiny in places but fun. Great lessons and Great fun. My daughter enjoyed here lesson, and my wife pushed hers to the next day due to conditions.
Skiing Day 2, Monday, brought softer snow. We had a blast. My wife got to do an early morning lesson with Bobby D, which she really enjoyed. She more tolerates skiing out of kindness and because it also brings some good family time. But Sunday brought conditions that actually made my wife smile and ski, always a great sign. We were all over the mountain that day, with my daughter doing a few blacks, and my son's first run down Lies. He actually skied the entire run without stopping, which impressed me. We were also joined by our friends' daughter, who is his age and a great skier. This was the day I ran into a 'man in black' who was quite kind and skied with us for a few runs, including jumping into Rumor with me. After a warmup run on Lies, I did two runs down Rumor, both times without stops, which was a first for me. It was also my first time skiing Rumor without bumps, which felt kind of weird at first.
Ski Day 3 was fun and soft as well, but cut short. Brought my son and our friends' daughter down 46'er, which they rocked. Day four I was solo for a few hours, and then down to Long Island.
On Friday, we hit the beach, airing down, with all the required gear and passes. It was a test run and loads of fun.
Leaving, we aired up with the built in compressor. Over our 950 mile trek from Saturday through Friday, we got about 1.9 miles per kilowatt hour, which translates to about 255 miles of range. That was in pretty cold weather, driving how we wanted to (including a touch of inefficient beach driving), and some snow and rain.
All in all, it was a fun family adventure. We're all tired, had good family time, became better skiers, and most importantly, got after it together with smiles.
