I have scattered notes and I'll try to make sense of them and post. But here's a start, with lots of pics.
Charging at Sunset in Rocky Point
I left Gila Bend with a full charge in my S60, which is 200 rated miles for me. You can sort of see, I reached the Las Palomas Resort in the middle of the resort row using45.2 kWhr at an average of 306 Wh/mi, leaving me about 38 rated miles left. I reached the Reef RV Park with 35 RM remaining (its about 3.2 miles further).
The Reef RV Park's office is open from 8AM-10PM daily. My plan was to go there Friday night (after we checked into our condo) and get a spot and test charge to make sure it worked. Then head back in the early morning for the real charge session.
Gus, the evening manager, was a great guy who was very interested in the car. He set me up with a spot close to the office and guard station. The first 4 rows were open because they were reserved for an RV caravan coming down from Phoenix for the weekend, beginning Saturday at noon. So, I could use that spot til noon, but he also assigned me another spot further down the park if I needed to stay past noon. Talking to him, I said they should consider setting up an outlet or two up in front just for electric vehicles to use. He said they'd think about it for sure. Carlos, the morning manager, was also very friendly. He lived in PHX back in the 90s. He asked lots of questions about the car too and liked the idea to install an outlet up front.
The Reef RV Park has a couple restaurants next to it, but they aren't open til the afternoon and evening. Mare Blu is "Italian-Continental" and is open 4PM-10:30PM. Wrecked at the Reef is a bar/grill that is open 11AM-til. So, until then, the only thing open is the convenience store adjacent to the office. It has the bare necessities: sodas, snacks, some sundries, and cheap beer. The "Banos" noted in the one pic aren't the real thing. At least not now anyways. The real ones are in the RV Park, towards the middle. Cleaner than I expected, but not something I'd want to use unless I had to.
Not sure if you can tell, but there are 50A, 30A, and 120V outlets on each hookup. Some looked nice like this.
Most looked like this.
Mine looked like this. Yes, just a bit scary. But it worked. I noticed some Voltage fluctuations later in the morning during my charge. I think as people woke up and started tapping the grid, the power got a little jumpy. The latter part of my session, the Amps dropped to about 36A, likely due to the voltage variations.
The park also has free WiFi pretty much covering the whole park area, which helped pass the time. It was great in the early morning. But like the electricity, I noticed it was getting unstable later in the morning as more people woke up and started using it.
On the ocean side of the Mare Blu restaurant (which was closed in the morning), there's a semi-covered porch. I was sitting there for some of the time. This was the view. Plenty of time to throw back a cheap beer or three. Occasionally, a beach vendor would walk buy with stuff, I politely let them know I wasn't interested, and they went on their way without a fuss. I did buy some stuff later when back at the resort's beach.
This was the sunrise earlier when I arrived. I got there about 5:45AM.
Charging at the Reef was as simple as can be expected. The folks were very friendly, power was good, space was cheap ($17 per day). The only part that wasn't great was getting there. We stayed at Las Palomas resort which is just about in the middle of the row of resorts. From there, it's about a 3 mile drive to the Reef. But half of that is on a sand road. The sand itself wasn't an issue. It was just the bumpiness of the sand. Driving on it was like driving on a washboard making for quite the jittery ride. I felt for the car every time I rode on it, wondering what rattles I might be causing. In retrospect, it wasn't terrible, and I don't notice any after effects of it, but during, I wasn't happy at all. And driving slowly didn't really help.
Flying bikes. For the brave of you to kill time while charging. They take off right next to the RV Park.
The "road" leading back to the resorts.
That's the skinny on the Rocky Point charging. I left the Reef RV Park with 192 rated miles. I figured that was plenty to get back to Gila Bend. Ya, that didn't work out so well...Heading back was an adventure.
(Will insert story here later. Just know that you may not want to leave RP with anything less than 180 rated miles to feel safe)
Ahhh, made it back to Gila Bend with 8 RM remaining.
Thank God there are two sets of chargers, and this guy was only blocking one set.
One last side note. Heading south out of Phoenix, we took the 285 route to Gila Bend. It's definitely the shortest route from where we are in Tempe. (The Nav system REALLY wanted me to go back and take I-10 west towards Buckeye, then head south. It finally gave up on that when I was well out of town, but maybe it knew something. 285 has a 15 mile stretch that is as close to a roller coaster as I've ever driven on. quick rises and falls and turns. in one sense it is a damn fun ride. But with 2 little kids, who just ate lunch, it could be a disaster. Thank God mine were both sleeping during that stretch. Even driving, I was getting a bit car sick. So, beware if you or your passengers are prone to motion sickness!
