6000 Mile EV Road Trip - Stay 18
Port Angeles, Washington | July 22-23, 2024
Written by John Martinson
The Black Ball Ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles was about 4 minutes from our hotel. While waiting on the vehicle line to load up and go through customs, we met a couple from the State of Washington. The husband was piloting their Audi e-Tron, always a conversation starter, and the wife, a horse trainer, provided good conversation for Suzanne and our daughter, both equestrians.
In front of us, one lane over, was a Ford F-150 ICE truck with three 60-something men returning home from a fishing trip. Watching them trying to pack all their gear into the truck bed under a hard tonneau was amusing, and they seemed genuinely thrilled when they got all the luggage arranged so everything fit. Upon closing the tailgate, a 3-way fist bump confirmed their success until a fourth man arrived with a large, heavy cooler full of ice and fish and remarked, “that’s great, but what about our catch?” At which point, a verbal, “oh, shit” could be heard. Again, the tailgate went down, they pulled back the hard tonneau and tried all kinds reshuffling until it became clearly evident that it wasn’t going to fit.
I resisted my inclination to intercede at this point to explain how the new Ford F-150 Lightning EV would have solved their problem, as the cooler would have fit easily in the frunk. Normally, this would have been my course of action, but all 4 had looked at our Tesla Model X with a sneering eye and I didn’t want to get into it with them.
Ultimately, they decided to keep the tonneau up against the rear window, pile up the the luggage and employ a cargo net, but one of the men whose luggage was not covered by the net kept checking his bag, fearful that somehow it would either bounce out or be taken.
We arrived at Port Angeles after a 90-minute ferry ride and quickly unloaded. We enjoyed a great lunch at Downriggers on the Water and then drove up to Olympic National Park’s Hurricane Ridge, a steep climb over paved road to 5,242 feet for an expansive view south into the interior of the Park’s snow-peaked mountains and viewed black-tailed deer in several places along the road.
Our night stay was at Domaine Madeleine in eastern Port Angeles, an interesting self-serve hotel with touchless service, where we stayed in the Hoh Rainforest and Hurricane Ridge Suites. The rooms were enormous and very comfortable, and the hotel grounds are beautiful with mature trees, flower gardens, and a private dog park. The property overlooks the Salish Sea to the North. There are four J1772 EV chargers (one each in our two convenient assigned parking spaces) allowing us to charge fully. Wanting to experience the concept to its fullest, we ate dinner and breakfast at the hotel.
