6000 Mile EV Road Trip - Stay 29
Palm Springs, California | August 6-8, 2024
Written by John Martinson
We picked up the 2 cases of wine we had stored at the Inn at Mattei’s Tavern and then departed for our day’s drive. Although it was very warm outside, the Styrofoam insulation in the wine cases and the car’s air conditioner kept the wine at a stable temperature.
We departed Los Olivos for Palm Springs, dreading the traffic we might run into in the Los Angeles area and the long lines at area Superchargers I had experienced some years ago. But we were pleasantly surprised by the good flow of traffic on the 101 and the plentiful open chargers at the Tesla Supercharger at Beaumont (where we left a Tesla cache).
We arrived in Claremont an hour early for our lunch with friends (who we haven’t seen for years since they moved from Arizona) at Bardot and plugged in at an L2 ChargePoint station at a nearby parking lot—adding about 40 miles in 2 hours and 40 minutes. During that time, Tesla’s “keep” mode kept the wine safe while parked in the mid-90s heat outside.
After lunch, we departed for our 2-night stay at L’Horizon, a mid-Century modern resort on East Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs, again finding a receptive staff willing to store our wine during our stay.
The room (a bungalow) was everything we like about the style—simple, functional, and modern, just like home. We ordered dinner (veggie burgers) in-room and relaxed. Breakfast was also served in our room, with a wonderful chilaquiles dish large enough to split. For dinner on our second night, we ate at Alice B, a unique dining destination from James Beard and Julia Child award-winning chefs Susan Feniger and Mary Millikan, inside the lobby of Living Out, a luxury resort-style LBGTQ+ community near downtown Palm Springs. The food is outstanding! We highly recommend it and will certainly be back next time we are in the area.
