6000 Mile EV Road Trip - Stay 8
Whitefish, Montana | June 29-30, 2024
Written by John Martinson
Whitefish is a great locale if you are planning to take the Going-to-the-Sun Road into Glacier National Park. It also works if you are planning to go North into Canada. Our travel plans included both. Whitefish is a friendly town with a small, walkable downtown filled with shops, restaurants, and services and sits about a 40-minute drive from the West Glacier entrance to the Park.
There are plentiful L2 Electric Vehicle chargers in the vicinity, but L3 chargers are sparse, though as of this writing, there is a Tesla Supercharger under construction in nearby Kalispell. See this PlugShare page to keep up on charger locations in the vicinity. When I was here with our son six years ago, we opted to rent a VRBO with a Level 2 Tesla Destination Charger which was perfect, however it was unavailable for this year’s trip itinerary. So, I booked the Firebrand Hotel in downtown Whitefish, a very short walk from the City of Whitefish Parking Garage, which offers free charging on weekends for its 4 charging stations (2 each on the 2nd and 4th floors).
We arrived Saturday afternoon at the Firebrand around 1:30 PM, checked in and then drove to the City’s garage and plugged in using our Tesla’s J1772 adapter and then set out to have lunch at the Craggy Range Bar & Grill nearby (their monster nachos are…monstrous!). After lunch, we explored the downtown area and then returned to our hotel to relax. About 8:00 PM we returned to fetch our car and it had charged to near 85%. We then had a late al fresco dinner with live music at the hotel where it was 74ºF.
The room was very comfortable and we slept late the next morning waking up to a rainy Whitefish. After breakfast at Loula’s Café, we spent the day catching up on blog writing, social media, and Suzanne’s online teaching gig, with a walk into town for shopping, an afternoon coffee from Montana Coffee Traders and a slice of almond tea cake from Fleur Bake Shop while enjoying the rain. We finished the day at Tupelo Grille, a great Southern fare (food-liquor-music) spot in downtown Whitefish. The ambiance reminded us of Suzanne’s dad, Jim Pickett, who was born in Mississippi (and grew up in Louisiana). We enjoyed hush puppies (melted in your mouth), roasted Brussels sprouts, grilled peach, nectarine and feta salad (with an outstanding citrus dressing), roasted cauliflower on spicy sweet whipped sweet taters, and bread pudding. I also imbibed a Blood Oath bourbon flight (pacts 7, 8, & 9). Delicious!
