Our first road trip: Part 1
Here we go! First full family road trip! We’re heading to Washington D.C. for a wedding. Roll call: we’ve got mom driving (👋), dad riding shotgun (or sometimes in the middle to pacify baby), and two big sisters in the back back.
The plan
We’re staring the day with a full charge ⚡️, first time we’ve had it at 100%! We’re planning to just drive to Richmond today and tackle the DC traffic well rested tomorrow. Hoping to leave mid-morning, but we will see! The Rivian is mostly packed, so seems doable!
The packing
This is a 4-night trip. We’ve got:
✅ One large suitcase with clothes for mom, dad, and baby along with some other baby essentials like diapers and extra swaddles in the trunk
✅ One duffle bag with clothes and shoes for the big sisters in the trunk
✅ Three carseats – rear-facing infant carseat in the middle, two full size forward-facing carseats in the way back
✅ Two iPads that can velcro to the middle row headrests
✅ UPPAbaby Vista double stroller in the frunk
✅ SNOO in the trunk
✅ One tuxedo for dad and two dresses for mom laid on top of the bags in the trunk
❌ No gas
✅ Three kids, two parents
✅ An adventurous spirit and a full charge!
The Drive
It turns out if we charge up to 100% (which we have!) and put the car in conserve mode it predicts we can go straight there with no stops – nice!
We are going to need to stop after two hours anyways so I can breastfeed the baby, so we opted for All-Purpose mode and a stop. We set the filter in the Rivian app to only suggest Rivian adventure network charging spots that are fast. By default, Rivian picked a stop in Henderson. A bit of research shows there is a Starbucks right next to the charging stations (perfect for a mama recharge while Rivian gets a boost, and hopefully some clean bathrooms 🤞)
Off we go! Will report back how it goes.
The drive went great! The kids did better than expected (5 week old was a champ!). We got a later start than planned due to a last minute doc visit but were still in Richmond before dinner. The stop was lovely and as predicted the Starbucks offered some much needed caffeine and a clean bathroom! We were the only vehicle at the charging station (phew! I had some last minute range anxiety when I realized I hadn’t checked beforehand how often the spots were all filled! This can be seen in the Rivian app so I’ve added that to my pre-planning checklist!) and it charged very fast! Only hiccup – both girls declared they desperately needed a bathroom when we were about twenty minutes from the stop 🤦♀️, so we ended up having to pull off at gas station, bleh! While there definitely are plenty of charging places along the route, unfortunately (or maybe fortunately since it saved us from christening our lovely back back) gas stations are way more ubiquitous. Noted!