We placed our order for breakfast with Agate Cove Inn the evening before so it would be ready for us promptly this morning. It was amazingly good, with eggs, bacon, and all the fixings. In many ways the service at these smaller hotels were better than those offerred at large ones because they're able to adapt. By charging overnight here of course the car was full and ready for us in the morning. I also bought a picnic lunch from Agate Cove Inn, which we later stored in our portable cooler in the back trunk, because we were not sure exactly where we were going to eat lunch today.

Although we wanted to take a comfortable morning, I made it clear that to the family we have a lot of distance to travel today, so we should not depart too late. My major destinations for today included both the Point Reyes National Seashore and a view of the Golden Gate bridge from the north, plus whatever sightseeing we can accomplish by driving the Shoreline Highway southwards.

And it was not long until we located Sea Ranch. My wife and I recognized the grey wood paneled small houses and small buildings jutting out of the coastal scrub and mixed with unique evergreens that gave Sea Ranch its distinct look. The last time I was here was before either of my children were born, so we had to explain how my wife's extended family would visit here often, but we do not any more because almost all of them have migrated to Southern California. Sea Ranch is even on the Tesla Destination Network, so I knew that if needed I might be able to use the Tesla-native charging stall here. I had considered staying here, but I think they're generally set up for staying much longer than a single night like what I needed on this trip.

It was neat to see this place. We were hoping to use the restroom but could not. Unfortunately with the pandemic, Sea Ranch was basically shut down. The restaurant and the lodge here were closed, with portions even under construction. Instead we had to continue south.

To my great surprise, we discovered a California Highway Patrol car and officer blocking Highway 1 southbound (see top picture) using cones and yellow police tape. I could not believe what I was seeing at first. There was a woman in another vehicle trying to argue with the officer about the blockage, trying to get past the officer, to no avail. I pulled over at first to assess what was going on. Our phones and the car did not have reception here so we could not independently determine the extent of the situation we were facing.

But it was pretty darn obvious to see the smoke from flames just on the other side of the ridge line to the south.

After the other woman turned around and drove north, I walked up to the yellow line and asked the officer some questions. He told me that the fire and closure went all the way to Jenner, which is just north of highway 116, our next opportunity to abort and go back to highway 101. Therefore that escape route was not accessible. I mentioned that we were there just to enjoy the coastline, while acknowledging the fire is the fire.

Unlike this trip's other unplanned detours or cancellations, this one was not due to the pandemic. Instead it was dictated by a naturally-occurring fire big enough to close a substantial section of a major highway, much like the Blue Cut fire did to us on our road trip four years ago. What makes this trickier is that we're a day further away from home than then.

Alluding to what Jim Lovell said as portrayed in the 1995 movie Apollo 13, I told my wife: "We just lost Point Reyes." I did not know how serious this was at the time, only seeing the edge of a fire on the coast. Only late in the day, when I had Internet access, I could pull up information about the closure and the extent of the area affected by, not one fire, but the fires. What I did know was we had to turn around and drive north, which I did. As I began the detour I'm thinking about our strategy. My original plan was to use the Corte Madera Supercharger, and in the morning I had primed the navigation in the car (so it have the route cached in memory in case we lost reception) with that destination already as a reference point for my use of charge relative to Point Reyes. I restarted navigation to Corte Madera from here, to continue to have the computer provide that reference data.

It turns out, as I learned at the end of the day, there was also an ongoing fire in Point Reyes itself, so even if we did reach Point Reyes, we couldn't enter.

What was I most worried about? Time. Do we need a "Time Anxiety" icon here? I didn't want to check into our next hotel too late, as in, uncomfortably late. I wanted my family to all get a good night's sleep after a day disrupted by fire. My family's well-being was high priority.
	"Whaddya gonna do when you run out of battery? What are you going to do about charge? I'm getting worried! I've never done what you're doing; I'm getting palpitations again!"       - driver who does not own an all-electric vehicle who imagines they know more about BEVs than experienced BEV drivers know
For drivers who don't own a BEV: First: That's a Loaded Question fallacy because it has a false presumption. Second: What was I NOT worried about? Charge, because: the Tesla's big Navigation map showed five Supercharger sites on the nearest parts of highway 101, therefore as long as I could get to highway 101 somehow, which was now mandated anyways by the fire I could see (and, in a way, by the California Highway Patrol), accessing a Supercharger would both be a cinch and an automatic gateway to address other closer-term priorities like meals and the restroom. Besides I already knew Tesla-native plugs of the Tesla Destination Network, another charging-network layer, were installed along Highway 1 at Timber Cove, Sea Ranch, and others all the way back to Mendocino. All those charging locations were in the Tesla Navigation in the car. With seven years of all-electric road trips under my belt, I find it astonishing and dismaying how drivers who don't own a BEV act ignorant of these long-standing facts about Tesla cars. What will it take for their ignorance and bed-wetting to end?

Since reception was poor on all our devices, we had a hard time finding which route we could take to get to highway 101. We stopped by Stewart Point because that had reception.

But then a kind fellow at the parking lot at Stewart Point came up to us because he saw my Harvey Mudd College license plate frame on the back of my car. He was an Harvey Mudder too, maybe five years ahead of me as I recall, and he lived locally here. We talked about the fire and how that is diverting us to find a way to highway 101. He knew that the road nearby over the mountains was a gravel road, which was no good for us because that would require us to go very very slowly, taking more time. So when we looked for roads further north he believed that Mountain View Road near Stornetta would be a paved mountain road that could get us to highway 101. We thanked the fellow Mudder and continued north.

To get to Stornetta it was going to be a long drive doubling back on road we already traveled. We made it almost to Gualala, but we were all getting hungry, so we stopped at the Salal Picnic area near Gualala Point to pull out that picnic lunch from Agate Cove Inn and have a brief stop to eat. Like our other favorite places for lunch, this was a pretty place, and around here the weather was great. We all ate up as much as we can while here because it could be a long drive to our next meal. The restrooms, as pit holes go, was acceptable and necessary. We read off the names of the small towns and sights as we continued north to make sure we do not miss the turn after Stornetta. Anchor Bay, Fish Rock, Point Arena, and Flumeville all went by.

We made our way east and once up into the mountains the paved road ends up very winding and surprisingly bumpy. It seemed like over the years the hillside underneath gave way unevenly, leaving the paved surface unpredictably bumpy. That made the drive less comfortable. For thousands of miles so far we were on excellent roads with new tires in an all-electric car with far fewer vibrations than in an internal-combustion car, so for the first time in years I had to tense up my body against the bumps in the road so that I can keep my foot steady on the pedals so the ride isn't lurchy for my family. The lines were not well-defined enough on this rarely-maintained, sometimes-single-width road to use Autopilot. It took a lot of my human energy to keep the drive as smooth as I can for my family.

It took a while, but eventually we made it over this small mountain range to reach Boonville and the intersection with highway 128, a much nicer and better-maintained two-lane highway. It took us to Cloverdale where we could get on highway 101.

Time Event Range Remaining 1:49 pm Depart Gualala Point 214 4:31 pm Arrived Petaluma Supercharger 52 Range/Distance ratio: 1.17 Conditions: Uphill, winding & bumpy mountain roads, smoke & ash We found the Supercharger, plugged in, after having trouble choosing from the forest of stalls, and decided on dinner at the mall. Turns out there was a Chipotle and Five Guys right next to each other, so my wife and kids had Chipotle, and I had Five Guys. And we had a chance to rest and recoup.

Cost to Charge: $0

The problem was only outdoor seating was allowed, and the smoke and ash from the fire was palpable here, falling on everything. The months-long pandemic led to rules that forced us to eat outside, and the brand-new fire made it uncomfortable to be outside. This was not ideal but there was nothing we could do about it. In terms of progress on the route, we were almost three hours behind my original itinerary. I could squarely blame it on the fire, because without that we would not have had to backtrack and reroute adding well over 100 extra miles to our route, much of it on slow roads.

But the Tesla technology performed beautifully through all these other externally-caused difficulties. And it was not even done performing yet.

Every minute we spent here we used to address and anticipate our human, physiological needs. That includes how, after dinner, we stopped by the nearby Sprouts to pick up supplies, especially water, snacks, and other refreshments, just in case.

When I pulled up to see the view, I was amazed. I immediately had to hop out and look. However I was greeted by choking soot and smoke affecting my nose and eyes, but I was determined to complete my photo shoot here. My family just stayed inside the car with Dog Mode on. I had never seen this bridge from this view before, and now my first impression of the north view of the Golden Gate Bridge will always be one of orange haze and choking, eye-watering smoke. I felt overwhelmed by the happenstance and unique situation we were in, a moment in space and time that will almost never be seen again. Here this famous view of the ocean entrance to San Francisco that you see in postcards shows a city on this day drowning in smoke so bad it seems as if the city is on fire. It should be highly unlikely anyone would see San Francisco quite like this again.

The discomfort in the air and our timing gave clear reasons to keep going, so we left Marin Headlands and joined highway 101 to cross the Golden Gate Bridge south because that was the quickest path to our destination and already on my planned itinerary. I don't remember ever driving the Golden Gate Bridge southbound myself before. More importantly, this was the only time my children have crossed the Golden Gate Bridge. What a strange day it turned out to be. We could see the orange smoky haze from the bridge. I already had a FasTrak sticker on my windshield so it was no problem crossing legally. As a 4-person carpool with diamond-lane zero-emission stickers, I thought I was a shoo-in for the $5.70 toll so I took the carpool lane toll lane. When I complained of an overcharge the following month (it had the correct transponder number) they told me I had the wrong type of transponder for that discount.

Because we were behind schedule due to the fires to the north, I just took the fastest route to our hotel. In my original itinerary I was thinking of taking Highway 1 to see the coastline on the way to Santa Cruz. It turns out that route was blocked by a different fire, later known as the CZU Lighting Complex Fire, so I couldn't go that scenic highway this day if I wanted to. The Tesla Navigation took us through downtown San Francisco and by San Francisco State University, where I had never been before, and San Francisco International Airport. Everything here was cast in an orange haze, illuminated by an orange sun. The air outside was so bad we had to turn on Bioweapon Defense Mode.

Further south we could easily see yet another fire inland of us, the SCU Complex Fire. We traveled all this way through other states to see dozens of other places and drives thousands of miles of roads we've never driven before, and our welcome back to our home state of California was a state that was literally on fire. The transformation of this day was astonishingly rapid.

Time Event Range Remaining 5:40 pm Departed Petaluma 298 6:27 pm Departed Golden Gate Viewpoint 248 8:47 pm Arrived Carmel Mission Inn 84 Range/Distance ratio: 1.27 Conditions: Toll bridge, city, traffic, smoke, Bioweapon defense mode on By skipping some of the sights after Golden Gate bridge I made up some time and arrived only about two hours behind schedule, but we made it to Carmel Mission Inn, a member of the Tesla Destination Network, at a not completely unreasonable hour. There was a pool here, but we did not bother because of the ash falling from the sky.

After we checked in and unloaded the car, I found the Tesla-native charging plugs. Those white streaks are ash, not snow, falling from the sky, probably originating from the Carmel Valley Fire, yet another fire. Cost to Charge: $0

After we settled into our room and shower, we caught up on the news and what all these fires are about. We were amazed and astounded. It turned out that sign we saw on Cascades Lakes Scenic Byway three days ago told us this could happen because it happened 22 years earlier in Oregon. Let's take a closer look at that sign near Elk Lake:

The sign described how lightning could trigger an undetectable smolder which leads to large out-of-control wildfires days or even weeks later. This time, for California, it seems clear it took only days for thousands of lightning strikes to set off some of the largest wildfires in California history. We just happened to be passing through the same area when it happened.

Time lapse animation provided by NOAA of lightning strikes detected by GOES17 from August 16 to 18, 2020. GOES17 detected several thousand lightning strikes.

We made it to our hotel in time safely and even soon enough to get a decent night's rest, thanks to Tesla technology, which did not let us down even when great unpredictable difficulties appeared. Most drivers who don't own a BEV can not conceive an all-electric transportation solution accomplishing long-distance travel, much less adapting to unexpected long-distance detours and hurdles due to disasters of massive scale. And yet here is the proof it works.