Since we picked up the Rivian the day before, this was our very first adventure with electric towing and camping. I probably should have been more nervous about getting stranded in nowhere Texas… but I wasn’t. I was fairly certain we’d survive. Ahhhhh the hubris and naivety (jk we didn’t get stranded and we were mostly fine).
We packed a little bit the night before—my favorite thing about trailer camping (besides the hot showers) is how little pre and post prep we have to do to take off for the weekend—had a good night’s sleep and woke up leisurely on Saturday morning, prepped the last of our things and set off.
First lesson about the R1S: Backing up the Hare between our fence gate up to the Tourtoise is way way WAY easier than the previous ¾ ton pickup trucks. Although the Hare feels huge in the garage (compared to my fairly small Mazda 3), it feels pretty damn reasonable in size compared to those trucks and the gate spread.
The R1S was fully charged, estimating about 300 miles not towing (and not running entirely highway speeds). Aneel and I knew this was a load of beans, and were guessing that with towing we might make 150. We were pretty close! We made it to the Waco Walmart parking lot with the level 3 charging station with about 25 miles left. It was about 100 miles to that shopping center, so our original estimate was off by about 25 miles. Not too bad! Mostly, we needed to count more for the highway speeds.
Second lesson about the R1S: its tow estimate is WAY off. And it doesn’t recalculate estimated remaining mileage at all well.
We unhooked the Tourtoise in a parking spot and set the Hare to charging. We’d stopped for spam musubi takeout (well Aneel got spam musubi, I got fried seafood platter), so we ate lunch then grabbed a couple of things we’d forgotten from Walmart (hello graham crackers, marshmallows, and 50-to-30-amp adaptor) and walked to Sonic for some drinks. The hour and 15 minutes went by fast, and we were on the road again!
Third lesson about the R1S: wind direction, cruise control, and slight incline really impact how many miles per kilowatt we get.
After another 100 miles (thereabouts), we made it to Purtis Creek State Park. The park wasn’t crowded, and our campsite looked pretty nice. Backing in was a breeze—I’ve gotten pretty good at backing up the Tourtoise at this point and there was plenty of front space to set myself up well for backing up too.
But we almost immediately hit our first big electric camping challenge.
The campsite didn’t have a 50-amp hook up like we’d thought. No problem! We had the back up 50-to-30-amp converter that Aneel had gotten at our Walmart stop! So we hooked it up, and… nothing. We fiddled around, poked around in the Rivian console, unhooked, hooked back up… tested without the Power Watch Dog… nada.
Also, turns out our cell service is craptacular in Purtis Creek, so we couldn’t call Rivian’s roadside assistance for help. We started walking around the campsite to both look for 50 amp hookups and to try to get cell service. Aneel was checking the power boxes, and I was looking for answers online. He wasn’t having much luck finding a 50-amp hookup, but I did discover online that a normal 50-to-30-amp adapter doesn’t work on an EV. Something something grounding wrong something.
So our backup to our backup plan was normal 120 volt trickle charge. Buuuuuut even set at the Hare’s lowest amp setting, the breaker kept tripping. Shit. We’re out of backups.
Last ditch plan: find campground host and desperately ask for help. We only had 30 miles of power left on the Hare and that wouldn’t get us to a charging station in rural Texas. We found the host campsite, and lucky for us… there were two 50-amp hookups there. But the campground host wasn’t there. I’m ruder than Aneel, so I just wanted to hook the Hare up charging immediately (nothing was plugged in, so we wouldn’t be “disturbing” anything). But Aneel definitely wanted to talk to the host first. Manners and stuff.
After standing around for a while, a guy wandered over and asked if we needed anything. He was the host’s backup, essentially. After a lovely chat with Ken—what a nice guy with a super cute Australian pupper named Ozzy—he called the site’s owner, asked permission to charge the Hare while he was gone (wouldn’t be back for a week), and we were set. It really was lucky for us that it turned out so well.
Everything else was pretty smooth sailing from there. Took about 22 hours to get the Rivian back up to full. We charged to 85% first then night before we left, we charged to 100%.
Camping itself was lovely. We hiked every trail at the park, sat lakeside and drank beer, cooked some sausage packets over the fire, and ate smores. Last day, we relaxed inside the trailer after a morning hike because weather turned overcast, chilly, and a little rainy.
Driving home was uneventful, and essentially we just reversed how we got there. Drive to Walmart, charge and hang, drive home.
Electric Camping Lessons
Electric Camping Big Lesson 1: Get a special 50-to-30-amp EV adaptor. Also, double and triple check that we’re camping with 50-amp hookups. That 50-to-30-amp EV adaptor would have been a slow charge.
Electric Camping Big Lesson 2: Our backup to the backup to the backup should be find nearest RV camp because they’ll definitely have 50-amp hookups, and I’m sure we could pay to charge there.
Electric Camping Big Lesson 3: We knew this, but ideally we’d arrive at campsite with enough charge to drive to nearest charger without the trailer.
Purtis Creek State Park Review
- Campsite: Backed up to nice woodsy area, so view was decent. It was a little closer to neighbors than I’d like but it is also end of winter so trees were bare and probably is less exposed in spring and summer. Good picnic table, good fire pit, plenty of space for tents if we needed.
- Definitely knock for how bad our cell service was there.
- Trails: Meh. Not enough of them for sure. There are basically four trails and all of them are between 1 and 2 miles. We could have done them all in 1 day. We actually did 3 of them in 1 day and then the other on the morning that weather got bad. They’re nice but not spectacular.
- Hang out spots: Pretty good lakeside chill spot. We were behind a couple of camping sites, but they were empty… probably would have moved a bit if they’d been full. We did get some water birds from this view.
- Fossil plus – there were tons of small fossils around the campsites. It was fun to wander around and pick them out.
- Camp help/support: A++ super nice sub host and helpful rangers.
Other random: We’re Lowkey Famous
We got lotsa attention for the Hare. When getting ice, lady told me she almost got in a wreck because she was staring at my fancy, nice ride. During first Waco stop, got harangued by a fairly anti-electric vehicle person. Second Waco stop, a lady asked for a tour of both the Hare AND the Tourtoise. And had a few other people give thumbs up or shout outs for Rivians.
