I’m still dipping my fork into the puddle of warm maple and whipped cream left over from the bread pudding that served as breakfast, while sipping away on a mug of muddy decaf cappuccino. “Au Bon Vieux Temps du Paris” in the background accompanies the slow parade of locals and tourists making pilgrimage across the worn wooden floorboards of Thomasina’s for their own late breakfasts. I’m in my element.

Yes, my plan for the morning was to make my way up to the lookout at the top of Windy Joe Peak, but it was low overcast, and, well, snowing. I mean, I’m all for delightfully foolhardy adventure (yeah, I’m looking at you, Chumlily), but the blessing of a long road is that there’s always going to be another adventure not too far down the highway.

Yesterday? Yesterday was magnificent. Sure, it bucketed rain intermittently, but somehow I managed to dance between the raindrops and stay dry for a canyon stroll along the Similkameen, absolutely spattered with wildflowers. And when the rain broke, the sun came belting out of the sky like…like, uh, I’m out of similes here. It was pretty.

This morning, not so much. Like I said, low clouds, and snow. So I stopped in at the Manning Park Resort’s Tesla charging station (yes, they’re everywhere), loaded the Red She Devil up with some fresh Canadian hydroelectric electrons, and whooshed off down the Crowsnest Highway to see what I could see.

One of the reasons I settled on this particular car was that I needed something that could fill the shoes of the old Subaru. Long range battery so I could take it into the mountains. All wheel drive, so I could actually get it into the mountains, and a bed area long enough to lay down an air mattress in back and sleep in it, in case, for example, it started snowing. In late June.

I’ll try to write more about my first pass with the Tesla camping experience later, but there are clearly some bugs I need to work out.

(For the uninitiated, whenever you climb into the car, it assumes you’re climbing in to actually go somewhere, so it fires up the displays, kicks on climate control and preps itself, like an eager puppy, to go tearing off into the distance. And when you’ve gotten where you’re going, you don’t actually ever “turn the car off.” You just get out and walk away. It detects that you’re no longer inside/nearby and puts itself to sleep. You see the problem here? There’s no way to actually just turn the car off. If you’re inside the car, it assumes that you’re ready and raring to go somewhere. Not, say, to sleep for the next eight hours. Yes, yes, there’s “camping mode,” but that makes its own assumptions. IS THERE NO WAY TO JUST TURN OFF THE GLOW OF THAT FREAKING 17 INCH DISPLAY SCREEN?!?!?   Ahem. As I said, I’m still learning how this whole camping-in-a-Tesla thing works.)

Anyhow.

This time, “down the highway” brought me to Princeton, B.C.  just as my stomach said something about breakfast, and a quick dose of internet steered me to Thomasina’s at the north end of town. Still working out where I’m headed next, but for the moment, I’m feeling very much in my element.

[postscript: Oh look – it’s sunny again!]