Ski Vacation: 2 Adults, a 5 Month Old, 1 International Border, 1 MME

Our MME arrived at our dealer back on Feb 5, and after two roundtrips (with overnights) from Walla Walla to Spokane, WA (318 miles R/T), my wife and I knew our ski vacation to Whistler, BC (482 miles O/W) was coming up. The MME is so shiny and new! But the Highlander has space! And with an infant, do we really want to take on a road trip with charging? DECISIONS!



Welp... I'm on the forum aren't I? Nobody gives a damn about a road trip in a Highlander.

We loaded up the MME, which we have uncreatively named Buzz Lightyear (get it? Electricity? Buzz? Yeah, I know, we stink at this), and were pleasantly surprised how much we could fit. If I could do it again, I'd go ahead and buy the Thule rack for our skis, just so I could have left the back seat up. But, the layout of the split seats in the rear meant we could put BabyWalla in her preferred spot, while folding down the other 60% of the rear. And the frunk? Turns out it's the perfect size for a Pack-N-Play. I'm 6' 3", so my skis went a bit on to the armrest, but not by much. It certainly didn’t affect my comfort.





We loaded up around noon from Walla Walla, with the battery at 100% (we have Prem ER AWD) with a rough plan to do our best to synchronize nursing stops for BabyWalla with charging stops for Buzz Lightyear. She's a baby, so "rough" was the defining word. Temperatures were moderate for our region - mid 40s.

BabyWalla held out for 90 minutes / 84 miles to Prosser, WA before needing to nurse and change. No ability to charge (fast or trickle) at the Love's Travel Stop, but we knew the bathrooms were clean for us. We changed the baby in the car... but not before she beat us to #1 while swapping out diapers. (Glad we have the pleather seats!). Cleaned that mess up, got back on the road.

DCFC stop number 1 was an EA station in Ellensburg, WA, (122 miles from home) right on the east side of the major east-west pass through Snoqualmie on I-90 here in Washington. PnC worked without a hitch, and we tapped those sweet free electrons from the 250 kWh included with the car. We hadn't been charging long when Blue PonyE rolled in, and we shared a pleasant chat. It was reassuring to hear a MME owner telling me they didn't regret it a year later. And fun to see two MME's charging together. BabyWalla wanted to nurse again, and this was the perfect time to tend to her. No pee on the cushions this time, thankfully. 45 kWh and 30 minutes later (from 28 to 75%), we were back on the road to cross the Cascades.



The car is new enough that it does have BlueCruise working. It worked great on I-82, I-90, I-405, and I-5 giving control back to me on particularly sharp curves through the passes, and whenever the road's lines had been worn down (in particular through the Snoqualmie Summit). Where it shined best was in stop-and-go traffic through Bellevue and Kirkland on I-405. It honestly did a better job in traffic than I would have, and it made the ride altogether less exhausting mentally. Nobody likes a traffic jam, but BlueCruise made it more tolerable. Hoping it comes soon for those who are waiting - I loved it.

We pulled into a Hampton Inn in Woodinville, WA with a L2 charger operated by EV Connect at 30% charge (115 miles from the last EA charger). No problems activating the free electrons through FordPass, but after unloading for the night into the room, I noticed an oddity: FordPass told me charging to 100% wouldn't be complete until... two days later. I kept refreshing the app, and in time it sped up significantly, but it required a lot of refreshing. Our plans for the next day depended on leaving the hotel with a 100% charge, which I was pondering until my wife mentioned that one of her close friends in the area wanted to see us - so we hopped back into Buzz to jaunt down to Mercer Island.



The time away from the charger meant there was no way in hell it would have us ready in time for the next morning, so after our visit, we stopped by an EA charger in Woodinville - strangely, in a Bank of America parking lot. More bundle electrons used, so no cost - and it was pretty speedy.
The visit brought the charge from 18% to 61% in 24 minutes, then returned to the hotel to top it off on the free L2 charger. The plan worked by a hair. The Hotel's L2 charger started with the car at a 60% SOC at 10:05 pm, and brought it to 100% at 8:32am - just in time for us to roll out the next morning with the cabin pre-warmed.

Day 2 had a few things to tackle - where to charge (in the US or Canada?), whether we would have any issues with temporary tags at the border (no), how the border crossing would go with COVID procedures (we were on the ball, so it went as quick as it possibly could - fastest stop at Peace Arch Border Crossing my wife could remember), and of course, how the baby would do.

As it turned out, things were pretty easy across the board. I was able to muck through the settings to get the speedometer converted into km/h, and appreciated that it still displayed the MPH speed below it. BlueCruise worked great on Highway 99 in Canada, both right up until the divided highway ends in Vancouver, and then again when it returns to divided highway in North Vancouver. Fascinatingly, BlueCruise still kept the speed tolerance I had set of 5 mph. For example, if the speed limit was 100 km/h, it would set the car at 108 km/h - rather than 105 km/h. As a former scientist, I appreciated the unit conversion abilities, and thought it was a nice piece of coding/engineering on Ford's part.

We made it to Squamish, BC with 34% SOC. (176 miles). Highway 99 is a stunning drive, and it was hard not to look at the magnificent vistas. I got yelled at by the attention monitors several times. The station here was Electrify Canada, and the last DCFC with power over 50 kW while in the mountains: Whistler has a single BC Hydro station at 50 kW.

Here I find my most major gripe of the trip - Electrify America and Electrify Canada don't play together, even though they are the same company. I knew this in advance - everything is reduplicated - so I had downloaded the Electrify Canada app, which is pretty much identical to the EA app (substitute "Canada" for "America" and you're 99% of the way there, it seems.)

Literally EVERYTHING is the same, and yet I had to create a new account, re-link my credit card, create another auto-refresh pool of money, Apple Wallet pass and more. There was no option for FordPass app activation here, either. It's annoying, and a lot of reduplicated effort - for which I blame Electrify Canada/America, and not Ford.



So having done that ahead of time, it was both a nice surpise, yet also infuriating that when I hooked up, it went through a PnC handshake routine (expected, since I didn't turn it off in the car) - and then... charging started? It appears it was some kind of fault - as the screen said the session would be complimentary due to an error on their end, and it didn't deduct from my Ford hours. It did charge slower than I'd have liked. But we picked up lunch, BabyWalla nursed and got a diaper change, and we headed out for Whistler. Buzz went from 34% to 76% in 55 minutes.

We arrived in Whistler with about a 50% SOC. Vacation time. Feel free to judge my skiing - I most certainly did. Having a baby doesn't make for great conditioning... but it was fun, and we got some great views on our last day. 100/100 would recommend.



While there, I used an errand runs= to fast charge at BC Hydro's 50 kW charger, which is at Whistler Conference Centre garage. The same garage also offers several ChargePoint L2 chargers - every time I had hoped to use those to trickle charge while shopping/walking, they were filled by other cars (An ID.4, Teslae, and a Kia Niro EV). The DCFC is prone to getting ICEd, as happened on two occasions when I drove by (but didn't want to charge). When we did DCFC, BC Hydro's app left a lot to be desired, taking two attempts with it to get it to start charging. While we ran errands and enjoyed the village, the DCFC brought Buzz from 55% to 82% SOC in 50 minutes. Not bad, and more than enough to get us through the rest of the week.

While there, on a couple of occasions we were unableto find parking, and were willing to pay both for parking and to top up on a slower L2 charge that wasn't in demand, so I parked at the Municipal Hall lot, which had a ChargePoint L2 charger (6kW). It is listed in FordPass as in-network, but I wasn't able to activate it through the app - I ended up setting up and using ChargePoint's app instead. (That charger, also, was half-ICEd on one occasion). I saw a MME there with BC plates - but I didn't get a picture. For shame. (It was the only MME I saw in Whistler, and one of 3 I saw on the entire trip).

Departure day came, and with it a plan to meet up with friends in Vancouver before heading back across the border to Mercer Island, where we'd stay with my wife's friend, who offered to host us. I made a rough plan to charge again in Squamish at the Electrify Canada station to 80%, which should then be enough to get us across the border to an EA station in Mount Vernon, WA. This time, Electrify Canada's station in Squamish hand shook with the MME, and presented an DECLINED error - presumably since my PnC is for Electrify America. After some wrestling with the Electrify Canada app, I finally got the EC station to charge. Once again, it was perfect timing for BabyWalla to nurse and get a change, and a quick bathroom break for me and my wife. It wasn't much - we added about 7% (from 72 to 79), about 10 kWh, in 15 minutes.

It was more than enough to get us to Vancouver and beyond - the long downhill out of the mountain helped. I had never been to Vancouver before, and it was lovely. It wouldn't be hard to convince me to live there!



After winding through the city and back onto Hwy 99, we came to the Blaine/Peace Arch border crossing. Because I didn't have permanent plates, the CBP agent wanted my registration. After a moment of panic as I looked for it in the glove box, he explained that he just needed the VIN to cross the border. As he said this, I immediately found the paperwork. (Because, of course). Welcome back to the States, and on to Mount Vernon.

No photos of the EA station at the Mount Vernon Walmart, but we had a 53 kWh charge to bring Buzz back to 80%, hit the restrooms, and have another nurse-and-change for BabyWalla. Got a nod from a Kia EV6 driver who was leaving the lot as I pulled in. An ID4 was also charging while we were there. A Nissan Leaf pulled up as we left, so I hustled to clear the CCS/CHAdeMO unit. That charge brought us through to Mercer Island for our overnight.

On the final morning, we packed up for the last leg back to Walla Walla. We took a short jaunt to North Bend on I-90 where we topped up at another EA charger, since we had been unable to charge at our friends' house overnight. We added 51 kWh in 60 minutes, once again bringing Buzz to 80%. (FordPass isn't showing me my charge logs for yesterday and today yet, so I'm putting together what I can from the receipts and memory.). It was quite cold, and we saw it in our electron economy on the return trip, which hovered at 2.0 - 2.5. I've done 3.0-3.5 before going to Spokane.



BabyWalla got a cute new dress for Easter at the Carter's outlet, while Dr. Walla picked up a new top at the Pendleton Outlet. Alas, they didn't have the shoes I needed at Sketchers or Clark's. Probably because they, like me, are generally pretty boring. After another nurse and change, we hit the road back on I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass.

That charge brought us all the way to the EA station in Yakima, right next to the Walmart. We used the last of our precious free Ford Electrons, adding in another 53 kWh and this time rendering $11.61 to EA for the privilege, over 37 minutes. This topped us up to 80% for the final leg home. Again, baby's ability to nurse and change while charging was magical. Your mileage may vary, but it worked well for us.

Ford Connected Nav desperately wants to take us well out of our way (1 hr+) to fast charge either in Dayton, WA or Hermiston, OR - to get us home with a 35% charge or greater. (This has happened on trips both to Spokane, and now on this one). I'm sure I've misconfigured something - and would love advice on how to tweak the "Auto Add Chargers" setting. That said, ABRP assured us we would come into Walla Walla with 10% SOC, and when I manually overrode the connected nav, it agreed. So we went straight home.

With one stop on the way home for BabyWalla to nurse and poo, we made it back to Walla Walla with the expected SOC, and are now back home on the Ford Mobile Charge:



Here's the tl;dr version:

• Traveling with an infant in the MME worked surprisingly well. Nursing stops almost always coincided with charging stops, so it didn't feel like wasted or lost time - we'd have had to have stopped had we been in our ICE Highlander.
  
  
• This was close to 8 hours of driving, and boy, BlueCruise is GREAT. It shined best in Seattle traffic. When I got into Canada, it converted my 5mph speed limit tolerance into an 8 km/h equivalent for its purposes - rather than choosing to go 5 km/h over. I thought that was well-coded, because it represents the same velocity, just in different units.
  
  
• We had an odd hotel charger in Woodinville, that just couldn't decide if it wanted to L2 charge at 1 kWh or 6 kWh. It confused the hell out of both FordPass, and out of me. But it was enough to get us over the line once we did a quick DCFC, and certainly enough to Precondition. FordPass worked to activate the charger, which was with the EV Connect network.
  
  
• Despite being made by the same company, Electrify America and Electrify Canada don't interoperate, which is just dumb. While one lucky accident led to a free charge, the second run led to a declined PnC handshake, and mucking about in the EC app to make it work. Truly, there is no good reason, none at all, that the two networks shouldn't interoperate with one another. If my AAA membership works in Canada, I shouldn't have to create a second account with EC when I have one with EA (or, for that matter, with Ford BlueOval PnC). Truly, this is the most annoying tidbit I could think of.
  
  
• FordPass activation just wouldn't work with a ChargePoint charger in Whistler, even though it was in network.
  
  
• All Ford connected services kept working in Canada without issue.

That's what I got. Feel free to follow up with questions/remarks/wisecracks about my skiing.

Grateful to the Forum for giving me the courage to give the long road trip a go. We'll be doing it again!

Great write up. As someone with their first on the way, it’s good to hear that with some luck and planning, the baby’s needs can align to charging times.

ElectrifyCLT said:

Great write up. As someone with their first on the way, it’s good to hear that with some luck and planning, the baby’s needs can align to charging times.

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I was shocked how well it worked. Some of it was almost certainly dumb luck, but my wife and I were just amazed at how charging stops were effective baby stops time after time. hope it works out the same for you when baby arrives!

walla2 said:

And the frunk? Turns out it's the perfect size for a Pack-N-Play.

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This is, no exaggeration, life-changing information. I never would have thought to try!

GrumblesTheDog said:

This is, no exaggeration, life-changing information. I never would have thought to try!

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Right!?! I woke my wife up to look at the picture I was so excited by it

walla2 said:

We changed the baby in the car... but not before she beat us to #1 while swapping out diapers. (Glad we have the pleather seats!). Cleaned that mess up, got back on the road.

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Changing my week old kid in the car was a type of breaking-in of my new car I never knew was even possible

GrumblesTheDog said:

This is, no exaggeration, life-changing information. I never would have thought to try!

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I was pleasantly surprised!

I should note my frunk isn’t empty - it’s where I keep my snow broom, ice scraper, Tesla tap, AutoSock (chain replacement for the pass) and reusable shopping bags. It took some juggling, but I didn’t have to take any of them out. Hope it works for y’alls pack and plays too!

Great write-up, thanks for sharing. The PNW is gorgeous, would love to drive up there and into Vancouver/Whistler one day.

I am trying my hardest to get comfortable with blue cruise but there are two main issues for me:

When I set the speed it holds it. Which is great. Except it doesn't drive as a human would. A human naturally slows down before going into a turn...not blue cruise. It holds the same speed and goes into the turn flying through it like a mad man lol.

Lastly, and most importantly: I know it works great and I don't fear ever going into the car in front of me. It's the cars to my left and right I worry about. Bluecruise gets me dangerously close to them from time to time. Especially if it's a truck or any larger vehicle. That part is what I feel needs to get updated asap.

This was a fun read. Thanks for sharing all the detail.

And you were definitely in my neck of the woods (Vancouver, BC). I haven't yet, but will definitely be doing trips both north to Whistler and south to Seattle in my Mach-E at some point.

Yes, sadly the Ford Plug-n-Charge capability seems completely non-functional in Canada whether on Electrify Canada or on ChargePoint. It's pretty sad when I search for Blue Oval-compatible stations on the FordPass app. ChargePoint locations show up as "In Network," but this is a lie and I pretty much have to use my ChargePoint account.

I bought my car in Canada so I do wonder if I can get Plug-n-Charge to work in the US. (I remain doubtful but will be positively surprised if it does.)

Your Blue Cruise impressions were helpful. I used to do business meetings in Seattle 2-3x a month... driving the I-5 got to be a real chore. Did it handle the Bellingham pass alright? There is quite some elevation change plus significant (fun) curves in that section. Everett stop and go traffic is another perfect use case for BC.

Very informative report, this is the kind of content that really sets this forum apart. Love all the details about road tripping with a baby in tow. We last went up to Squamish over Labor Day (highly recommend Mag's 99 or Sunny Chibas for some Canadian Mexican fried chicken) and recently had a baby, so it's interesting to compare to your notes on Winter conditions, Blue Cruise and baby travel.

The Black Horse said:

I am trying my hardest to get comfortable with blue cruise but there are two main issues for me:

When I set the speed it holds it. Which is great. Except it doesn't drive as a human would. A human naturally slows down before going into a turn...not blue cruise. It holds the same speed and goes into the turn flying through it like a mad man lol.

Lastly, and most importantly: I know it works great and I don't fear ever going into the car in front of me. It's the cars to my left and right I worry about. Bluecruise gets me dangerously close to them from time to time. Especially if it's a truck or any larger vehicle. That part is what I feel needs to get updated asap.

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I don't disagree at all. I did find myself putting my hands on the wheel quite often near trucks, or in curves. I guess I didn't slow it down as much, because I wasn't going too fast anyway - and in the curves where I would slow down, Bluecruise disengaged.

That said, for long stretches of nothing (Especially between Ellensburg and Tri-Cities, WA), BlueCruise was a dream.

UsernameChecksOut said:

Yes, sadly the Ford Plug-n-Charge capability seems completely non-functional in Canada whether on Electrify Canada or on ChargePoint. It's pretty sad when I search for Blue Oval-compatible stations on the FordPass app. ChargePoint locations show up as "In Network," but this is a lie and I pretty much have to use my ChargePoint account.

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Honestly, I would have been fine with Plug-and-Charge not working - I expected that.

What annoyed the living crap out of me was that I had to download another app for Electrify Canada, and on top of that, create another account with another auto-reload balance (if I didn't want to pay the price premium). It seems like having the Electrify America app should be enough for US residents wanting to charge in Canada, and the Electrify Canada app should be enough for Canadian residents wanting to charge in the US!

I don't find the lack of Plug and Charge unreasonable. But having two Electrify apps that are the same damn software for the same damn charger is a bit much.

UsernameChecksOut said:

Your Blue Cruise impressions were helpful. I used to do business meetings in Seattle 2-3x a month... driving the I-5 got to be a real chore. Did it handle the Bellingham pass alright? There is quite some elevation change plus significant (fun) curves in that section. Everett stop and go traffic is another perfect use case for BC.

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If memory serves, it was pretty good through the passes (south of?) Bellingham. It was largely the same behaviors as in Snoqualmie - any time there was a curve with a yellow speed advisory sign, or really a curve of any particular note, it would disengage and tell me to take control. So there was a bit of on/off nature to it then, but given the curves in question I generally had hands very close to the wheel anyway. That said, I also don't ever recall it disengaging lane centering/ADAS even when handsfree was unavailable.

ARK said:

Great write-up, thanks for sharing. The PNW is gorgeous, would love to drive up there and into Vancouver/Whistler one day.

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walla2 said:

Our MME arrived at our dealer back on Feb 5, and after two roundtrips (with overnights) from Walla Walla to Spokane, WA (318 miles R/T), my wife and I knew our ski vacation to Whistler, BC (482 miles O/W) was coming up. The MME is so shiny and new! But the Highlander has space! And with an infant, do we really want to take on a road trip with charging? DECISIONS!

Welp... I'm on the forum aren't I? Nobody gives a damn about a road trip in a Highlander.

We loaded up the MME, which we have uncreatively named Buzz Lightyear (get it? Electricity? Buzz? Yeah, I know, we stink at this), and were pleasantly surprised how much we could fit. If I could do it again, I'd go ahead and buy the Thule rack for our skis, just so I could have left the back seat up. But, the layout of the split seats in the rear meant we could put BabyWalla in her preferred spot, while folding down the other 60% of the rear. And the frunk? Turns out it's the perfect size for a Pack-N-Play. I'm 6' 3", so my skis went a bit on to the armrest, but not by much. It certainly didn’t affect my comfort.

We loaded up around noon from Walla Walla, with the battery at 100% (we have Prem ER AWD) with a rough plan to do our best to synchronize nursing stops for BabyWalla with charging stops for Buzz Lightyear. It's a baby, so "rough" was the defining word. Temperatures were moderate for our region - mid 40s.

BabyWalla held out for 90 minutes / 84 miles to Prosser, WA before needing to nurse and change. No ability to charge (fast or trickle) at the Love's Travel Stop, but we knew the bathrooms were clean for us. We changed the baby in the car... but not before she beat us to #1 while swapping out diapers. (Glad we have the pleather seats!). Cleaned that mess up, got back on the road.

DCFC stop number 1 was an EA station in Ellensburg, WA, (122 miles from home) right on the east side of the major east-west pass through Snoqualmie on I-90 here in Washington. We hadn't been charging long when Blue PonyE rolled in, and we shared a pleasant chat. It was reassuring to hear a MME owner telling me they didn't regret it a year later. And fun to see two MME's charging together. BabyWalla wanted to nurse again, and this was the perfect time to tend to her. No pee on the cushions this time, thankfully. 45 kWh and 30 minutes later (from 28 to 75%), we were back on the road to cross the Cascades. PnC worked without a hitch, and we tapped those sweet free electrons from the 250 kWh included with the car.

The car is new enough that it does have BlueCruise working. It worked great on I-82, I-90, I-405, and I-5 giving control back to me on particularly sharp curves through the pass, and whenever the road's lines had been worn down (in particular through the Snoqualmie Summit). Were it shined best was in stop-and-go traffic through Bellevue and Kirkland on I-405. It honestly did a better job in traffic than I would have, and it made the ride altogether less exhausting. Hoping it comes soon for those who are waiting - I loved it.

We pulled into a Hampton Inn in Woodinville, WA with a L2 charger operated by EV Connect at 30% charge (115 miles from the last EA charger). No problems activating the free electrons through FordPass, but after unloading for the night into the room, I noticed an oddity: FordPass told me charging to 100% wouldn't be complete until... two days later. I kept refreshing the app, and in time it sped up, but not by much. Our plans for the next day depended on leaving the hotel with a 100% charge, which I was pondering until my wife mentioned that one of her close friends in the area wanted to see us - so we hopped back into Buzz to jaunt down to Mercer Island.

The time away from the charger meant there was no way in hell it would have us ready in time for the next morning, so after our visit, we stopped by an EA charger in Woodinville - strangely, in a Bank of America parking lot. More bundle electrons used, so no cost - and it was pretty speedy.

Brought the charge from 18% to 61% in 24 minutes, then returned to the hotel to top it off on the free L2 charger. The plan worked by a hair. The Hotel's L2 charger started with the car at a 60% SOC at 10:05 pm, and brought it to 100% at 8:32am - just in time for us to roll out the next morning.

Day 2 had a few things to tackle - where to charge (in the US or Canada?), whether we would have any issues with temporary tags at the border (no), how the border crossing would go with COVID procedures (we were on the ball, so it went as quick as it possibly could - fastest stop at Peace Arch Border Crossing my wife could remember), and of course, how the baby would do.

As it turned out, things were pretty easy across the board. I was able to muck through the settings to get the speedometer converted into km/h, and appreciated that it still displayed the MPH speed below it. BlueCruise worked great on Highway 99 in Canada, right up until the divided highway ends in Vancouver. Fascinatingly, BlueCruise still kept the speed tolerances I had set in MPH - 5 mph. For example, if the speed limit was 100 km/h, it would set the car at 108 km/h - rather than 105 km/h.

We made it to Squamish, BC with 34% SOC. (176 miles). Highway 99 is a stunning drive, and it was hard not to look at the magnificent vistas. I got yelled at by the attention monitors several times. The station here was Electrify Canada, and the last DCFC with power over 50 kw we would hit (Whistler had a BC Hydro station at 50 kw - but only one). Here I find my most major gripe of the trip - Electrify America and Electrify Canada don't play together, even though they are the same company. I knew this in advance - everything is reduplicated - so I had to download the Electrify Canada app instead of using the EA one. Literally EVERYTHING is the same, and yet I had to create a new account, re-link my credit card, and more. No FordPass activation here. It's annoying.

So having done that ahead of time, it was both a nice surpise, yet also infuriating that when I hooked up, it went through a PnC handshake routine (expected, since I didn't turn it off in the car) - and then... started? It appears it was some kind of fault - as the screen said the session would be complimentary, and it didn't deduct from my Ford hours. It did charge slower than I'd have liked. But we picked up lunch, BabyWalla nursed and got a diaper change, and we headed out for Whistler. Buzz went from 34% to 76% in 55 minutes.

We arrived in Whistler with about a 50% SOC. Vacation time. Feel free to judge my skiing - I most certainly did. Having a baby doesn't make for great conditioning... but it was fun, and we got some great views on our last day. 100/100 would recommend.

While there, I used errand runs to fast charge at BC Hydro's 50 kWh charger, which is at Whistler Conference Centre garage. The same garage also offers several ChargePoint L2 chargers - every time I had hoped to use those to trickle charge while shopping, they were filled by other cars (An ID.4, Teslae, and a Kia Niro EV). The DCFC is prone to getting ICEd, as happened on two occasions when I drove by (but didn't want to charge). When we did DCFC, BC Hydro's app leaves a lot to be desired, and it took two runs with it to get it to start charging. While we ran errands and enjoyed the village, the DCFC brought Buzz from 55% to 82% SOC in 50 minutes. Not bad, and more than enough to get us through the rest of the week.

While there, on a couple of occasions not being able to find parking, and being willing to pay to top up on a slower L2 charge that wasn't in demand, I parked at the Municipal Hall lot, which had a ChargePoint L2 charger (6kw). It's listed in FordPass as in-network, but I wasn't able to activate it through the app - I ended up using ChargePoint's app instead. (I noted that that charger, also, was ICEd on one occasion). I should also note I saw a MME there with BC plates - but I didn't get a picture. For shame. (It was the only MME I saw in Whistler, and one of 3 I saw on the entire trip).

Departure day came, and with it a plan to meet up with friends in Vancouver before heading back across the border to Mercer Island, where we'd stay with my wife's friend, who offered to host us. I made a rough plan to charge again in Squamish at the Electrify Canada station to 80%, which should then be enough to get us across the border to an EA station in Mount Vernon, WA. This time, Electrify Canada's station in Squamish hand shook with the MME, and presented an DECLINED error - presumably since my PnC is for Electrify America. After some wrestling with the app, I finally got the EC station to charge. Once again, it was perfect timing for BabyWalla to nurse and get a change, and a quick bathroom break for me and my wife. It wasn't much - we added about 7% (from 72 to 79), about 10 kWh, in 15 minutes.

It was more than enough to get us to Vancouver and beyond - the long downhill out of the mountain helped. I had never been to Vancouver before, and it was lovely. It wouldn't be hard to convince me to live there!

After winding through the city and back onto Hwy 99, we came to the Blaine/Peace Arch border crossing. Because I didn't have permanent plates, the CBP agent wanted my registration. After a brief moment of panic as I looked for it in the glove box, he explained that he just needed the VIN to cross the border. As he said this I immediately found the paperwork. (Because, of course). Welcome back to the States, and on to Mount Vernon.

No photos of the EA station at the Mount Vernon Walmart, but we had a 53 kWh charge to bring Buzz back to 80%, hit the restrooms, and have another nurse-and-change for BabyWalla. That charge brought us through to Mercer Island for our overnight.

This morning, we packed up for the last leg back to Walla Walla. We took a short jaunt to North Bend on I-90 where we topped up at another EA charger. This was a 51 kWh charge in 60 minutes, once again bringing Buzz to 80%. (FordPass isn't showing me my charge logs for yesterday and today yet, so I'm putting together what I can from the receipts and memory.). It was quite cold, and we saw it in our electron economy on the return trip.

BabyWalla got a cute new dress for Easter at the Carter's outlet, while Dr. Walla picked up a new top at the Pendleton Outlet. Alas, they didn't have the shoes I needed. Probably because they, like me, are generally pretty boring. After another nurse and change, we hit the road back on I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass.

Our charge brought us all the way to the EA station in Yakima, right next to the Walmart. We used the last of our precious free Ford Electrons, adding in another 53 kWh and this time rendering $11.61 to EA for the privilege, over 37 minutes. This topped us up to 80% for the final leg home. Again, baby's ability to nurse and change while charging was magical. Your mileage may vary, but it worked well for us. Ford Connected Nav desperately wanted to take us out of our way to fast charge either in Dayton, WA or Hermiston, OR - to get us home with a 35% charge or greater. I'm sure I've misconfigured something. That said, ABRP assured us we would come into Walla Walla with 10% SOC, and when I manually overrode the connected nav, it agreed. So we went straight home.

With one stop on the way home for BabyWalla to nurse and poo, we made it back to Walla Walla with the expected SOC, and are now back home on the Ford Mobile Charge:

Here's the tl;dr version:

• Traveling with an infant in the MME worked surprisingly well. Nursing stops almost always coincided with charging stops, so it didn't feel like wasted or lost time - we'd have had to have stopped had we been in our ICE Highlander.
  
  
• This was close to 7 hours of driving, and boy, BlueCruise is GREAT. It shined best in Seattle traffic. When I got into Canada, it converted my 5mph speed limit tolerance into an 8 km/h equivalent for its speed purposes - rather than choosing to go 5 km/h over. No big deal, just funny.
  
  
• We had an odd hotel charger in Woodinville, that just couldn't decide if it wanted to L2 charge at 1 kWh or 6 kWh. It confused the hell out of both FordPass, and out of me. But it was enough to get us over the line once we did a quick DCFC, and certainly enough to Precondition. FordPass worked to activate the charger, which was with the EV Connect network.
  
  
• Despite being made by the same company, Electrify America and Electrify Canada don't interoperate, which is just dumb. While one lucky accident led to a free charge, the second run led to a declined PnC handshake, and mucking about in the EC app to make it work. Truly, there is no good reason, none at all, that the two networks shouldn't interoperate with one another. If my AAA membership works in Canada, I shouldn't have to create a second account with EC when I have one with EA (or, for that matter, with Ford BlueOval PnC). Truly, this is the most annoying tidbit I could think of.
  
  
• FordPass activation just wouldn't work with a ChargePoint charger in Whistler, even though it was in network.
  
  
• All Ford connected services kept working in Canada without issue.

That's what I got. Feel free to follow up with questions/remarks/wisecracks about my skiing.

Grateful to the Forum for giving me the courage to give the long road trip a go. We'll be doing it again!

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How does the Wheaten Terrier like the MME?