Some of you might wonder what has become of our plans to attend the Gigafactory opening.

Well, we actually managed to pull it off. We found someone kind enough to give us two tickets, and we were able to attend the event and see what’s going on in Reno.

To be quite honest, we do understand that slogan. Reno wasn’t exactly the most exciting place we’ve ever been to; plus, it has a drastic shortage of coffee shops. Some of you might know that’s a disaster for me, and reason enough for a state of emergency.

WHERE’S MY COFFEE??

In any event, the Gigafactory opening was a really cool party, and we got to visit the factory itself. Now if anyone out there thinks building that factory was just a spur of the moment thing, believe me, it’s not.

Even though it’s only around 15% finished, the factory is already huge and it’s pumping out Lithium cells like crazy. We’ve seen a great team of young engineers, overmotivated and full of passion. If anyone thinks Tesla and Panasonic aren’t serious about getting s**t done, believe me, they are.

The party itself was kind of laid back, of course it included a speech by Elon Musk, great food and cool drinks.

Incidentally, we also managed to take a closer look at the Model 3 on display.

Also, and that’s at least worth as much as the whole trip, we met awesome people and made new friends. How cool is that? We’ll grab this opportunity to say thank you once more to our kind hosts Norman and Judy for the tickets, and Tudor for being our MC for the night.

After the event, we toured Nevada and California. Awesome landscapes and lots of fun.

Another high point of the trip was going four wheeling in the Sierras with our California friends. That was another outstanding experience we aren’t likely to forget soon.

So, you say, great news, great trip, back home and business as usual right? Well no. We had barely been back when we decided to go for another adventure this year: the Rallye Monte Carlo.

Yes, that’s right. Any car buff will have a slight OMG moment just hearing this – at least I did. But of course we aren’t attending the “big” Rallye but the electric version of it. Specifically, it’s a regularity challenge between Paris and Monte Carlo taking place between October 12 and 16. It’s a professional rallye hosted according to FIA rules which is a first for us.

So even though this Rallye is nothing like the classic Monte, it will still be challenging. It includes a track day and driving the Col de Turini at night, just like the big event. It will involve lots of calculations, time keeping and map reading. Given our history with electronic navigation aids, this time we decided to take along paper maps.

Preparing our route

Anyway, if you’re interested in what will be going on during the Rallye, make sure you follow our facebook wall. We’ll be posting regular updates and pictures as usual. Unlike the WAVE, we won’t have time for daily blog updates, but make sure you check back here in the next few weeks since we will be posting a summary of the Rallye.

To finish, here are a few more shots of our last trip.