Mountain to Beach: Cybertruck Family Day at Dana Point

I came straight from Lake Arrowhead. Dropped from a mountain run with SoCal TeslaRuns to loading the Cybertruck for a family beach day in the same afternoon. That’s the move when you live in SoCal.

Abby had already packed. That’s important context. When I say packed, I mean two coolers, chairs, a tent, a water jug, snacks, and everything else that qualifies as half the house. The vault handled all of it with the tonneau closed. That’s exactly why we have a truck.

We left at 89% state of charge, 279 miles of rated range. Not a projection of how far we’d go. Just where the truck was sitting.

Doheny State Beach, Dana Point

Abby and the boys got there ahead of me with some friends. I caught up after swapping from the R1S. We were set up by the number six lifeguard stand, which gave us a good stretch of beach. Last time we were at Doheny was for a birthday too. Different crew, same spot.

I brought the Anker power station and the AstroAI cooler. Between those two and everything Abby brought, our area was fully set up before I’d even changed out of what I wore to Lake Arrowhead.

The birthday came with the full song. Happy birthday times three, in case one wasn’t enough.

94 at Home, 74 at the Beach

The house was 94°F when we left. By the time we got to Dana Point it was 74°, and by late afternoon it dropped further. I hadn’t brought a layer. That’s a recurring mistake in SoCal beach trips. The coast temperature is never what the inland forecast says, and once the sun starts going down you feel it fast.

The bathrooms are on the far end from where we were set up. Two of the porta-potties near us were facing the wrong direction, which I took to mean out of order. One functional. Worth knowing before you make the walk.

What You See Walking Around

One thing about beach parking lots in SoCal: you see some builds. There was a modified Smart car that stopped me. Off-road tires, roof rack with two mountain bikes, full outdoor kit. The Smart car has no business being that truck, and somehow it was.

Paragliders were going off the cliffs above the beach most of the afternoon. Dana Point headlands give them a good launch point. Worth looking up if you haven’t seen it before.

Trip Data

We packed up as the sun went down and headed home. End of day numbers: 154.4 miles driven, 61.1 kWh used, 395.8 Wh/mi. That includes the drive from Lake Arrowhead to home, then home to Dana Point and back. Loaded vault, full family, inland heat transitioning to coast and back.

395.8 Wh/mi is about what I’d expect for a packed Cybertruck on a mixed run like this. It’s not trying to be efficient. It’s trying to haul everything and it does that without complaint.

If you’re ordering a Cybertruck, a Tesla referral link gets credits for both of us. For the full picture on long-term ownership, the 20,000-mile review covers what a year of hauling actually looks like.