These reports and photos are of a road trip from Anaheim, California, to the 2nd Annual Midwest Tesla Gathering in St. Louis, Missouri. My wife and I are doing this trip in our new red 2016 Tesla Model X P90DL. This particular report is of Day 7, the segment from La Plata, Missouri, to St.Charles, Missouri.
Note: This report is a rough draft. I have not yet done a spell check or final edits. Since we are driving this road trip right now, devoting time to driving takes priority. As I get time at our stays along the way I'll make final edits and spelling corrections. But for now, please pardon any errors.
There are many more photos for this day of Tesla travel than could be included in the body of this report. To see ALL of the photos that were taken on this day, click here for the slide show!
After having charged our Model X at the Tesla Destination Charger at the Depot Inn & Suites in La Plata, Missouri, we departed about 12:30 PM for the first segment of our drive to St.Charles, Missouri. It is possible to drive all the way from the Depot Inn & Suites Destination Charger to St.Charles, but we chose to top off in Columbia. The distance from the hotel in La Plata to Columbia is about 81 miles and takes about 90 minutes. Most of the way the speed limit is 70 MPH straight down Highway 63 but because there is no bypass around Macon, the drive takes about 90 minutes. My sister Shelli and our friend Tom were along on this trip with us. Shelli does the overnight front desk shift at the Depot Inn & Suites some nights. Tom manages our vineyards in La Plata, the Silver Rails Vineyards.
The interior of this Holiday Inn was pretty fancy with conference rooms and a restaurant. Before I went inside for the first time I thought this was a Holiday Inn Express but the Express version of this hotel chain does not have conference rooms or restaurants. After checking the hotel sign, I realized this was a full service Holiday Inn and not a Holiday Inn Express. I think the restaurant is only open for dinner and not open all day. Check before you plan to eat here. The only other convenient place to eat nearby is a Jimmy John's sandwich shop across the street.
As long as we were in this part of Missouri, we decided to take a detour and go to the Stone Hill Winery in Hermann, Missouri, for a wine tasting and a tour of the winery. Above are photos of the wine tasting room.
After our wine tasting we went to the Vintage 1847 Restaurant for a late lunch around 4 PM. They served traditional German fare as well as some standard American cuisine.
At 5 PM we took a tour of the Stone Hill Winery including just a few of the underground caverns where wine is aged in barrels. The tour is provided free. Stone Hill Winery is not only one of the oldest and largest wineries in Missouri, but one of the oldest in the nation dating back to before the Civil War and having survived through The Depression and Prohibition. There are more photos from the wine tour than shown in the body of this report. To see more photos from this day and this tour, click here.
Before we departed the winery we purchased two bottles of Stone Hill Norton. One bottle was a more recent vintage, 2013, from old vines. These were vines that were more than 75 years old. The other bottle was an older vintage, 2001, from younger vines. Generally when you go to wine tastings all that is offered is tastes from current vintages, usually no more than 2 or 3 years old. Certain types of wines, including Norton, will often taste better once they have been aged for a few years. We wanted to see what a Norton would taste like from 2001 rather than the younger vintages served in wine tastings. We also wanted to compare this older vintage wine to a more recent vintage, but one that came from very old vines. Later in the day when we got back to our hotel we did compare these two wines. We liked both of them quite a bit more than the Norton wines of more recent vintages served at wine tastings. I think most of us liked the older vintage from the newer vines than the newer vintage from the older vines.
Rather than taking the I-70 main highway from Hermann to St.Charles, Missouri, we decided to follow scenic Route 100 east. This back route was a bit longer than the direct route so we came into St.Charles with just 21 miles of charge remaining on the battery. We went to our hotel first to unload our luggage and rest up a bit before going to get the car charged.
The St.Charles Tesla Supercharger was less than 3 miles from our hotel. However, because of all the construction, a detour sent us to head east on the I-70 over a bridge before directing us to change direction and allowing us to head west on the I-70. This detour added another 8 miles to our drive to get from the hotel to the charger! That put us at just 10 miles of charge remaining on the battery when we pulled into the St.Charles Tesla Supercharger. After that, we figured out an alternate back route detour to drive between our hotel and the St.Charles Tesla Supercharger without this extra 8 mile drive.
As you can see from the above photos, the Tesla Supercharger at St. Charge is another place where you would not be able to charge without blocking many if not all of the charging spaces if you wanted to charge without unhitching a trailer. If you ever do charge at locations configured like this while towing a trailer, STAY WITH YOUR VEHICLE. Don't go wandering off. As you can imagine, it would be very rude to be blocking all the spaces if another Tesla were to arrive to charge. At many Tesla Supercharging locations, especially those on highways in unpopulated areas, no other Tesla might arrive while you are charging. But you should still STAY by your car if you are blocking many of the spaces just in case you need to move your car to let another Tesla charge.
There is a SmashBurger right at the St.Charles Tesla Supercharger, but we decided instead to go Italian and ate at the Fratelli Ristorante a little further down the large shopping center at this Supercharger.
So that is it for the report of our Tesla travels of the day before the big event! Please check back for the next report which will include photos and my report from the 2016 Tesla Midwest Gathering.
There are many more photos for this day of Tesla travel than could be included in the body of this report. To see ALL of the photos that were taken on this day, click here for the slide show!
Note: This report is a rough draft. I have not yet done a spell check or final edits. Since we are driving this road trip right now, devoting time to driving takes priority. As I get time at our stays along the way I'll make final edits and spelling corrections. But for now, please pardon any errors.
