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 8, the day of the Midwest Tesla Gathering 2016 in St.Louis, 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!
We arrived early at about 10 AM at the St.Charles Tesla Supercharger. The only available Supercharger parking space still available was not working. Looking at the phone number posted on the charger we reported that it was not working. As soon as one other Tesla charging spot became available, we pulled in to top off. We only charged for a short while as it seemed other Tesla vehicles were arriving that needed charging more than us. So we pulled into a non-charging spot across the lot.
When we signed-in, we got assigned to one one of the groups to be driving to the winery. Each group had about 5 or 6 Tesla vehicles that would follow a volunteer leader. Our group would be the first group to depart at exactly 11 AM.
For a while we all just hung out in the parking lot near the Tesla Superchargers waiting for our time to depart on the drive to the winery. Tesla vehicles just kept on arriving, including the Tesla Roadster shown in the above photos.
Our Tesla Model X ended up being the first Tesla vehicle right behind the lead Tesla. I'm not sure if that was a good place to be in the line or not. On the positive side, it make it easy for everyone behind us to follow in the line since we had a red vehicle that was taller than the Model S vehicles. But on the other hand, it probably made it difficult for the lead Tesla driver to see if all the other Tesla cars were still following him. Whenever I saw the Tesla behind me was falling behind, I would slow down so the lead Tesla driver would have a clue that the vehicles behind me were lagging.
We tried the wine tastting at the Montelle Winery and then ordered lunch which we ate out on the patio.
When it was getting close to the time for everyone to depart the Montelle Winery, we left a bit early and visited the sister winery of Montelle, the Augusta Winery. It was just a couple of miles from the Montelle Winery.
Everyone regrouped at the St.Charles Tesla Supercharger before heading out to the photo op at the St.Louis Arch.
Above are photos of all the attending Tesla vehicles with the St.Louis Arch in the background. The two Tesla Model X vehicles were placed at the very end of the line so they might be a bit hard to see in these photos. A Tesla Roadster was placed in the very front which is quite easy to see.
Writing detailed coverage of events is not my forte, so hopefully some details of the event beyond the photos shown here will be posted to MidwestTeslaGathering.com in the near future.
I went to the St.Charles Tesla Supercharger later that evening just to top off for our trip back to La Plata in the morning. While waiting for the charge to complete I walked over to the only fast food place that was open in the shopping center to purchase a Diet Coke. While I was at the Supercharger, another Tesla pulled in. I hadn't noticed that he pulled into the only Supercharger that we had reported earlier in the day as not working. The driver came over to me to ask if my Supercharger was working. I apologized to him that I had not noticed that he had pulled into the one and only broken Supercharger. He moved over to one of the other charging spaces and then had no problem charging up.
So that was the end of the big day, the event we had driven all this way to attend! We felt it was well worth the long drive to attend and will consider attending the event next year. Please check back later for our continuing Tesla Model X roadtrip back to the west coast.
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.
