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 9, the segment from St.Charles, Missouri, to La Plata, 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 departed the Best Western Plus in St. Charles, Missouri, at abou 10 AM. Since I had already put a full charge on our Tesla Model X last night, there was no need to charge before we departed.
This was our third time stopping and charging at this Tesla Supercharger in Columbia, Missouri. Though it is possible to drive all the way from the Tesla Supercharger in St. Charles to the HPWC Destination Charger at the Depot Inn & Suites in La Plata, Missouri, I prefer to top off in Columbia to still have a good amount of charge upon arrival in La Plata. There are good clean restrooms available in the Holiday Inn. To enter the building you need to walk around the building to the front as the Tesla Superchargers are in the parking lot behind the building.
While we were in Columbia, we stopped at the Flat Branch Pub & Brewing for lunch. Their beers on tap were quite good. You can see the current list in the below photo. Quite a selection of food was available. More photos of their menu selections are available in the slideshow associated with this section of the report. To view that slideshow now, click here.
Later that day we went to dinner at Colton's SteakHouse & Grill with Bob & Amy Cox, who are President and VP of the American Passenger Rail Heritage Foundation (APRHF) and their daughter. Colton's is about a 10 minute drive north on Highway 63 from the Depot Inn & Suites.
On our way back to the hotel we stopped at the APRHF Rail Lookout Cabin & Deck to take a look at the progress of the renovations. Many needed repairs to the cabin were in the works including adding insulation and new screens. This Rail Lookout is very popular with both locals and with train enthusiasts who travel from all over the nation and the world to stay at the Depot Inn & Suites and tour the railroad attractions in APRHF Silver Rails Country. From the Rail Lookout you can watch over 40 BNSF freight trains that pass by each day, plus the 2 daily Amtrak Southwest Chief trains that serve the La Plata Amtrak Station each day.
There is a very long dirt road that leads from the back of the parking lot behind the La Pachanga Mexican Restaurant next to the Depot Inn & Suites to the Rail Lookout point. Before driving off the paved parking lot and onto the dirt road, I pushed the selection on the Tesla Model X screen to raise the suspension to its maximum height. With all wheel drive and the high suspension, the Model X had no problem driving down the dirt road to the Lookout Point.
I made sure to wait until I was at the very edge of the dirt road before raising the suspension. When I came back, I stopped at the edge of the dirt road again and set the suspension back to standard. Tesla has set the automatic suspension to remember each place you change the suspension, and then the suspension automatically changes to that setting whenever the GPS detects you are in the same location. I wanted to make sure the higher suspension was only associated with the dirt road and not with more of the La Pachanga Mexican Restaurant parking lot. I did not want my suspension to automatically rise every time I visit this restaurant! I already have this problem in our Model S whenever I drive near the bank or post office. I do raise the suspension in these two locations so that I can reach the drive-through ATM and the mailbox. But now whenever I drive near the bank or the post office, the Model S suspension attempts to automatically rise. Usually it fails to do that but just gives me a message that I'm driving too fast to engage the automatic suspension adjustment. That is because I'm just driving down the road that goes by the post office or bank at 35 MPH and have no need or desire for the suspension to rise. Tesla really needs to make an option to disable automatic GPS adjustment of the suspension. I have no need to ever use this GPS based automatic adjustment of the suspension in either Tesla vehicle.
Later that evening we did our own private wine tasting that included owners and staff from the Depot Inn & Suites, the Silver Rails Vineyards, and from TrainParty.com. Two of the wines were the bottles of Norton that we had purchased and were mentioned in the report of a prior segment of this road trip. One bottle was an older vintage (2001) of Norton grown on more recent vines while the other bottle was a more recent vintage (2013) of Norton grown on old vines. Both were very good.
Today's report is shorter than most of my reports as it just covers our short trip from St. Charles, Missouri, back to the Depot Inn & Suites in La Plata, Missouri, plus some of our activities during the day. Tommorrow will probably be much of the same as we'll just be staying in the local area. But please do check back each day to see what new has been posted!
If you haven't read all the segments of this Tesla Model X trip report, please do take a look at those other posts and photos. You can view privous days by clicking the "PREVIOUS DAY" link at the top or bottom of this report, or visit the main page of this website at TeslaTouring.com for links to every segment of this road trip.
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.
