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2016 Tesla Model X P90DL
La Plata,MO to Perry,OK
Day 11 - Tuesday, June 7, 2016

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 11, the segment from La Plata, Missouri, to Perry, Oklahoma.

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!

Click on any photo on this page for a larger image.


Silver Rails Vineyards behind the
Depot Inn & Suites in La Plata, Missouri.

At about 8:30 AM we started packing up our Tesla Model X for our trip back to our vacation house in California. Since we were in the Sportsman Suite at the Depot Inn & Suites, the door closest to the parking lot was right next to the door of our hotel room. You can see our vineyards right through that glass door. As I rolled one of our suitcases out the hotel door heading to where our Model X was parked at the HPWC Tesla Destination Chargers at the hotel, I could not resist taking one more photo of our vineyards. As you can see in the photo above, our vineyards are right behind the 2 ex-Amtrak Mail Handling Cars that house the APRHF Exhibition of Amtrak History.


Our Tesla Model X in front of the Depot Inn & Suites in La Plata, Missouri.

Last year when I drove our 2015 Tesla Model S P90D to La Plata I took a photo of our Model S in front of the Depot Inn & Suites. I wanted to get a similar photo of the 2016 Tesla Model X P90DL in about the same spot in front of the hotel. If you click on the right photo above to view a larger image, you can see the Model X is parked in front of a Herzog Rail Testing truck. All year long quite a few BNSF maintenance-of-way workers stay at the hotel from time to time. Quite often there will be a number of BNSF trucks and hi-railers parked at the hotel. There must have been some significant work being done on the railroad tracks nearby this week as there was an exceptionally large number of railroad workers staying at the hotel.


Departed Depot Inn & Suites in La Plata, Missouri, at 9:12 AM
with 247 miles of charge on the battery.

Since the Model X was parked plugged into one of the two HPWC Tesla Destination Chargers at the Depot Inn & Suites all night, we departed with a really good charge on the battery. If you plan to drive your Tesla here, just punch up "Chargers" on the GPS in your Tesla and then select "All" or "Destination". The Depot Inn & Suites is listed as one of the Destination Charging Locations. Both chargers are on dedicated 100 amp circuits and can deliver up to 80 amps, the maximum that any Tesla Destination Charging Location can provide. There is also an additional J1772 Level II charger available on a dedicated 40 amp circuit. There is no requirement for an overnight stay to charge your car. There is a restaurant next door and a comfortable lobby with free coffee inside the hotel.


Arrived at the Tesla Supercharger in Columbia, Missouri, at 10:31 AM
with 152 miles of charge remaining on the battery.

Stopped by the Tesla Supercharger in Columbia, Missouri, for the fourth time on this road trip! There was one blue Tesla Model S charging when we arrived that departed before we were finished charging.


Holiday Inn at Columbia, Missouri, Tesla Superchargers.


Departed Tesla Supercharger at Columbia, Missouri, at 10:56 AM
with 220 miles of charge on the battery.


A bridge on I-70 heading west to Independence, Missouri.


Arrived at Tesla Supercharger in Independence, Missouri, at 12:36 PM
with 70 miles of charge remaining on the battery.


Bass Pro Shops and Stoney Creek Hotel
at Tesla Superchargers in Independence, Missouri.


Departed Tesla Supercharger at Independence, Missouri at 12:55 PM
with 161 miles of charge on the battery.


Arrived Tesla Supercharger in Topeka, Kansas, at 2:12 PM
with 51 miles of charge remaining on the battery.


Tesla Superchargers in Topeka, Kansas.


Texas Roadhouse Hours.

We crossed the street and first tried to go to the Texas Roadhouse for a late lunch. However, as you can see in the above photo, they don't open until 3 PM on weekdays. So, we crossed the street in the other direction and went to the Coyote Canyon Steak Buffet. My wife and I rarely eat red meat, so we weren't sure they'd have anything that we'd want to eat.


Coyote Canyon Steak Buffet.

I think we were lucky that the Texas Roadhouse was closed or we may have never discovered this wonderful restaurant! First, the price was right: $8.69 for Adults and $7.89 for Seniors for lunch and $11.89 for Adults and $10.69 for Seniors for dinner. The number of salad and buffet items was tremendous! They had about every salad item that I could think of. Off the top of my head I can't think of any salad items that weren't in the salad bar. The buffet was also extensive including chicken, fish, and beef prepared in different ways plus even two types of pizza. There were several types of cooked vegetables available as well as a full array of fruit. All sorts of soda, tea and coffee were available for beverages. For desert there was self-serve ice cream as well as cookies. We would definitely eat here again if future travels ever take us to this Tesla Supercharger.


Departed Tesla Supercharger in Topeka, Kansas, at 3:09 PM
with 231 miles of charge on the battery.


Our route from Topeka to Wichita, Kansas.

Heading off on a new route that we had never traveled before. We decided to take a more southern route back to California rather than traveling the I-70 again. Last year we took the I-70 both ways from the west coast to La Plata and back, and then took the I-70 again on the trip out to La Plata this trip. A year ago it would not have been possible to take the I-40 route to get to La Plata as there were Tesla Superchargers that were too far apart at that time. Tesla has now filled in the gaps along the I-40 to make it possible to travel along this interstate between the midwest and California. So, from Topeka on west, the rest of this route and all the Tesla Superchargers that we would visit would be all new to us!

The plan was to drive diagonally southwest out of Topeka on the I-335 which would eventually merge into the I-35 around Emporia, Kansas. We would continue south on I-35 until we got to the I-40 and then take that all the way to California where we would then head south on a route we were familiar with, the I-15. That we'd take to our vacation house in Anaheim. All of the Tesla Superchargers we would encounter along these roads would be our first time visit to them. I'll be taking photos and describing the surroundings of these Tesla Superchargers.


Arrived at Tesla Supercharger in Wichita, Kansas, at 5:34 PM
with 16 miles of charge remaining on the battery.

The speed limit on the route from Topeka to Wichita, Kansas, was 75 MPH for much of the way. For some segments I probably drove as much as 4 MPH over the posted speed. After having driven more than two thirds of this segment, the Tesla started warning me to keep my speed under 65 MPH in order to reach my destination. From time to time on my previous long trip to Missouri in my Model S, I had encountered these warnings. The Tesla screen said that I would reach my destination with 50 miles still remaining on the battery, so I kept going at my current speed. The warning would come and go from time to time. I could see that the number of miles of charge that I would have remaining on the battery was dropping and was now down to 40. I'm sure the Tesla computer calculated that I was dropping charge too fast and would not have enough to reach my destination if I kept going at the current rate. I made sure that I stayed at the speed limit to slow down the rate that my reserve charge was dropping. When the Tesla display indicated I'd only have 20 miles remaining when I got to the Wichita Tesla Supercharger, I reduced my speed to 70 MPH, which was 5 MPH below the speed limit. I still had about 30 miles to go to reach Wichita. Now I was traveling about the same speed as all the big rigs on the highway. Actually that made driving a little easier as I could just stay in line with them and not try to pass the big trucks. This seemed to do the trick and the indication of how much charge I'd have left when I reach the Wichita charger stopped dropping.

The signs were a bit confusing when I exited the freeway for the Wichita Tesla Superchager and I ended up going the wrong way. This worried me a little as I was so far down in charge. But the error cost me no more than 3 or 4 miles and I pulled into the Wichita Supercharger with 16 miles of charge still remaining on the battery. I really wouldn't say that "range anxiety" was involved, except when I took a wrong turn after coming off the highway exit. If I did have "range anxiety", then I would have slowed down to below 65 MPH while on the highway as the Tesla suggested. But because I knew there would be plenty of remaining charge when I reached Wichita, I just kept going at the 75 MPH speed limit.


Tesla Superchargers at Wichita, Kansas.

These are all "drive-in" Tesla Supercharging bays! The only other places I have seen so many "drive-in" charging bays is Tejon Pass and Barstow, both in California. Generally if you were towing a trailer, it would be easier to pull forward into a "drive-in" Tesla Supercharger without unhitching the trailer than one configured where you have to back in to charge. This one might be a bit awkward. If you wanted to pull in forward with a trailer without unhitching, you'd have to pull into the very last charger. If you pull into any other charger, you'd be blocking all the spaces after your trailer since there is so little space between the chargers and the Applebee's building. You might be able to park on the other side of the sidewalk at the very end charger. I think the charging cord would reach across the sidewalk. But this does assume that no other cars are parked in those end parking spaces. But as you can see in the above photo, nobody was parked in those regular parking spaces today and it would have been easy to pull in and charge without unhitching the trailer and without blocking any other parking spaces.


Applebee's and many other restaurants nearby.

There were quite a few other places to eat across the street if you didn't want to eat at the Applebee's.


Limited General Parking is allowed in several places
in the Tesla Supercharging parking spaces.

A number of locations that have allowed the installation of Tesla Superchargers I guess are paranoid there might be times when they won't have enough parking for their own customers. Thus, at a number of them they allow regular vehicles to park at the Tesla Supercharger parkings spaces for a limited amount of time.


Departed Tesla Supercharger in Wichita, Kansas, at 6:10 PM
166 miles of charge on the battery.

While waiting to charge we located a wine bar in Stillwater, Oklahoma, not far from the hotel where we would be staying, that featured live music until 9 PM. We decided we'd give it a shot to try to make it to that wine bar at least 30 minutes before the music ended. But to do that, we'd have to cut short our charging time and not put in as much of a safety margin of charge that we would normally do. We usually like to charge up enough to have twice the amount of miles of charge on the battery as we will need to reach our next charging location. The Perry Tesla Supercharger is 93 miles from the Wicheta Supercharger, so we would normally like to charge up to 186 miles of charge on the battery. But, because we wanted to get to the wine bar by 8:30 PM at the latest, we figured charging to just 166 miles would be enough.

The 166 miles would definitely be way more than enough except for a wrong turn. As soon as I got to the highway entrance, I saw that it was a toll road. So, I stopped and took the toll ticket. However, I did not notice that I was supposed to take a ramp to the right immediately after departing the toll booth. It was a bit of a difficult maneuver to spot as the lane to my right had trucks and cars zipping through that had an electronic toll pass that allowed them to go through the toll booth without stopping. I had to cross that lane to go to the ramp on the right. I didn't notice the ramp until after a truck went by and I was already way over in the wrong lane with lots of other trucks and cars passing me on the right. Thus, I started off on the wrong road!

In order to correct my mistake, I had to drive about 5 miles in the wrong direction, pay a 40 cent toll, and then turn around, pick up another toll ticket, and head back in the right direction. It would be another 5 miles before I was right back where I started from, just a couple of blocks from the Wicheta Tesla Supercharger. Thus, by the time I got going in the right direction, I was already down 10 miles of charge on the battery. So, not only did I not charge up to my usual safety margin, but I had 10 miles less charge than what I thought would still be a safe charge level.


Electric wind turbines along the highway through Kansas.


Arrived Tesla Supercharger in Perry, Oklahoma, at 7:31 PM
with 41 miles of charge remaining on the battery.

I drove at or below the speed limit all the way to Perry, Oklahoma. We arrived at the Tesla Supercharger at Perry, Oklahoma, with 41 miles of charge remaining on the battery. There was never any danger of not having enough charge to reach Perry. But, I was hoping to arrive in Perry with more charge than this so that we would not have to spend so long in Perry charging. Otherwise, we'd end up at the wine bar too close to 9 PM to enjoy any of the live music.

I pulled into the furthest charging space, 1A. I usually pull into a charging space on one end or the other so that I can get a photo of all of the spaces with my car on the end. Unfortunately, the Tesla Supercharger at the 1A space was not working at all. So, I pulled out and went to the other end and parked at the 3B charging space. That one was working, but it was charging slower than most Superchargers, even though we were the only Tesla charging here at all. We placed a call to Tesla support to report that the 1A charger was not working, and that the 3B charger was charging at about half the rate it should be charging. When we finally got through to Tesla, they told us that all the chargers are working perfectly except the ones at each end! Evidently we picked the 2 charging spots that were not functioning perfectly. However, we were almost done charging to the level we wanted to achieve so it didn't make any sense to move to another charger at this point. We would like to have put more charge on the battery, but because it was charging slowly and it was already 8 PM, we made due with what we were able to get on the battery.


Tesla Superchargers in Perry, Oklahoma.

As you can see above, these are also all "drive-in" charging spaces. There is plenty of room all around these charging spaces so it would be no problem to pull right in without unhitching if you were towing a trailer, and you don't need to block any of the other charging spaces.


Departed Tesla Supercharger in Perry, Oklahoma, at 7:58 PM
with 110 miles of charge on the battery.

When we departed the Perry Tesla Supercharger, it was almost 8 PM. Since the wine bar in Stillwater, Oklahoma, was almost 25 miles away, it would take us about 30 minutes to get there. We'd get there in time to enjoy about the last 30 minutes of live music. Having only 110 miles of charge on the battery is quite a bit lower than we'd usually desire to have. 25 miles of charge would be used up just to get to the wine bar. Another 5 miles or so would be used to get from the wine bar to our hotel in Stillwater. That would leave us 80 miles at most when we'd be heading back the 25 miles to get back to the Perry Tesla Supercharger. We like to have more than that to handle unexpected detours and other problems that might crop up. More about that in tomorrow's travel report!


Arrived at Zannotti's Wine Bar in Stillwater, Oklahoma, at 8:30 PM
with 78 miles of charge remaining on the battery.


Zannotti's Wine Bar.

We really liked the wine flights they offered. They had 7 different red wines to try. They also had as many white wines, but we are not white wine fans. You could either get a flight of 4 wines or a flight of 3 wines. My wife ordered the 4 wine flight and I ordered the 3 wine flight which gave us all 7 of the different red wines offered. We just shared both flights so that we could try all of them. They also offered a number of different appetizer plates designed for sharing. We ordered a few of those and made that our dinner. The live music was still playing and we were able to enjoy that until 9 PM.

After departing the wine bar we headed to our hotel which was just a couple of miles away. We stayed at The Residence Inn in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The reason we didn't stay at a hotel in Perry is there didn't seem to be any nice hotels or much of a selection of restaurants in Perry. Unfortunately, Stillwater is about 25 miles from Perry, so round-trip it added an extra 50 miles to our travels.

The report for tomorrow, Wednesday, June 8, 2016, will be a short report as mostly we just stayed in our hotel room so that I could catch up on writing and posting the reports of our Tesla travels for the last 3 days.

Click on any photo on this page for a larger image.

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.

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