Year: 2012

Just Four?

We went geocaching today and managed a measly four finds, of course that is all we really looked for…it started with a rare non-Florence visit with Cousin Laurie and ended with a disappointing meal at a place we used to love.

We picked up Laurie in her hometown and drove the 15 miles to Cheraw State Park to search for our first cache. It was a quick and easy find at the end of the boardwalk at one corner of a huge lake. Once over it we opted to continue walking on that side of the lake. There were some horse trails that we unsuccessfully attempted to find using the typically cryptic state park map, so we ended up walking along a long dirt road to a place called Camp Forest. If I was scouting movie locations for the next teen slasher/horror film, I had found it.

After lunch in Cheraw we drop Laurie off and headed home the long way which included a couple more stops in state parks that are part of our latest obsession, the Sandhills Challenge. First up was the H. Cooper Black Jr. Memorial Field Trial and Recreation Area which is a very large equestrian area with zero human trails. The cache was a small container hidden on a set of metal viewing stands in front of a show ring. The second state park was Goodale near Camden where there was no big trail, but we took a short walk along a small steam trying to wait out a ranger parked in a truck near GZ. He never did move, but we went over and made the find anyway, because we figured he knew what we were after, so we wouldn’t technically be muggled. A picturesque feature of the park, one that is becoming quite familiar to us, is the mill pond with cypress trees:

We sandwiched in the other cache while driving between the last two state parks. It was at a Scotch Cemetery that had caught our eye on the drive up in the morning, not even realizing then that there was a cache at it. We didn’t spend long exploring the grounds once we did get there, because by this time the temperature was dropping fast and the wind was picking up.

Dinner was at a Maurice’s BBQ place in Lexington. Maybe it was just a bad day at this restaurant or maybe our tastes budshave changed, but neither one of us enjoyed the mustard based pulled pork sandwich as much as we thought we we usedto.

Winter’s Coming

After barely having any winter during the first 1/2 of its allotted time slot, it looks like we are going to have some this weekend. Our normal overnight lows for this time of the year are 35°:

Started down, went went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1113

Keeping Track of Something For the Sonata

Our 2011 Sonata is EPA rated at 22MPG City, 35MPG Highway and 26MPG combined. For the first nine months I haven’t really paid too close attention if it was meeting those expectations.

The Sonata has this little button on the dash that says ECO. When we first got it I kept in ECO Mode because I figured it would increase the gas mileage of the car. Then I ran a couple of totally unscientific tests by emptying a tank full of gas with the button on and then a tank with it off, it really didn’t seem to make much of a difference.

My non-calibrated butt-dyno did seem to feel that the shift points were changed while in ECO to keep it in a lower gear longer. With ECO off the shifting felt a bit sportier. When the Purple Whale had his 7500 mile check up, there was some sort of bulletin about the transmission and they reflashed the ECU. It totally changed the feeling in the ECO mode to something such that I can no longer tell the difference between the shifting characteristics of the two modes.

Neither of these two issues aren’t the real reason I have abandoned using the ECO mode entirely though. My biggest issue was that when the ECO mode was on, it displayed 1/8″ high letters reading ECO in bright green in between the speedo and tach. And if that wasn’t annoying enough the button on the dash to the lower left of the steering wheel had a super bright blue LED that glowed steady, it was noticeably in the day, but at night it was almost searing.

Anyway, where am I going with all this? Well, I keep track of the top transitions for the Miata, so I thought I’d keep track of something for the Sonata, its gas mileage. I signed up for an account on fuelly.com that would take care of all that higher math stuff for me. They have a couple of badges for web sites or internet forums and I’ll probably add the little one over on the right somewhere.

Fuelly

Started down, went went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1112

It Wasn’t Us

Although if you got just the partial details off the radio or where ever, you might have thought it could have been:

From the Aiken Standard
Man dies, wife injured in wreck on Banks Mill

An Aiken man died Sunday after he and his wife were struck while riding a tandem bicycle along Banks Mill Road.

Gerald Hooker, 68, was transported to Aiken Regional Medical Centers around 3:52 p.m., where he was pronounced dead, according to Aiken County Coroner Tim Carlton.

Hooker?s wife, who was not named, was also transported to Aiken Regional and released with minor injuries.

Hooker and his wife were riding a tandem bicycle north on Banks Mill Road when the two were struck by a vehicle while attempting to make a left turn onto Lone Oak Drive, Carlton said.

The vehicle, a 2009 Ford driven by Whitney Duncan, 23, of Aiken, was attempting to pass them, Carlton reported.

A stretch of Banks Mill Road was closed to through traffic Sunday while emergency crews responded to and handled the scene of the traffic fatality.

The South Carolina Highway Patrol is investigating the crash. The Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team is to do the follow-up investigation.

Gerald Hooker is scheduled for autopsy today in Newberry.

This is the first traffic fatality in Aiken County in 2012.

Donna and I were actually out bike riding yesterday afternoon, on our single bikes, a couple hours earlier and on the opposite side of town.

You hate to think that every time you go for a bicycle ride you are taking your life in your hands, but in a way you are. Then again, everytime you go for a drive in your car, you are risking death as well.

It would be interesting to see what the statistical rate of death by auto for adult cyclists per miles ridden versus the same for driving….

Ducks On The Water

The lower lake in Barnwell State Park.

Started down, went went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1110

HI-SPY

At Stage 2 you?ll find a device that is meant for public use, but sounds like something the CIA might have ordered from our neighbors to the north.

🙂 BTR & D2! found [Multi-cache] Mitchellville Beach Park on Saturday, 28 January 2012

We DNF’d this one way back on October 24, 2009. I get a grin reading our log from then as we took several opportunities to make this a very hard “simple three-stage cache.”

This time we knew how to get to stage two the right way and apparently we got our math right too, as we found the final with ease.

Thanks for the cache and this time we enjoyed a nice walk on the beach for all the right reasons.

SE 107.3 mi from your home location

Honey

I had this joke emailed to me and though it would be a cute little space filler:

Several days ago as I left work, I desperately gave myself a personal TSA pat down. I was looking for my keys. They were not in my pockets. A quick search of my cubical revealed nothing.

Suddenly I realized, I must have left them in the car. Frantically, I headed for the parking lot. My wife has scolded me many times for leaving the keys in the ignition, but my theory is the ignition is the best place not to lose them. Her theory is that the car will be stolen. As I burst through the doors of the church, I came to a terrifying conclusion. Her theory was right. The parking lot was empty.

I immediately call the police. I gave them my location, confessed that I had left my keys in the car, and that it had been stolen. Then I made the most difficult call of all, “Honey,” I stammered, I always call her “honey” in times like these, “I left my keys in the car, and it has been stolen.”

There was a period of silence. I thought the call had been dropped, but then I heard my wife?s voice. “Honey,” she replied, she always calls me “honey” in times like these. “I dropped you off!” Now it was my time to be silent. Embarrassed, I said, “Well, come and get me.”

Her reply, “I will, as soon as I convince this policeman I have not stolen your car!”