New Wheels for the Miata?

They are only temporary though. The Mini’s new winter tires arrived fashionably late, Saturday instead of Thursday, so I spend that afternoon mounting them on the car. Instead of storing them for the winter I had the idea to mount the all-seasons on the Miata so we could take the car out for a spin at least once a week or so, even if the top is up1, to keep it fresh and and not ruin those ultra-high performance summer tires which really shouldn’t be driven in temps much below 40 degrees.

I had done the research ahead of time and they would go on the car, the offfset was only 10mm different and the Mini wheels had a larger center bore diameter, but would the taller tires work on the slightly lowered car? After I installed them they seemed to fit OK. They didn’t hit the brake calipers and turning the steering wheel lock to lock didn’t induce any rubbing that I could tell. But a test drive was needed because the springs still needed to settle from the being jacked up.

I took a quick spin around the neighborhood and all seemed fine under cruise conditions. It wasn’t until I took a quick turn into a parking lot that I heard a scraping sound. Turns out at near full lock, in both directions, the tires do hit the plastics fender well liners. The problem wasn’t with differences in the offset the rim width difference, but with the taller Mini tire. They are 195/60 as compared to the 195/50 of the Miata, so the Mini tires are a whole 1-1/2″ taller or 3/4 inches a side. I have opted to leave them on because any “winter driving” we do in the Miata will be of a cruise around town variety anyway.

Post Victory Campaigning?

Joe Biden Action Figure

I’ve added the President-Elect to my small collection political “action figures” to go along with the one of our current Lame Duck Chief Executive and the one of the Democratic Senator from Vermont. I ordered Joe, like the other two, from FCTRY on the 3rd of December.

It shipped from the Great State of New Jersey on the 7th. Mr. Biden arrived on my door step today. If he actually was an action figure he would have come straight here and according to MapQuest he could have travelled just 2850 miles and been here 41 hours later on the evening of the tenth.

But instead he took a fairly convoluted route to get here passing through a dozen states (campaigning?), making 12 separate stops, over the same number of days. Following the FedEx tracking page and using MapQuest he traveled a little over 3550 miles which could of only taken 61 hours, but instead took 264!

It is Winter Time

While still technically a couple weeks away, it is winter here in Klamath Falls. It has been highs of 40s and lows of 20s for a while now and we even had freezing fog Thanksgiving weekend that covered everything in our neighborhood with a thin blanket of white that lasted most of the day. Starting today, for the next 5 days, there is a chance of snow. We even got a brief glimpse of the flaky white stuff on the end of our afternoon walk today, zero accumulation, but still…

Last year when we first got here, both in the AirBnB and our house, we treated the winter as an exciting, fun event. We would go for a walk or drive in it only if we had to. This year we have come to the realization that we really do have to prepare for living in the here and now of the season called winter.

Last year when driving around in the Mini we did OK on it’s all-season tires, but we were locked into staying pretty close to home because going in any direction, within 30 miles, we were greeted with elevation gains and the requirement of chains or some Severe Snow and Winter Traction tires. Yesterday we ordered a winter tire/wheel package from Tire Rack. Any day now the Mini will be rockin’ some 195/60 Bridgestone Blizzak WS90s on 15X6 MSW Type 22T wheels in Silver.

Last year when walking about we just made do with our hiking boots, mine were water resistant and Donna’s had no protection from wet. This year we have decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and buy some dedicated winter boots. So, yesterday we ordered some and any day now our feet will be rockin’ in waterproof style. For him, the Men’s Firecamp Boot in Madder Brown/Red Jasper, and for her, Women’s Ice Maiden II Boot in Cordovan/Siberia.

41,000 Less Brain Cells

Where is my mind?

Thursday morning when I got into the Mini to do our weekly grocery trip, no correct that, on the way home from Ed Meyers, I noticed that the odometer read 41,065. Huh? When did that happen?

Mostly the poor Ladybug only just gets taken out of the garage for those weekly trips to the grocery store, so it takes a while to get the odometer really moving up at 3 miles a week. This past two weeks it has got a bit more exercise as we have had it out a couple times at night hunting Christmas lights in the local neighborhoods.

Although on Monday the Mini went in for some maintenance and they did take it for post service shakedown drive, but I can’t imagine they went for 65 miles. This means the change to over 41k miles must have happened on my watch. Where is my mind?