Home

Breakfast was in Stuart, Florida with Donna’s sister, her husband and his mother. Their traditional Saturday morning breakfast is eaten out at a cool little place called the Sunset Diner. We got them to deviate from normal today, first by eating with us and secondly by doing it an hour earlier so we could start our trip back. Felt a little weird ordering the Sunset Breakfast, but I managed to eat the two pancakes, two eggs and two sausage links (I gave Donna the two bacon strips.)

If you tell Google Maps you want to go from Stuart, FL to Aiken, SC it will tell you that it is 505 miles following a route of I-95 until you get just inside South Carolina, then take US321 to US278 and it should take you less than 8-1/2 hours (that is kinda the way we went down, but for some reason it took us almost 2 days.) We despise I-95 because it is usually very busy (it is the shortest way north to south) and are willing to go to great lengths to avoid it. We took the Florida Turnpike diagonally northwest towards Ocala, joined up with I-75 to Lake City where we had lunch. We split 3 Krystals, 3 Krystal Chicks and a side salad.

Just north of I-10 we got off the Interstate and Donna guided us on a mixture of county roads, state highways and US highways to home. Through White Springs & Benton, Florida. Through Fargo, Homerville, Argyle, Waycross, Blackshear, Surrency, Glennville and Claxton (fruitcake anyone?) before we stopped in Statesboro, GA for dinner at JaMaN Caribbean Cafe for dinner. I had the Jerk Pork with Black Beans and Rice, Donna had the Chick Pea Soup.

From Statesboro we kept north on US301 through Sylvania and into South Carolina. From there we took the ol’ familiar route home of SC3 to SC125 through the bomb plant and up Whiskey Road. If you plot the way we went using Google maps it will tell you it is a little over 600 miles and should take 12 and a half hours. I didn’t keep track of the miles, but the clock was dead on as we left Florida around 9:00 AM and we pulled into our driveway about twenty after nine at night.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 68

The Man From Talahassee

Number 60 of the 82 episodes of TDTVS so far’s main protagonist is John Locke.

Off island we see him reluctantly reunited from his con man father who “stole” his kidney a while back. John’s father is conning a woman and her son finds John to get him to help spoil the plan. As usual John is powerless to stop dear old dad and as a consequence of his actions gets tossed out an eight story building, breaking his back which is how he ended up in the wheelchair.

When he started out with Sayid and Kate their goal was to rescue Jack from the Others, but some time after their visit to the Flame Station it changed drastically. A liberated package of C4 is put to “good” use in blowing up the Others link to the outside world, a small submarine.

One of the best bits of dialog on the show ever comes from this episode. Locke is in Ben’s cabin holding Ben’s daughter Alex hostage, when unexpectedly, a group of Ben’s friends show up. Locke takes Alex into a closet. Richard Alpert comes into view and Ben says, “I want you to bring me the man from Tallahassee.” After Tom leaves and Locke and Alex emerge from the closet, Locke asks about the man from Tallahassee and asks if that is a codeword. Ben replies that they have no secret codes, although perhaps they should have one for “a man with a gun is holding my daughter hostage in the closet”.

Rain Dodging

Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailor’s take warning. This picture of the sunrise behind the south causeway bridge in New Smyrna Beach foretold the storms that traveled across Florida today. On our drive down to Palm City we managed to stay ahead of the heavy rains and even got to drive the first 30 or so miles with the top down.

We did get wet pretty good this afternoon after we got to Donna’s sister’s place. To kill a couple hours Sandy took us for a drive around to see some local sights. When we walked out to the beach near the Hutchinson Island Marriott Resort? (where this picture was taken) and stood for a few seconds admiring the surf, the rain started to come down. We were less than 50 yards from the car and by the time we got back in it we were pretty wet. My back seat companion, Desdemona, decided to dry herself off by rubbing her face along the side and back of my shirt while I sat there. Don’t worry, my wife was in the front seat and thought it was fine, Desi is Sandy’s dog.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 64

Par Avion

(59/82) Claire-centric. In the off island flashbacks we learn that her mother was left in a vegetative state from a car accident she caused. Her mother gets an American doctor as a visitor who shocks Claire by telling her he is her father (of whom her mother has told her is dead.) The audience gets shocked to realize that the American doctor is none other than Christian Sheppard, making Claire and Jack half brother and sister.

On island Claire concocts a harebrained plan to the catch a migratory bird and attach a message to it to facilitate their rescue. Desmond initially tries to prevent this because he needs to prevent Charlie’s death, but eventually Desmond captures a bird, alone, for her to use. The bird looks suspiciously like a plain ol’ seagull.

I found Claire in her Australian Goth Period with the dark hair much more attractive than her on island blonde hair.

85,000 Tourist Trolleys

Just about 5 miles outside the touristy St. Augustine, Florida the Emperor passed by 85,000 miles. We stopped in for a brief visit and all those ubiquitous trolleys were nearly empty of tourists. We parked in the lot of the Fountain of Youth, but were too cheap to spend the $7.50 each to get in, so we asked for a tourist map of the town so we could find our way around. We parked at the visitor’s center and the next place we were too cheap to pay admission ($6 ea.) into was the famous Castillo de San Marcos. We did take the walk all the way around the perimeter of the fort and that was good enough for us.

We then wandered the old city and almost didn’t need to eat lunch as a couple of the restaurants had people handing out free samples to entice us into eating there. The pizza nearly had us, but we ended up at Casa Maya and we’re glad we did, the food was fantastic.

Tonight we are staying at the Longboard Inn, a B&B in New Smyrna Beach (I wonder where the old one went?) It is only a few dollars more expensive compared to the Holiday Inn Express outside of Savannah we stayed at last night, but the breakfast will be leaps and bounds better (cinnamon bun excepted.)

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 62

Enter 77

Episode 58 of 82 is jammed full of excitement on-island. Hurley whoops up on Sawyer in a game of ping pong and because he lost he can’t use his trademark nicknames when talking to or about the rest of the survivors. Elsewhere a cowbell leads Sayid, Kate and Locke to a new Dharma station, the Flame. The Flame is run by the man with an eye patch, Mikhail and we get Sayid shot in the arm, fist fights between Mikhail and Sayid, Kate and an Other, Ms. Klugh, in the basement, Locke playing chess aganst a coupter and finally a giant ass explosion.

The off island Sayid flashback seemed almost an afterthought to add drama and plot to the on island shenanigans at the Flame Station with some help from a creepy cat.

Mitsuoka Himiko

Believe it or not this is a modified Miata. An enterprising Japanese firm has created this Morgan inspired conversion of a 3rd generation MX-5. You can see it in the interior and the doors. There are a bunch more photos of the $50,000 Himiko (along with links to a couple more interesting cars made by the same company) over on the Jalopnik post where I stumbled on this.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 58