Of South Carolina’s 46 counties, it turns out that there none beginning with 6 of the letters of the alphabet. Q, X and Z are to be expected, T & V a little unexpected, but I was surprised that none began with the letter I. But actually I is relatively scarce as the first letter of a county. Of the 3,143 counties (or its equivalent) in the United States there are only 30 that begin that way. Georgia only has one, Irwin, and it is 200 miles away from Aiken. North Carolina only has one, Iredell, and it too is around 200 miles away. But as luck would have it, this weekend’s Foothills Photo Rally 4 that we participated in started in Statesville, NC which just so happens to be in……Iredell County.
As for the rally, we had a blast. We drove over 100 miles of back country roads trying to spot various things we were given photos of, stopping at 4 different checkpoints that involved games of chance or skill, spending nearly six hours doing it. Only once we had to backtrack because of a missed turn and that was the drivers fault as when my navigator said three tenths of a mile until the next turn I heard 3 miles.
I don’t know where exactly we finished in our 20 group class, but I know it wasn’t 1st, 2nd, or smack in the middle. The first place team in each class, of which there were two, each received a Mason jar filled with White Lightning. The second place teams got a Mason jar of local honey. The teams that finished in the statistical middle of each class’s scores got a certificate that will only be slightly embarrassing to have hanging on the wall in their Trophy Room at home. After the awards were handed out we could have gone up and checked our actual place in our class, but opted not to, so we could believe that we finished in third place only one point back of second and two points out of first.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1317