Cache Archiving Day

About 7 years ago, a 3 mile section of old US 301 in South Carolina near the Georgia border was turned into a walking trail. When we found some geocaches on the 1-1/2 stretch from the Savannah River back towards the middle we noticed that there were none on the other mile and a half. So over the next few months we placed 8 of our own on that first section.

Back in 2011 we were geocaching fools, it was our biggest year where found 332 caches, averaging almost one a day, so the distance, about 50 miles one way, to these caches didn’t seem that bad. Over the intervening years our caching has tapered off. This year we have found all of 73 and almost all of those were on our big trip out west in May. Last year we found zero, didn’t even try.

So now, that hundred mile round trip seems awfully long to do any maintenance and while there hasn’t been too much to do, it is still not a lot of fun to make the trip. We decided to just go ahead and archive the caches and on Sunday made the trip down to collect the containers. They were all fairly easy to find except for one camoed matchstick container. We were pretty sure we knew where to look, the hint said, “under log”, but there was nothing under the obvious one.

We brought everything home and salvaged what contents were worth it. We also weeded out which containers were worth saving as well. The plastic lock-n-lock was broken, so into the trash they went. The gasket was shot on the bison tube, so it went there too. The green penlight was an on-the-fly improvised container not really well suited for the job and was no longer usable as either a geocaching container or a flashlight, so, yup, we threw it away too. The ammo cans and the matchstick holders will get reused in 2019.

Made Up My Mind Mostly

I opted for a mildly modified Version 10AE. The blue was a little too bright for my taste, so I had Adam change it to the gray on the Delta gauges. Now comes the needle color quandary, the photo above shows what it will look like if I leave them alone, hover over it and see what it would look like if I do some extra work.

For those of you who would like your own eye candy gauges for your Miata, now is the time, every Thanksgiving week Adam runs a big sale called Sharksgiving Sale (named for his car Sharka.) All stock gauges (no custom work) are down to $99 instead of the regular $129. Other stuff is on sale too, so forget that cheap Black Friday TV, get your RevLimiter on.

Bad news for me was that my gauges weren’t sale eligible, but the good news is that I got my order in before the sale, because before the sale it was a 2 week wait for orders, now it is 5 to 8 weeks…

RevLimter Gage Face Paralysis

I’ve got a RevLimiter problem.

When I bought the CTBNL a couple of years ago, it came with some of Adam’s stuff. The previous owner (Hi David) had one of his GarageStar oil caps with the Prototipo2 logo already on the car and he also gave me 3 of the small Prototipo2 badges that he hadn’t used. For a while I considered using them as fender badges, ALA BMW, but never did. One of them would made a perfect replacement for the Mazda logo on the trunk lid, but I never did that until just recently, when my Fairy Godfather gifted me with the larger matching front badge.

When it came to brightening up the wheels a little I bought some Wheel Center Cap Inserts from the RevLimiter Store in the same Prototipo2 style.

But this RevLimiter problem is not new. I’ve wanted a set of his gauge faces for at least the last decade, but never could talk myself into spending the $150 entry fee. That problem has been recently solved because I sold my retirement watch for almost the exact amount needed to buy a set of RevLimiter gauges.

The money was not the only problem though, which style to pick is arguably the harder one to solve. For the NB (99-05) car I have, there are 32 different styles to choose from. It is even worse for the NA (90-97), as there are 41 stock styles available. To make matters worse he does custom work too, everything from minor color changes to complete custom for a price. I think I have narrowed my choices down to three styles, the 10AE, the Delta and the Apollo.

I like the 10AE because it has some blue in it to bring inside the stripe color, but the best thing is, it doesn’t require moving the high beam light from it’s stock location. In almost all the other custom gauge faces the high beam indicator light is moved to the location of the current cruise control light and for me, that light is mostly blocked by the steering wheel, and not too noticeable.

The Delta does move the the high beam light, but the color scheme is better suited to the black and silver interior of the car. I think I would have him do a bit of custom work and remove the inside arc of KPH numbers on the speedometer.

The thing with these two gauge styles is I think they both look best with the white needles as shown on his website because of their predominately black faces. White needles where stock only on the 1999-2000 models, while the 2001-2005 (mine is a 2002) has red needles. Hover over the above images for a second to see what they look like with red needles.

When I changed out the gauge faces in my old ’95 Miata the stock faces were were black with white needles. When I changed to white gauge faces, I scraped the white paint off the needles and painted them red. I guess I could do the same this time, in the opposite direction, but I’d rather not.

Of course if I’m willing to live with the relocated high beam indicator light, I could possibly go with the Apollo, which doesn’t look too bad with the red needles. Once again hover over the images to see a mock up.

Bikes on Cars


A search for a picture of Donna in uniform for a Veterans Day Instagram post sent her on a treasure hunt into several of the boxes that are full family photos. After a couple hours of searching she found a wallet size of her Navy Boot Camp Graduation photo. But just as she was locating that one, I found the directory on the PC where I had stored a couple of scanned images we used at ASCO for a Veterans Day thing a couple of years ago.

But she also unearthed a couple interesting pictures of our cars with bikes on them. First up is our 1982 Honda Civic 4-Door Sedan with two road bikes upright on top. I think with this combo the car was now taller than it was long. I also almost screwed up once big time with this rack when it was on our 1979 Accord Hatchback. I pulled into a hotel portico without thinking and I only had about 4 inches to spare.

Number two is is the replacement rack for the one in the first photo. When we bought a Miata we lost a roof to put a roof rack on. This was a nifty rack that would fit on almost any trunk by adjusting the angle of the front arms and removing the front wheels. The front wheels sat in their own mounts between the two bicycles. We used this for over a decade until something broke on it that couldn’t be repaired. They weren’t making this style rack any more, so now we use a regular bumper mount rack.

Happy 29th Miataversary

A 34 year old man and his 34 hour old car.

Twenty-nine years ago today I became a Miata owner and I have had one ever since. Along the way there have been a total of four and I’ve logged nearly 425,000 miles in Miatas. At this pace, by the time I’m 70 I will have reached a half a million Miata miles and probably will be on Miata number five. For now though, I’ll be enjoying the heck out of this current one for the next, say, at least 4 years.

A 63 year old man and his 16 year old car.

69,000 Yellow Leaves

The below is a shameful massaging of an email I sent to a friend last night, about our weekend trip to the world famous Tail of the Dragon and its 318 turns in 11 miles.

We had 5 Miatas from the Masters Miata Club scheduled for the weekend trip. One of our Miata club members is also a member of a local Corvette Club and he invited some of his fellow ‘Vette guys to join. We had two who wanted to come, but neither was going to drive their Corvette. One was going to drive a Miata and the other was going to drive a Porsche. At the last minute, the Miata driver backed out, leaving just the mystery Porsche driver to meet us in Elberton, GA on Friday. Trust me, it was fairly easy to spot his Lava Orange 911 GT3 RS in the McDonald’s lot. 🙂

Our Porsche guest was a great sport about just loafing around with us slow poke Miatas and rode mid pack on the trip up. He had been as far up into North Carolina as Highlands, but had never driven into these western parts, so he was just happy to be with us and soak up our knowledge of the area.

After driving the 200 miles to get Robbinsville, no one wanted to drive the 50 extra miles total to do a Dragon run, except for our Porsche driver and me. So instead of the two of us driving, I asked if I could ride along with him. “Sure,” he said. While the cost of the Porsche was roughly equivalent to the cost of all of our 5 Miatas put together, he promptly justified the high cost of the car to me by demonstrating how it would feel to do the trip in a low flying Blue Angels jet.

And let me tell you, this car gets some respect on the road. On the way up to the start of the Gap going up US129, we came across a tight 3 pack of cars, traveling 60 MPH or so, going the same way. The stock looking Civic SI in the back surrendered first, approximately 1/4 mile after we came right up on his rear. The middle car, an older model GTR, withstood about two miles of him having this orange beast filling his mirror before he hit his flashers and slowed on a short stretch of straight. The lead car, a late model Mustang that looked a bit modified, hung on leading for about the next three miles (he was doing pretty good), but after we past a small tangle of cars turning into the Tapoco Lodge he finally gave in on the first wide spot after the sharp uphill turn past the dam. He quickly disappeared in our mirror.

For a minute I was afraid this trip would make the same drive in a Miata feel pedestrian, but on Saturday morning on our early morning trip through the gap and back, it actually was the opposite, the Miata felt almost more fun, for a lot less work, so I probably won’t be cashing in my 401k to buy my own GT3 RS.

Somewhere around the lovely town of Cross Anchor, SC on the way home today the CTBNL reached the 69,000 mile mark.

So, I’m Getting A New Hat

But I’m not sure I deserve it, I only watched 2 games all the way through.

I went to bed in the seventh inning of game one, with the Sox up by two runs, but just sure they were going to lose (they didn’t.) For Game 2, I did watch the whole thing (they won.) For game 3, I bailed at the bottom of the tenth with the scored tied 1-1 and went to bed sure they were going to lose. I woke up 3 hours later to use the bathroom and went in to the computer to see what the score was. It was 2-2 in the 18th inning. It was still going on! By the time I got  the TV on I watched a Dodger dump Gatorade on another Dodger (they lost.) Next day for game four, I turned off the TV after the Dodgers scored 4 runs in the bottom of the 6th inning just sure they were going to lose (they didn’t.) Game 5, I watched the whole thing and they won. They won the whole thing.

So, I’m getting a new hat. Good thing too, because my 2013 hat is starting to look a little tired. After 2004, when the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years I broke down and bought a souvenir hat. Three years later I replaced it, when they won the Series again. I bought a replacement for that 2007 cap six years later. And now after 5 more years it is time for another new World Series Winner Hat.