Why We Went This Way

County - Quitman

Day 4: Batesville, MS to Hope, AR – 306.5 miles*
The reason we traveled through this part of Mississippi and stayed in Batesville was because just a hip and a skip down the road was Quitman County. As in the game of Scrabble, in the Moss Motoring Challenge the proper use of the letter Q is important. There is a town beginning with the letter Q in Mississippi too, Quitman, on the other side of the state, but we will miss it on the return trip. Not too much of a problem though as there is a Quinby in South Carolina about a 100 miles from home which we’ll get later.

The letter Q county was my main consideration for coming this way, but Donna noticed that there as a county called Sunflower on our route, so just because of that name, it will replace the recently nabbed Swain County as our S entry. We drove about 50 miles through the middle of Sunflower County and didn’t see a single sunflower.

Also in Sunflower County we stumbled on a Destination that we had been long mulling over how to get, a Jail or Prison. Turns out we were going to pass right by the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. I pulled the Miata into a sort of lane for pulling in to the gate of the prison, Donna held up the challenge cover page near the windshield and I snapped a couple pictures. We didn’t dare get out of the car and try any posing because we were already getting the evil eye from the guards at the gate.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 290 (-16.5) – Total miles so far: 1128.3

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1339

All Shook Up

Sneak Peek 2B

Day 3: Huntsville, AL to Batesville, MS – 252.2 miles*

Some of today’s drive and quite a bit of tomorrow’s will be on US278 which is the same road that travels south of Aiken and we take to drive to Hilton Head. The stretch between Oxford and Batesville was a four lane divided highway. The westbound lanes which we were using were made up of that annoying asphalted over 20 foot sections of concrete slabs that make the Miata go bump-bump, bump-bump, bump-bump rhythmically until you just want to be driving any other road.

Today’s photo will probably used as our second Sneak Peek image for the March to June time frame. Can you guess what this is of? Hint number one is that it is in a town called Tupelo. Hint #2 is that a King was born here. The title of the post is the third hint. Got it?

Other photos taken today were 2 cities, an H & an M, another National Forest and a state spelled em eye ess ess eye ess ess eye pee pee eye.

We have had kind of a running theme going, but unfortunately tomorrow it comes to a halt, we will not be staying in a town whose name ends in -ville. Instead our destination is the town of Hope, Arkansas, where another American King was born.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 220 (-32.2) – Total miles so far: 821.8

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1337

139,000 Curves

Ider Public Library

Day Two: Rob­binsville, NC to Huntsville, AL. – 263.7 miles*
We were going to use the lovely Aiken County Public Library, in Our Fair City, for the Motoring Challenge because it is a lovely old building from 1890 that used to be the town’s high school. But today when we exited I-59 just inside the the Alabama line to start our back road drive to Huntsville and stopped at a quick stop to get some cold drinks, we knew that that was going to change.

As I pulled into park, I stayed to the right, to stop in front of the little strip shopping center away from the gas pumps and any other cars. Donna looked and noticed that we were right in front of the town’s library, we knew right away this was going to be our library photo. And to add icing to the cake, 10 seconds after we pulled to a stop, a small red pickup truck parked right next to us. The passenger door opened and a guy got out just so he could let the middle seat passenger could get out to go into the quick stop. Then he got back in and the driver hopped out to go inside too. After just having been in downtown Chattanooga with its young hipsters, these deep down southerners were quite the culture shock.

If you are ever in downtown Chattanooga, perhaps going to the Tennessee Aquarium, and it is lunchtime, walk across the pedestrian only Walnut Street Bridge to the northshore area and find TACO•nooga. Both Donna and I can personally recommend the Carnita Tacos. While you are there, order a Coke and you will get a bottle imported from Mexico where they still use real cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.

Four points for the Motoring Challenge today; one state, Alabama and three destinations, Aquarium, Library and Botanical Gardens.

The Emperor passed through the 139,000 mile mark just outside Etowah, Tennessee.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 240 (-23.7) – Total miles so far: 569.6

Started up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1335

42,000 Bits Of Metal

Metal Dragon

Day One: Aiken, SC to Robbinsville, NC. – 305.9 miles*
This dragon, that is made up of about 42,000 metal pieces and vehicle parts, sits right outside a relatively new souvenir stand that has popped up just across the street from the original, more motorcycle oriented, souvenir place, at the junction of NC28 & US129 near the start of The Tail of the Dragon.

As I guessed Thursday, by washing the car then, I pretty much guaranteed that the 30% chance of rain we were traveling through today, would 100% fall on us. We had to put the top up just about the time the roads started to get all bent and crooked when it is the most fun to have it down, but it was no real disappointment as it was not raining hard enough to make us put the windows up at all times, so we still got to enjoy the cool mountain air and dulcet tones of exhausting waste gases of burnt gasoline.

The sun did come out long enough after dinner here in Robbinsville to allow a quick run up to the beginning of Deals Gap to capture the Welcome to Tennessee and Welcome to North Carolina signs. As a bonus we also snapped a photo of the Swain (NC) County sign that was steps away from the state sign. This brought our total Moss Motoring points for the day to 10 with the 1 other county, 3 cities, a National Forest, a waterfall and the above photo which will be used for one of this quarter’s Bonus Points.

We drove the Sonata to work on Friday and when I got behind the wheel I realized that the odometer read 42006. Because we had been driving the Emperor to and from the Valve Store(tm) the rest of the week, I couldn’t recall on which day those six miles occurred, oh well, let’s call the 7th of May as the date the Purple Whale ran past the 42,000 mile mark.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 239 (-66.9) – Total miles so far: 305.9

Started down, went up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1331

Twice In A Fortnight

The Emperor got another bath tonight. I washed him two weeks ago before we went up to NC for the Foothills Photo Rally. There was pine pollen still stuck on all the horizontal surfaces from the later blooming pine trees in those foothills. Not to mention the several dozen dead bugs in his teeth, also from that trip.

Saturday we embark on another road in the Miata and I wanted it to at least start out clean. There is a 30% chance of showers where we are headed in a couple days, so I’m not sure how long it will stay that way.

Two weeks ago I was going to put a coat of wax on the car, but discovered (remembered) that I had used the last of the paste wax last fall when I waxed last. Tonight, so I could just one stop shop, I bought a bottle of Turtle Wax Ice spray on stuff at the grocery store. I’m sure the hangers about over on the Miata.net Forum’s Car Care Section would cringe at using such a thing, but I’m all about easy and as previously mentioned, not really into the “Car Show Shine” level of clean.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1326

MMC Tech Day II

Bulldog Blue Meanie

I had grand plans to paint the Emperor’s valve cover with red wrinkle paint when I had it off changing the gasket on Saturday. The local O’Reillys didn’t have the paint in stock in red when I called on Thursday, so they ordered some for me to pick up on Friday evening.

Standing there outside Kurt’s garage on Saturday morning looking down at the cover sitting on a garbage bag, noticing all the things I would have to clean and/or protect and/or mask off, I abandoned the plan. I just didn’t feel like investing the time, besides, it is not like I keep a “Car Show Shine” under the hood (as evidenced by the above photo.)

While removing the cover I had some big help from John “Clunk” Haff, but that help cost me the stock yellow handle of the dip stick as John snapped it off while twirling a ratchet. Not that it took much pressure to break, it is a known Miata issue, because the hard plastic it is made from turns brittle with age and the under hood heat. So much so that mine was not the only one broken on our Tech Day. Dave was having his timing belt & water pump proactively replaced had his break off too. John swore he had nothing to do with it and I believe him as he still had his head under the Emperor’s bonnet, but I suspect it was his partner in crime, Rudy “Thunk” Wilmoth.

John apologized profusely, but I told him, “No worries, mon. I’ve got jus da ting to be repairin it.” This has happened on my previous two Miatas and I had the perfect replacement at home. I still had two of the four heads left from on my Yellow Submarine Blue Meanie Bulldog figure.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1321

MMC Tech Day

Tech Day
The Emperor with his hood up prior to getting his fix, Rudy’s Mazdaspeed Miata and some joker’s car with a Ferrari body kit.*

Today was the annual Miata Club Tech Day where some of us head over to Kurt’s Garage-mahal and do some maintenance type stuff, that some could do in their own garage (not me), but would rather have help, have someone kibitz over their shoulders or just have an audience. Some show up to offer to help or to just hang around and talk Miatas or just cars. There were doughnuts in the morning and lunch was going to be wrangled later.

While I was there changing out my leaking valve cover gasket, there was Dave’s car in one bay getting a timing belt changed and Stacey’s car was getting an oil change and tire rotation. Clunk & Thunk doing a bunch of helping and doing and there were at least three other guys just hanging about.

*It is an actual mid 80’s Ferrari 328GTS and is Kurt’s latest toy. We tried to talk him into letting us each take a spin around the block, but he wasn’t going for it.