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.

We Go To The Zoo

Destination - Zoo

About three weeks ago we had traveled to Columbia to take a picture of the front entrance to the Riverbanks Zoo. It was crowded that there was a line of cars just to get into the parking lot. We took one photo of a nearby banner, but decided later that it just wouldn’t do. I remember from our last visit, several years back, that the entrance had a big ol’ colorful sign and an animal themed mural at the entrance.

We drove via the Interstate on the way back from Statesville yesterday and would pass right near Columbia. Figuring we might be early enough to get that elusive zoo picture we drove over. It was 10:30 and I guess the zoo opened at 11:00 AM because it was already getting busy on the entrance road. There was no line of cars so we took a left, much to the chagrin of the guy with the wands who was pointing right, and pulled to the curb at the main entrance.

It was under renovation. There was no mural and the big sign was not nearly as impressive as I remembered. We took the photo anyway and I think it will just have to do.

Photo Rally Update: We came in 4th place, a long way out of first.
RidgeRunner Tours 2014 Photo Rally
Targa Class Results:
1st….Steve Wilson & Sloane Wilson 106 pts
2nd…Rob Bolling & Amber Bolling 96 pts
3rd…Stephanie Sturm & Teresa DeSantis 94 pts
4th…Brian Bogardus & Donna Bogardus 83 pts
5th…Dwayne Gentry & Lydia Johnson 79 pts

I Is The Loneliest Letter

County - Iredell

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.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1317

138,000 Seconds Too Late

We have a North Carolina road map, but it is dated 2007, so we thought it might be a good idea to update it this trip and because of the way we were driving up we had an opportunity to cross into the Tar Heel State via I-85. So we planned to pop into the official Welcome Center grab a new map and also take the NC state photo for the Motoring Challenge.

As we cruised into the rest area the state name was on the back of the building, so we figured there would be a nice sign in the front. We were wrong. There is a wood sign that is too far from the parking lot to be seen well and it also had wood letters spelling out North Carolina Welcome Center above the front door, but it too could not be captured photographically. We then struck out on the map front too as we were about a half hour too late, they lock the doors at 5:30 PM.

We did manage to manage to successfully grab three other challenge photos on the trip to Statesville, a County, a National Forest and a Destination:

A little north of Kings Mountain, NC the Emperor passed the 138,000 mile mark this afternoon.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1315