Moon Landing Over Mississippi

Our one and only geocache (for now) in Mississippi was not too far away from this life-size model of a Lunar Lander placed in the eastbound !-10 Welcome Center to that state. We apparently were just about a week too early to tour the new Infinity Science Center built adjacent to the Welcome Center. This exit off I-10 is the entrance to the Stennis Space Center which started life in the mid 60’s testing the Saturn V booster engines, later the Shuttle’s main engines and is still in operation today testing the engines that power cargo rockets for satellite placement and International Space Station resupplying.

Woe Is Them

Last year the Red Sox started the season by losing their first 6 games. So far this year in their first 6 games they are 1-5. I’d like to say that they have won 100% more games to this point than last, but 100% more of no wins is still no wins, so I guess I’ll have to go with they have lost 16% fewer games than 2011.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1128

This April Starts Like Last April Started And Last September Ended

Baseball is back and the FRS have lost the first three games of the season. The Boston press is already writing stories about the Red Sox 2012 season being doomed or don’t worry it is only 3 out of 162. Today the Sox had a 3 run lead going into the bottom of the 9th inning. Detroit scored three runs to tie it. The FRS scored two in the top of the 11th to take the lead, but Detroit promptly scored 3 in the bottom of the inning to win it. I was already leaning towards Gloom & Doom, but after today’s effort I’ve fallen completely over.

Both cars got a bath today, the Sonata to remove the Georgia red clay from the wheel wells and the Florida bugs off the front, while the Miata had the last of the pine pollen rinsed off.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1127

How To Kill A Gnat

No, it is not to send 150 years in the past and drop it in a Confederate Prison Camp. It turns out it is rather easy. During day one we visited the Andersonville Prison Camp, so fittingly today, our last day, we visited a spot in Thomasville that those Andersonville Prisoners were moved to temporarily to find a geocache.

Google maps reports that the LSU campus in Baton Rouge, LA is about 700 miles one way from Aiken, but we managed to accumulate 2150 miles on our round trip. We were gone 8 days, witnessed one wedding and found 37 caches in four different states, ignoring Florida, because, well, its Florida. We polished off anything needed for the three Georgia Challenges in the southwest part of that state. Plus we DNF’d three caches and accidentally ruined one other. Right now it is good to be home, but ask again on Monday morning and you might get a different answer.

On our trip through the gnat capitol of the US, southern Georgia, every time we opened the car doors to get out, be it for a driver change, a geocache expedition, or whatever, invariably several gnats would end up inside the Purple Whale. Though, not 100% effective, driving with the windows open for a bit helped, but we always still ended up two or three bouncing around on the windshield. Swatting did nothing. Neither did trying to smack them with my hat. The best method for dispatching these annoying things was to let them settle on the glass and slowly bring you thumb down on them. A quick wipe on the carpet discarded the carcass and a rub of the windshield with a sleeve removed all traces of the little buggers.

17,000 Cars On The Road With Us

For whatever reason, there was gobs of traffic heading east on I-10 with us today all through Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Fortunately there were no major slow-ups, except the tunnel under Mobile Bay, so we made great time, but we were always surrounded by fast moving cars and trucks. Mysteriously, traffic thinned to almost nothing once we got into Florida and past Pensacola.

But wouldn’t you know it, but as soon as we got off I-10 to hit the back roads of Florida, we ran into a convoy of farm implements crawling along at 25MPH. The roads were hilly and curvy enough that we, along with some others, were stuck behind them for about 20 minutes. We thought we caught a break in Campbellton when 2 of the three went straight and only one turned right with us staying on Florida Route 2. It was short lived though, as those two just took a different route through town and two minutes later popped back in front of us. Sigh.

We hunted only two caches today as we wanted to make big mileage, one was in Mississippi and the other was in Alabama, bringing us to having found caches in 40% of these United States.

Tonight we are staying at the same Holiday Inn Express in Bainbridge, GA as we did Monday evening on our way west. This time it is different, and not just because we are in a different room from then, but the hotel is flirting with disaster this weekend as it is where the band Molly Hatchet is staying while playing at the 1st Annual Redneck Expo & Golf Cart Rally that’s here in town.

The Purple Whale passed the 17,000 mile level near Spanish Fort, MS.

The Wedding

This is one of only a few photos I managed to take that was neither blurry or washed out before the battery went dead. The groom is the reason we were there, Stuart, a hulk of a man child is the son of Sally, Donna’s childhood friend. The second to the left bridesmaid is Claire, Stuart’s sister. We got to watch them grow from infants to small children as they lived two doors away from us the 4 years that Donna and I lived in New Orleans. After we had gone our separate ways, us to NJ and they to VA, we always visited a couple times a year.

Tonight after the reception, Donna and I came back to the Al, Judy, Mark & Kristy Herman Room where we changed real quick, so we could go back out and grab a geocache that was physically 700′ away from our hotel, but a quarter of a mile walk away. We now have one find in Louisiana. On our trip back we plan on grabbing one in Mississippi and Alabama.