Clean Bill and A Big Bill

We took the Sonata into the Whale Doctor for its 7500 mile check up and came away with a clean bill of health. It actually had a little over 8,142 miles, but we didn’t get scolded for it. Along with the oil change, fluids top off, tire rotation and wash and vacuum, they did a couple of service bulletins. The first one, left pulling (if you let go of the wheel the car would drift to the left), I told them I didn’t have the issue, but they insisted on following the procedure anyway. Number two was an ECU flash to adjust the transmission shift points, which I had wanted as I felt the car was shifting a little rough in certain gears and situations. It does seem to shift a little bit smoother now. I don’t know whether the ECU flash had anything to do with it, I’d swear the car feels peppier off the line…

By way of apologizing for having to endure the trouble of bring my car in to have these issues taken care of, Hyundai gave us a $25 Visa Gift Card. Sweet. The dealer even threw in a $5 Walmart card…

Tonight when I checked our Visa card card balance online I noticed that there were two charges on there for Delta Airlines. One for a $1500 charge and a second one for $25. The first thing I did was to ask Donna if we were flying anywhere. Then I called the Credit Card Company. They were polite and efficient about the whole thing and we will be getting some new cards in the mail within 48 hours. But they were too efficient in that I was left to try and remember who I had used that card with for reoccurring payments, because after I hung up the phone, I went back online to find out, the account was already gone.

Parade Wave And Expensive Crab Legs

Here is the 640 x 360 size of the dirty mouth’d Emperor and Donna doing her parade wave.

Last Saturday’s dinner was a seafood buffet at the Mountainview Bistro in Fontana Village. The cost was $21.95 per person, but somehow when they rang up our ticket they entered an extra 21, making the cost of our meal $2121.95 each. With tax and a 20% tip the total bill for Donna and I would have been $5436.44! Fortunately this was before they got a hold of my charge card, so all this amounted to nothing more than an interesting story for this blog.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1090

God’s Promise To Man

While creating wives, God promised man that good and obedient wives would be found in all corners of the world.

And then He made the earth round…

Serious Business

Like we did a couple months ago when we drove the Sonata through the Dragon we opted to buy a couple photographic souvenirs. High resolution photos are great, but like local news anchors opinion of HDTV, they can be a little too great. In the little thumbnail to the left, the looks on Donna’s and my face make it seem like we are not having a good time, our expressions make it appear like driving the Gap is serious business*, like we aren’t having fun. Well, we were, and if you click on the thumbnail to look at the full image, reduced to 640 x 360, the frowns are not so noticeable.

*Which I guess in certain ways it actually is.

In the second photo we bought, at least Donna was smiling (my expression is pretty much similar in both) as it was taken on the return trip and knowing where the photographer was allowed her to get her smile ready and even sneak in a parade wave. Once again the high resolution was a slight determent, because when you view the photo at 100% it allows you to notice that the vampire teeth are dirty and count how many leaves are stuck in the grill…

Keeping The Sibling Peace

This morning the three cars of the MMC went their separate ways and probably at separate times. Kurt & Karen were headed back via Helen, GA, John & Jackie were planning on lunch in Spartanburg and we were just headed home. We arrived there 6 hours later after a gas stop, 4 driver changes and lunch. Total mileage for the trip, eight hundred fifty four and seven tenths. Took three tankfuls of gas for around $90 total and averaged a touch over 33 MPG, which is pretty darn good for the kind of driving the mountain roads bring out in a sports car.

Ever since the Purple Whale got a dragon sticker after his trip through Deals Gap, the Emperor has been whining about getting his own. He already has a diamond shaped one on the inside of the trunk lid and he has been driven through the gap about 2 dozen times to the Whale’s once, but his jealous carping was just too much. So to keep the sniping between the two cars at a minimum, one gold dragon sticker now resides on the Emperor’s butt trunk lid where the little geocaching one once did. Of course I had to wash off all the road crud (and bear fur) before applying said sticker.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1089

Gorging on a Buffet of Twisty Roads & Seafood

I had picked out a neat looking drive for us to do today called the Cherohala Skyway – Joe Brown Loop, from a page off of the Tail Of the Dragon website. But it was so foggy this morning that we opted to do the loop backwards, hoping the fog would clear up later because the first section was straighter, flatter and views less scenic, the middle section wound through rural woods and the final section was the Skyway with lots of scenic pullouts.

The plan worked nearly flawlessly, except for the confusion caused by trying to read the descriptions in reverse order. First, we had a touch of trouble finding our rural road out of Murphy, NC, but that worked out well for a needed potty break. And then we couldn’t find the dining place in historic downtown Telico Plains, TN, but that worked out fine because we stumbled on a BBQ place that everyone thoroughly enjoyed. But the sun did come out after lunch, allowing top down motoring for two thirds of the group as we drove the Cherohala.

After we completed our 166 mile loop, Kurt and I topped up our tanks at the Shell station in Robbinsville and there was talk of heading back to our hotel, but John and Jackie still hadn’t transited the famous “Deals Gap,” so we headed north on US129 to make the trip. On the way west we made it about 8 of the 11 miles at speed until we caught up to some traffic and had to creep to the dam overlook. The trip back wasn’t half as nice as it seemed like only a couple minutes along we ran into a pair of cruiser bikes who refused to exceed the ridiculous posted 30 MPH speed limit and wouldn’t pull over to let us break the law. It got so slow that I actually had to get into 1st gear going around some of the switchbacks. The plate on the bike was from Ontario, thereby shooting major holes in the whole Canadians Are So Polite theorem.

After our Gap Run we all headed over to Fontana Village for dinner as tonight they were having a sea food buffet that included crab legs. I have to say we were all impressed with the food and atmosphere of the Village. Our somewhat negative memories and attitudes towards this place came from perhaps a decade or so in the past, but someone has been investing some money here and from what we could see, spent it well. Donna and I are even thinking that when we come up this way next time we’ll try renting one of their cabins.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1087

Bumper Bear

It is about 12 miles from the town of Robbinsville on US129 to where Deals Gap and its 318 turns begin. Up until then it is mostly smooth, mostly flat and mostly straight (well, straight enough that a Miata can run the distance at 55 MPH easy, but in other vehicles your speed may vary.) About 3 miles from the start of the curvy stuff we were barreling along, me & Donna in front and Kurt and Karen not far behind when out pops a small bear cub from the left side of the road.

I take my foot off the gas and tap the brake to slow down. He is probably just going to cross over, but he hears us coming and starts running, not continuing across mind you, but in the same direction of travel as us. I’ve slowed down now to around 30 and both Donna and my head are swiveling looking for the momma bear, because this guy looks huggable sized, maybe 30 – 40 pounds and might not be alone. We don’t see anything but the cub running in the left lane. Just about the time I think he is headed back to the left, he takes a hard right and disappears in front of the car.

I’m going about 20 miles an hour at this point and I’m waiting to feel us run over it, but all we hear is a bump sound and the next thing we see is the small bear sliding down the pavement in the left lane. He skids about 10 feet down the road to a stop in the middle of the left lane. I come to a stop about 10 yards ahead of him. I check my mirror, it looks like Kurt and Karen have stopped pretty much right beside him, and the bear shakes his head a couple times and walks off back to the side of the road from which he came.

Kurt tells us later that as he got to the guardrail and went to duck under, the poor thing bumped his head. He was probably still a little stunned. As were the four of us.

We then drove down the road about a mile and pulled over to look at the nose of the Emperor. Amazingly enough the only sign anything had happened was that that side of the bumper was wet from where I probably knocked the water out of his fur (it had been lightly raining in the area today.)

Coincidentally, about maybe five or ten minutes before this happened, Donna had remarked to me that she was going to be keeping an eye out for bears and deer and such because we are pretty much in the middle of the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest nowhere near any civilization…

Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Tran­si­tions since 10/24/08: 1085