The Taurus Diaries – Act II, Scene I

Dropped the Miata off at the body shop today after work. They gave us a loaner car, a tan Ford Taurus. It has the required rear trunk lid spoiler for that go fast look and rear drum brakes for that stop slow feel.

When I first pointed out my list of flaws to the body shop manager he told me he needed the car for a couple of hours. Tonight when he handed me the keys and I told him I would see him tomorrow around the same time, just the way he said, “I should have it ready for you.”, led both Donna and I to expect the Miata not to be ready then. Sigh.

Almost forgot, on Saturday, about 5 miles past Burlington, NC the Emperor glided past the 40,000 mile mark.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 175

Aiken

As Glenda the Good Witch told Dorothy, “There’s no place like home.”

US1 runs through Sanford, NC and Aiken, SC too, so we decided to just follow it home. This caused Donna to remember that 42 years ago when her family moved from NJ to New Orleans the traveled down via US1 in a station wagon. They drove straight thru with Mom and Dad splitting the driving, figuring it was easy to remember what roads to take by picking one and sticking with it. They folded the back seat flat and the 4 kids rode down in the back of the wagon with their sleeping bags. No minivan with child seats, seat belts or DVD players, just sleeping bags and some kiddie books. I then shared that my mom and one of her male friends took 2 weeks to travel the whole length of US1 from Fort Kent, Maine to Key West, Florida. She asked how old I was thinking that perhaps in some weird coincidence her family and my mom had crossed paths, maybe saying hello at a gas station or sat in adjoining booths at a roadside diner. No such thing happened though as my parents were still together when I was nine. Mom and Leo did their trip some 4 or 5 years after the Morrisons, because I was in my early teens when my mom and he were an item. Kind of strange that our parents passed through Aiken long before Donna and I lived here.

Around Camden, SC we actually got tired of the back roads and feeling the pull of home, jumped on I-20 to speed up the trip. This is also about the time the car started to make a loud rattling noise. It seemed to happen when shifting between 2nd and 3rd, but was entirely restricted to just then. It would occur between 2500 to 3000 RPM. I suspected it was somehow exhaust related, but wasn’t really sure. It didn’t sound life threatening, so the plan was to get home and take a look underneath the car. We made a detour into Columbia for lunch. Donna wanted spaghetti and meatballs and we remembered a restaurant in downtown called The Old Spaghetti Factory. We drove around where we thought it was, did I mention that the last time we ate there was 8 or 9 years ago? We finally gave up and asked someone. They remembered it, but was sure they had closed some time ago. We ended up at Subway where Donna got her meatballs, just in a sub, not on a pile of pasta.

With all the city driving the noise was getting a lot louder and a lot more frequent. We decided to head a few miles back and stop in at the Mazda dealer in Columbia. They were open and said they would get a technician to look at it. We retired to the waiting room with thoughts of possible expensive repairs floating in our heads. About 45 minutes later the service adviser came over and said it was fixed, they found that a bolt had come loose on an exhaust hanger up near the front of the car. When I asked how much we owed them, he replied, “Nothing.” Cool. We thanked him and finished the trip home in quiet.

At home the Emperor got a well deserved bath. I want it to look good because tomorrow we go back to the body shop for them to fix their errors when they repaired it earlier this month.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 173

Sanford

Breakfast was at the “River City Diner” that was attached to the Holiday Inn. Could be a chain restaurant and seeing as most big towns have a river running thru it, it would fit right in nearly anywhere. The waiters wore bowling shirts and the waitresses wore something with very short sleeves and a collar that were left over from Rizzo’s closet. All shiny chrome and vinyl, the only thing missing were the classic diner shape and little jukeboxes in the booths. The food was diner plentiful, I ordered pancakes with 2 eggs scrambled and the flapjacks were as big as Frisbees and the eggs must have been from ostrich-sized chickens.

After saying so long to Sally and “little” Claire we were off to the west side of Richmond to visit Donna’s cousin Sue and family. Susie and Alex live in a tree lined planned community that is the picture next to the term suburb in the central Virginia encyclopedia. They have three beautiful girls and whenever we pop in for a visit (approximately every half decade) we bring gifts for them. This time it was t-shirts with Aiken and horses on them, three different designs for three different ages. When kids are little they will put on anything mom pops over their heads, but at some age they will develope a style sense of their own making clothing a risky gift, so who knows they might put them on and never want to take them off or the only use they’ll get is to wipe up spilled Pepsi. The only daughter home was the oldest, 13 or 14 and she hung out in the kitchen with us adults as we discussed Donna’s breast cancer which then segued into medical insurance. Maybe there was nothing on MTV or she just wanted to hang with the grown-ups. I just hope in 2055 or so she thinks back to that “aunt” who had breast cancer, was cured because they caught it early and starts getting yearly mammograms herself.

We didn’t leave there until about 10:30, so we hopped on I-95 and started south. Donna drove for 60 miles then I did a 60 mile shift before we stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch where we both ate too much again. After lunch, I continued south on I-95 until we could take the monotonous snapping of tires over concrete expansion joints no more. We jumped onto the back roads and made our way over to the town founded by Fred and Lamont in 1977 after they quit the junk business, Sanford, North Carolina.

There was a Sagebrush right across the street from the hotel, so that is where we went for a late dinner. This is the fourth different Sagebrush I have dined at and they are now batting .500. Rock Hill, SC and Monroe, NC are winners, every time I’ve been there I have wanted to go back. The one that lasted a year and a half in Aiken was awful all three times we went. Sanford, NC now joins them in the losers column. Our waiter had to be asked to bring us the usual bucket of peanuts that are their equivalent of the chips and salsa at a Mexican eatery. Our salads arrived 3 or so minutes after our main course. My blue cheese dressing was the worst I ever had and that is saying something. The steak was good, except the cook was a little heavy handed with the grilling spices. Plus I think whoever cooked up the Bunkhouse Beans mistook the teaspoon abbreviation for tablespoon, because those bad boys were peppery. I didn’t say anything because this is the first time I’ve had them and for all I know that is their signature way of doing beans…

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 171

Richmond

Breakfast was just about what we expected, I had a bowl of Raisin Bran with what milk I could get out of a mostly frozen jug and Donna ate a biscuit with sausage gravy. Plus we each ate one of those half dollar sized powdered doughnuts that come in packs of 10 for fifty cents. We stopped a few miles down the road and bought some fruit at a grocery store.

Donna had the official North Carolina Travel book out and we were going to stop in a couple small towns to see some of the “points of interest” in them. Trouble was all we really had were descriptions of the sites, no directions. There was a covered bridge near Asheboro, one of only two remaining in NC, that we actually found some signs to, but gave up finding after traveling 10 miles on two-lane roads with nothing to show for it. Next site we couldn’t find was a antique carousel inn Burlington. It was located in a city park at the center of town, but we never saw a sign for downtown.

Side Note: Berries & Cream Dr. Pepper tastes a lot like cough syrup.

Traffic was amazing light until we got to Richmond when we needed it the least. A miscommunicated routing request sent the driver several miles out of the way causing a delay in getting into our hotel room.

We had a nice visit with Sally over DQ Blizzards and got the inside dish on Africa and the whole Pitt-Jolie birthing extravaganza. Tomorrow morning we will have breakfast with her and her “Tug Boat Captain” daughter Claire before visiting Donna’s Cousin Sue and family.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 169

Kannapolis

Rest easy Mark, we resisted the “Call of the Rat Toe.” We came into Concord on US601 and even though we were 5-6 miles east of Lowes Motor Speedway the traffic was as thick as mosquitos on a summer’s eve. Descretion being the better part of valor we just rolled north into Kannapolis.

After a few false moves we found our motel. I couldn’t beleive that we could find a room this close to the big race on such short notice, but maybe I know why now, it is only a couple short steps up from a dump. But hey, there is wireless broadband internet, the water pressure is great, the AC blows cold air and after manually hitting the power button, the remote control works the TV just fine, so what else do you want for $80.

At the front desk there was a schedule for the Kannapolis Intimidators, class A farm team for the Chicago White Sox, and they were home. We found a local pizza place for dinner, Flyin Buffalo and went to a baseball game, sort of.

Parking was a buck and General Admission was to be $4 each, but some guy was giving away complimentary General Admission tickets just outside the gate. He assured Donna there was no catch, so we took them and got in for free. About 10 minutes before gametime the grounds crew put the tarp on the field. The PA announcer said the game would be delayed a few minutes as there was a storm system headed our way. Donna and I immediately made our way to one of several covered picnic areas, even though it wasn’t raining yet, to avoid the rush later. After about a half hour and no rain we decided to just go ahead and leave as our tickets were free. Before we made it to the exit they started to take the tarp up, so we got some seats to watch some baseball. We made it through two whole innings before our long day caught up to us and we headed for the exit again.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 165

Evening Ride

Spring is gone and summer is here. Today it was in the lower 90’s and there was a rumble of thunder this afternoon. There is more of the same expected for the next 10 days according to the Weather Channel, but local wisdom says it should be expected for the next 100 days.

When the sun was getting low in the sky and the temperature had dropped to the lower 80’s, Donna and I hopped on the tandem and went for a little 9 mile ride around town. By the time we got home it was pretty well dark. Might take the high powered headlights of one of the commuting bikes, along with a flashing tail light, and put it on the tandem for these evening rides.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 162

Tires Balanced

We don’t get the Miata on an Interstate much and the last few times we did it showed some tire shimmy at 60MPH and again around 80 or so. Rotating the tires didn’t eliminate it totally, but did change its feel and speed of appearance. Seeing as we are doing a road trip this weekend that will encompass a good chunk of interstate I went to a different LTS and had the tires balanced. The Miata is fairly sensitive to balance issues because of the light weight wheel/tire combination and taught suspension. I’ll let you know how they did.

When I had the ticket written up I left a big hint that the torque spec for my lug nuts was 75 ft/lbs. I had tried that tact with the last place, but they didn’t get the hint (which is one of the reasons I’m at some place new.) These guys did good on this account as I checked when I got home in the driveway and the lug nuts were easily removable with the regular lug wrench. I then retorqued them back down to 75 ft/lbs.

They did made a weak attempt to sell me some new tires before balancing. The Toyos are nearly worn out, but I think I have another month on them. They were installed in October of 2004 when the car had a touch over 16,000 and we are fast approaching 40,000. That would mean I would get a respectable 25k miles on the set with this weekend’s trip and another 30 days of local travel.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 160