15,000 Miles

Sometime during the 5th run through of Deal’s Gap this past weekend the car turned over 15K. One of the other couples we were with had their 2002 Miata reach that milestone a few days before the trip. I got there at least a year quicker than they did, but to be fair our car is the Family Truckster and theirs is a weekend fun toy. I guess I’ll schedule a maintenance stop at Rader for next week. I’ll give them one more shot, but three strikes and they’re out.

The clutch shudder was very noticeable this morning backing out of the garage, so much so it was audible. As usual it is almost completely gone by about the 3 mile mark of the 6 mile trip to work. If it does it like that 2 or 3 mornings more before the service next week, I may just say something.

Comet Gestation Counter: 49 days

Perfect Timing

Vanilla Ice comes to Augusta, GA to play a concert this Saturday. The assault weapons ban has expired. And as if that wasn’t enough to convince me, he is playing at a place called “Last Call.” Coincidence? I think not. Some one or thing is trying to tell me something.

If he is not stopped here, he is off to Germany and we don’t need a repeat of the David Hasselhoff incident now do we?

Back Home II

As promised, the lowlights:

  • Friday Morning: Spray painted graffiti on Georgia’s Stonhenge.
  • Friday Mid-day: Road construction in Clarksville, GA kicking up clouds of dust that settle on our cars as we eat lunch.
  • Friday Night: The mostly crummy meal served for dinner at The Sweet Magnolia Caf? in Robbinsville.
  • Saturday Early Morning: The continental breakfast at the Microtel.
  • Saturday Mid-Day: The freakin’ traffic in Gatlingburg, TN.
  • Saturday Afternoon: Some members of our group holding up a rice rocket longer than they needed to while transiting the Gap.
  • Saturday Night: Driving 49.7 miles on the Cherohala Skyway to dinner in Townsend, TN (although to be fair this can also be listed as a highlight.)
  • Sunday Morning: A crowded drive with straight piped Harley cruisers and old folks on the way to church through Maggie Valley on Hwy 19/74.
  • Sunday Mid-day: Meeting my sister and her husband at their Asheville hotel to find out they just got water restored after the flooding from T.S. Frances.
  • Sunday Afternoon: The drive home always seems so long…

Comet Gestation Counter: 48 days

Back Home

Great trip, here are the highlights:

  • Friday Morning: Oddball side stop on the way up at Georgia’s Stonhenge.
  • Friday Mid-day: Lunch at Zanzos in Clarksville, GA. Great Italian food in an unexpected place.
  • Friday Night: 2 clean runs through the gap, out and back. First time that has happened in 3 or 4 years and if we had gone home immediately afterwards the trip would have been worth it.
  • Saturday Early Morning: 2 nearly clean runs. About 8 miles out of a possible 11 before being temporarily slowed for some motorcycles. Nearly similar result for the trip back.
  • Saturday Mid-Day: Carnitas at No Way Jose’s in Gatlingburg, TN.
  • Saturday Afternoon: Coming back to Robbinsville through the gap, this time with a little more traffic, but sometimes it takes a slower drive through to appreciate the sights outside the yellow lines…
  • Saturday Evening: A Cherohala Skyway scenic overlook with the slowly setting sun as a backdrop on the way to dinner in Townsend, TN.
  • Saturday Night: That same Cherohala Skyway scenic overlook with the field of stars spread across the night sky with a background of the milky way overhead on the way back.
  • Sunday Morning: A nice lonely drive on the normally crowded Hwy 19/74 through the Nantahala Gorge on newly resurfaced asphalt.
  • Sunday Mid-day: A meatloaf sandwich at Cracker Barrel.
  • Sunday Afternoon: Home unscathed except for the layer of dirt, brake dust and insects on the car.

Tomorrow, the lowlights…

Comet Gestation Counter: 47 days

Micro Breakfast

Whilst away this weekend at Miata NirvanaTM we stayed at the Microtel Inn in Robinsville, NC. We stay there because it is new and compared to the other 40s and 50s vintage motels, it is the Plaza Hotel. Microtels are supposed to be cheap and while the web page price quote is $54 a night, by the time they get through tacking on the various accommodations taxes we are right up there at $68. Of course this does include a continental breakfast in its appropriately micro sized dining room. The room consists of three 2 person tables shoehorned in with two drink machines, the noisiest ice machine I’ve ever heard and a short counter that holds the breakfast. That counter holds, for your dining pleasure, coffee, micro muffins (2″ in diameter and about the same high), micro doughnuts (2-1/2″ in diameter and 1″ high), micro bagels (a whopping 3-1/2″ in diameter and 2″ high) and some packs of instant oatmeal. Which is why we usually make the 1 block walking trip to the Wendy’s in the morning.

How Cheap Can You Be?

As a favor for a friend I sell his Brake Lite Blinker to out of the country buyers. He doesn’t want to make a trip to the Post Office and fill out the customs forms, etc.

Tonight he forwarded me a request from some one in Canada. He had a few questions about size and power, etc. His last question was would I list the value of the item as $10 so he wouldn’t have to pay as much customs duty on them. Come on, the things are $15 to begin with. How much can he be saving on duty? I wrote him back:

I’m sure there is a very miniscule chance of anything bad happening to me if I did that, but for all I know you actually work for the U.S. Customs and are trolling the internet looking for violators of federal law, so, no I won’t do that. They are valued at $15 US each. Sorry.

We’ll see if he still wants them after that…

Marathon Monday

Totally did nothing today. In honor of Labor Day I celebrated by enjoying the fruits of the fine folks in the union called the Screen Actors Guild. There were three different TV show marathons on cable today, two of which I recently told Will were my favorites and I had to choose between them. There was a Monk Marathon on USA, a West Wing marathon on Bravo and a Law & Order marathon on TNT. I caught the tail end of a very good L&O, then watched a WW. After that I watched Mr. Monk and the Game Show, then for the next 5 hours I watched all WWs.