Getting Close

After this weekend’s trip and tonight’s little drive in the dark the Miata’s mileage stands at 119,825. At 120k you are supposed to change the timing belt, a $400-$500 job. Now the rubber belt in my car is the same rubber belt that are installed on cars sold in California, but in California you don’t have to change the belt but every 100,000 miles. This is because by California law any emissions part must be warranted for 100k. So, should I wait and do the belt when I hit 160 because I did change it at 60,000 miles like Mazda says I should or should I spent the money now and get it done like a good boy? For reference, the Miata is a non-interference engine (meaning if the belt does break, nothing bad happens.)

And what would happen if I moved to California?

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1140.66
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 211

Extra Tire

My wife and I went for a bike ride this evening (in the stinking hot, humid weather.) Our road bikes hang by their wheels upside down from hooks in the garage ceiling. To take them down I have to grab the handle bar with my left hand and the seat stay with my right, lift a little to clear the hook and then rotate the bike to the right side up position and land the wheels on the ground. Today as I rotated my bike down it suddenly stopped short about 2 feet of the ground. The back tire had landed on the extra Toyo tire that is sitting there waiting for Mr. FedEx to come get it, that was 2 weeks ago. I think the waiting period is over, I’m going to try and sell this tire as the folks at Onlinetires.com sure ain’t missing it.

There Is Such A Thing As A Free Dinner

Well, actually, pay me $25 to eat dinner. Donna would rather I didn’t share this with you and I don’t think it is my most shining moment either, but it happened, so here goes:

Friday night in Dahlonega, GA we went to our favorite place in town, Caruso’s. It is right on the square and has some of the best pizza we know. We got a new waiter, probably just back in school at the local college, that wasn’t the swiftest antelope in the heard. He checked in one to many times to see if our food was OK (which is as bad, if not worse than, not checking at all.) But then we had to call him over to ask for the check. Once he brought the check for $12.50 he never reappeared. We both had time to visit the restroom.

I went second and as I was heading back to the table, I saw our waiter leave the dining room. I thought, good, he’s got the check. Donna told me he had just walked on by totally ignoring her and the $20 bill in the tray. Tired of waiting we headed towards the entrance to the kitchen where we could see behind the curtain, the cash register and another waitress doing a check. When she came out, she asked us what we wanted. I replied, “To pay our bill.” She looked at it and said, “Oh that’s Ralph’s,” and ducked back into the kitchen. While we stood there waiting a different waitress appeared and asked what we wanted. Pointed back where she came from and repeated, “Pay our bill.” Waitress number one reappears and says, “He’ll be right with you.”

When Ralph finally appeared he handed me the tray back with my change and walked off. No sorry you had to wait, nothing. I walked back to our table to leave him a couple bucks tip anyway. When I got there I noticed that he had placed my $7.50 in change right over the top of the ticket and my original twenty. The little devil on my shoulder said, “Take it!” – so I did, it and the five.

Raisin Juice

Sort of. The icky fluid turns out to have been from water, that used to be ice, leaking out of a hole in a plastic bag and soaking through a box of raisins. Donna remembered what it was when she started to empty the insulated lunch pack we carried some of our goodies in last night.

Dodged a big bullet today. About 20 minutes before quitting time I heard one clap of thunder. I looked outside and although it looked really ugly I was on the fence about putting the top up with it so close to quitting time. Erring on the side of caution I went out, removed the cover, removed the boot and raised the top. While I was in the process, seeming to validate me choice, it started to sprinkle. After the top was up and I returned to the building the drops stopped and it looked like it would blow over. Precisely 2 minutes before 4 o’clock the skies opened and it poured down. Whew.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1140.66
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 210

I Don’t Think That Is What Lady Bird Had In Mind

I have plenty I could rant about this evening as I have just returned from Atlanta and I despise big cities and the urban sprawl that surrounds them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want 200 acres of woods, live in a cabin I built myself in the middle of it and feed off the wild game I trap there. I like smallish towns with just enough civilization. But I digress…

Somewhere between there and here I noticed a very small patch of 4 foot tall Black-eyed Susans growing in the median. Right in front of it stood a 2′ x 3′ brown sign with white lettering on it proclaiming, “DOT WILDFLOWER PROJECT. DO NOT MOW.” The sign had more square footage than the plot of flowers.

Ick, What’s That?

Up this morning in Dahlonega, Georgia and even though Holiday Inn Express’s cinnamon rolls are awesome Donna wanted eggs for breakfast. We asked the desk clerk where to go and she directed us to Danny’s just up the street. When we got there about 7:15AM we weren’t sure they were open because there was only one car in the lot. The sign said they opened at 6:30 so we went on in. Glad we did, nice home cooked breakfast type place. The food was good and cheap. And it showed, by the time we left the place was nearly full.

After chow we headed to Marietta by as many back roads as we could. There was even a 15 mile detour around a bridge that was out on GA53 we hadn’t planned on, but it was Ok because GA136 was a real nice Miata road. And like most of these roads in North Georgia on a Sunday morning, deserted except for us. We eventually had to get on I-75 to finish the trip to R-speed for there 4th Annual Open House. We got there at about number 25, by the time we left 2 hours later the lot was nearly full, probably 150 Miatas and about a dozen Minis. I was not swayed to buy any of the bargains, but did buy a new Rspeed T-shirt.

When we got home this evening and started to unpack the trunk I noticed what looked like brown water all over some of the bottom layers of stuff. At first I thought it was muddy water as we had tossed our dirty hiking boots in there. Upon closer inspection it looked like spilled Coke, which is weird because we didn’t have an open soda near the trunk all weekend. It took me about a hour to clean up the mess and I still need to let the bottom carpet dry from the cleaner I sprayed on it before I can vacuum it and then put it all back together.

Purchased Today: $14.75 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1140.66
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 209

Corn Maze

After our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, mmm…cinnamon rolls, it was off for the drive to Robbinsville for our reconnaissance mission.

First stop was in Andrews, NC for a peek at our first possible fun thing to do, a corn maze. After spending about 15 minutes talking with the manager that runs the thing, Donna remains excited, while I am now convinced that it will be not be and might possibly be too much like work to find our way through. As an option for the folks in our group who may not be able to do the walking, the field covers 7 acres and the maze has a total of 3 miles of paths, there is an indoor flea market a mile or so down the street.

Next we drove the final 25 miles to Robbinsville to check for possible restaurants. We had heard from another Club member that there have been the addition of Mexican and Chinese places to dine. One in which we were interested in is apparently not open for lunch and the persons inside would not even come to the door to give a menu after a couple of knocks on the glass. We may still try them out when we are there.

After a quick tour of town we headed north for a dragon run. I decided to turn around about 5 miles from reaching the goal as I was number 6 in line of minivans, pickups and SUVs that I just knew would make the trip through the dragon agony. Besides there were plenty of e-ticket roads that we had already driven and would drive this weekend. Definitely need to hit the gap in the early AM before the normal folks get there.

Next up was a trip into the Joyce Kilmer Forrest for a look at possible non-car diversion #2. There was a short, rated easy hike in the woods with two distance options. After Donna and I walked 25 yards into the trail we knew that it would not be doable for more than 50% of our group. Way too steep, slippery, etc. Oh well, maybe it’ll rain and we will all stay inside and watch HBO on the telly that weekend.

Now hot and disappointed, with the cheap BBQ sandwich bought at the “Outback Trading Post” broiling in our bellies we headed the 90 miles back to Dahlonega. One good thing about the return trip was we detoured over to GA60 for 44 miles of new twisty pavement. The last 12 miles are almost as good as the gap. This road, nicknamed the Snake, is a favorite of Atlantians who own sport bikes or cars as it is only about an hour and a half away for them.

Purchased Today: $26.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1125.91
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 204