Cars

End of Summer

End of SummerTechnically we still have over a month and here in Aiken we have more like two months before the summer like weather is gone, but today was the last week day before school starts. Come Monday morning the commute to work be 20x more aggravating as harried moms or dads drive their progeny to the hallowed halls of learning.

To celebrate the last work day of light traffic roads we rode the tandem to work today.

We’ll still ride the bike to work occasionally because we only have to share the school road with cars for about 30 yards (although it is uphill and seems like 50.) But we will now be alternating our car drive to work. On the weeks we go in early we will drive the more rural route because we are earlier than the school traffic, but the other week we will alter the route to include the four lane US 1 avoiding that traffic nightmare.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 333

Carolina Car Trek

Intimate AnimalAiken had it’s Horseplay with painted horses and now Darlington County has it’s painted cars. While looking for the Post Office in Lamar, SC we noticed a painted car in front of the Library. Later in the weekend we noticed a couple more cars around. So when we got home, we looked on the internet and discovered that it was new this summer – Carolina Car Trek. There is even a contest involved that can win you a 2008 Darlington Raceway Package (whatever that is.)

I had to give a little blood this morning for my cholesterol check next week, so I had to not eat breakfast at home. This meant a stop at the New Moon Cafe for eats on the way in to work. Cranberry Peacan Muffin for me and an Everything Bagel for her.

Meal Cost: $2.89
Tip Jar: 11¢
Spent Today: $3.00
Year to Date: $1512.70
Meals out, 86 of a possible 591

A couple of new links on the sidebar tonight, 1) A New Miata? in 143 days and B) Spenser?s Crime Buster Rules.

I found another place that is raffling off a new Miata, or MX-5 as Mazda would have you call it, the International Motor Racing Research Center. The IMRRC is in Watkins Glen, NY and they are selling just 2,500 chances on a 2007 Touring Package car. $35 each, two for $60 or a quartet for a C-note. I opted to take 4 chances at getting a new Miata about 1,088 days sooner than planned.

After finishing re-reading Spenser book #3 and finding another rule, I broke down and created a page for Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules. I only have 32 more books to go to get all of the rest (if there are any more…)

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 282

63,000 Train Cars

Choo-ChooWe were back in northeast South Carolina hunting Post Offices. Knocked off 16 more, bring our total captured to 184 out of the total of 460. I was stopped by a freight train twice over the weekend, once on Saturday with Donna’s cousin Susie and her daughter Katlin in a Jaguar XJ8 and on Sunday with Donna in the Miata.

The visit wasn’t all fun and games though, we were there to offer what moral support we could to Donna’s cousin Laurie because her husband Ted was in the hospital. Ted’s lifelong health issues had final caught up with him. Diabetes and a bad heart caused an early retirement. The diabetes led to weakened kidney’s which finally gave up after a his last heart attack necessitating dialysis. When we visited in March they were still struggling with getting the home dialysis to work right and Ted reminded us of how Donna’s mom had gotten towards the end. When we stopped in last week the both of us were shocked at how far he had deteriorated. He fell out of bed on Tuesday and was hospitalized in Florence at the McLeod Medical Center. Ted passed away early this morning.

While traveling west, somewhere east of North, South Carolina the Emperor moved past the 63,000 mile mark.

For dinner we both had a bowl of Won-ton Soup and an Egg Roll, while we split an order of Jade Chicken (don’t know if this is a regular Chinese restaurant dish or just got it’s name because we were eating a place called Jade of China.)

Meal Cost: $13.90
Tip: $2.10
Spent This Meal: $16.00
Year to Date: $1509.70
Meals out, 85 of a possible 585.

 

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 278

All-Star Break

Horse's HeadThe top on the Miata is starting to wear out. There are several small spots on the inside where the cloth liner is gone exposing the rubber inner layer. And there are a few places on the outside, at places the top is folded, that are the same way. So far this year the top has made 266 transitions. In 2006 it made 525 and in 2005 there were 399 changes in state. I did not keep data for all of 2004, nor did I count any of the first month of ownership in December 2003. Using a complicated formula consisting of averages from prior years I estimate that for those 13 months it made 410 transitions, making a total lifetime of 1600 changes or 800 cycles.

I probably have a couple more months before an actual holes develops, but I’d rather not get that far, so I’ve started to research new tops. An OEM Mazda cloth top lists at a buck under a $900. An after market top starts around $630. Both these are cloth with defroster glass back window like the current top, but I could always “downgrade” to a vinyl top, they start around $450. The trouble with after market tops is matching the parchment color of the 2003+ Miatas. Most of the tans out there are darker and more compatible with the earlier year cars. So I’m contemplating going with a black vinyl top. But for now I’ve got samples on the way of the two canvas tans available from the place I bought my last top from. One is a stock color and the other is custom adding $50 to the cost.

They also have a custom color called dark ruby that is a wild card in the color selection. Donna hates the idea without even seeing it, but I’ve got a sample of that coming too. We will have to see, the Garnet Red has mica in it so it changes its color, from a sparkly red to maroon, depending on the light. This makes it awfully hard for that dark red canvas to look good at all times, but I can hope. If I really like it, I may try and persuade her.

Forgot to blog about eating out last night. Went to Maria’s for carnitas, we both had water to drink so we got out for cheap.

Meal Cost: $9.58
Tip: $1.42
Spent Today: $11.00
Year to Date: $1405.90
Meals out 80 of a possible 573.

 

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 266

Hagerstown

MetroOr Not Since We Went To The New Menu.

Farmington, CT to Hagerstown, MD. We got an early start and used the usual route out of Connecticut (I-84, I-684, Saw Mill Parkway, I-87/I-287), but instead of getting on the Garden State Parkway we stayed on I-287. Didn’t stay on the Interstate for long though, Donna broke out the NJ map and we hit the back roads. One, because we would rather stay off the Interstates and two, we were headed to western NJ to visit another far flung relation of Donna’s in Blairstown, Betty. She is the daughter of the sister of Donna’s grandmother. Is that a cousin, second cousin or first cousin once removed?

After lunch at Betty’s we stayed on the back roads and entered in to our least favorite state of the union, road-wise, Pennsylvania. As long as we can stay rural through the Keystone State we are fine, but the major routes really suck, rough and chock full of 18 wheelers (plus add today’s rain…) When we finally hit I-81 we were going to grab a bite to eat and stop for the night.

At the intersection of PA 443 and I-81 we ate at a place called Gooseberry’s Family Restaurant (or something similar) and we almost didn’t stay because we had to walk through the smoking section to get to the no smoking area (an omen we should have headed.) When Donna tried asked if she could get the chili instead of the offered soup de jour with her entree, the waitress said that you couldn’t have any substitutions since they went to the new menu. So Donna just ordered the chili in a bread bowl. While we waited on our meal, the man of the couple at the table behind us asked if they had any specials, to which the waitress replied, “There are no specials since we went to the new menu.” When I got my Blue Cheese Burger that is pretty much what is was, a bun, a burger patty and some blue cheese. I didn’t bother to ask if I could get some lettuce and a tomato slice because I knew what the answer would be… “Nope, not since we went to the new menu.”

After that dining experience and our prejudicial feelings towards traveling in PA, we got back on I-81 and drove an additional 100 miles just so we could start our day tomorrow in a different state, Maryland.

I didn’t even take the camera out of it’s case today, so the POTD attached to this post is one from last weekend in DC, a shaky shot of a Metro train arriving in the station. I chose this picture because as we entered into Maryland there were two big rigs with wide load signs on them parked just outside the Welcome Center, the load, shiny new Metro cars. After a couple of miles we found out why those two were there, they must have been waiting for their police escort, because up ahead we could see a state trooper car following yet another wide load Metro car.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, down again, up once more, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 257

New Britain 4

New Britain's Iwo Jima MemorialOr Do You Know Where You Are?

Or even All Ashore That Is Going Ashore.

When we got up this morning our intention was to head south to Jersey to visit a cousin of Donna’s. That was if it was OK with her because we had already scheduled the visit for Thursday. By the time we bid “fare thee well” to the family and it was time to leave, the cousin couldn’t be reached. Being as we had the room here at the Farmington Inn for another night, we opted to tour a little of central CT. Used the web to look up where some waterfalls could be found and headed out.

Leaving town we passed a sign for the National Iwo Jima Memorial in New Britain/Newington. I have a photo of the monument in Arlington and every time we pass this one, it can be seen from Route 9, I think to myself, “I should stop and get a photo.” This morning I did.

We had directions to a couple of waterfalls in the south central part of the state with the first one being in East Hampton. Called The Cascades with a 20′ drop, the pictures made it look worth the trip. Reading the print directions, it seemed easy enough to find, but in real life proved elusive. We didn’t find Cox road where we expected it, so we turned on a different road to find our way back to a main road. What should we pass along the way but Cox Road. We turned onto it and seemed to be headed in the right direction, we crossed a listed road and Cox turned to dirt as advertised. About the time we got tired of bouncing on the dirt road and thought of turning around we came to the advertised fork in the road. There in the middle of the road were two fellows on off-road motorcycles. We stopped to ask where we were, but they beat us to the punch by asking first. They wanted to know if they went the way we came would take them to Portland. I answered yes, but wouldn’t dare try and direct them because of our round-a-bout way of getting here. They pointed to the fork of the road where we might find the waterfall, but had never seen it so couldn’t tell us how much further it might be. It was then that the 4 of us decided to return to where we did come from on the way we knew, the way we had come.

Our next destination was Chapman Falls in Millington, CT on the grounds of the Devil’s Hopyard State Park. Because the state park was on our Connecticut state map we had a high confidence level we cold find this one. As a bonus, our route would take us right by a covered bridge, Comstock Covered Bridge, one of five in the state and one we didn’t get a picture of in April. The bridge is not so historically picturesque because they have it supported by giant steel beams running longitudinally awaiting restoration. It looks like they have been waiting a long while because those steel beams are quite rusty. Chapman Falls turned out to be easy to find and easy to photograph. The roads surrounding the park are awesome. Lonely, narrow, tree lined and twisty they are perfect Miata roads. Hard to believe there is that much area of Connecticut that is still pristine and sparely populated.

When we left Devil’s Hopyard State Park and headed back we decided to take the Chester – Hadlyme Ferry across the Connecticut River. This small ferry, holding maybe 10 cars, and costing a whopping $3 is the second oldest continuously operating ferry in the state. As we approached the other side of the river Donna and I got back in the car and opened the CT map to decide how to get back to Farmington on the best 2 lane roads available. We both had our heads buried in the map when all of a sudden we heard, “All ashore that Is going ashore!” We had docked and the other three cars had long since departed. With a sheepish smile and a wave I started the car and drove off.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 251

New Britain 3

By a NoseOr 61,000 Carousel Horses.

Today we all piled into two cars and headed over a couple towns to Bristol and visited the Carousel Museum. I am not as big a fan of carousels as others in the group, but it was a very interesting couple hours, mostly due to our guide. She was only two years out of high school, but her knowledge and interest in the subject as well as a natural way with us, John Q. Public, made the subject almost exciting.

This evening Donna and I went over to catch up with a boyhood chum and his wife who we hadn’t seen in a while. We had a good time catching up on the events of the distant and recent past. Unfortunately a lot of the discussion centered around the foibles of our being upper middle-aged.

The Emperor clicked over to exactly 61,000 miles as I pulled into the hotel parking lot tonight.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 249