Cars

Land Yacht

Next door to ASCO is a little place called Bobby’s Clean Up that, while I’m not exactly sure what, has a lot to do with cars. Every now and again there is something unusual parked over there. This week it is a 1959 Cadillac Sixty Two Convertible. It showed up on Tuesday and has been inside the shop since then. Today I noticed it parked out front as I came back from taking Donna home.

I pulled in and poked my head inside the building to ask if it was alright if I took a closer look at it. The fellow inside said that it belonged to a local home builder and he had spent about $35k for it. It was there getting it all nicely detailed for this coming Sunday’s downtown Aiken cruise-in.

The car is absolutely beautiful. Every panel is faultless and the interior is in nicer shape that mine. It has either been hermetically sealed in a mayonnaise jar on the porch of Funk & Wagnalls or been recently fully restored.

I really wanted to get a picture of it with the Miata parked behind it, so it looked like it was the big cars dinghy. It was high noon with the sun extremely bright and with the Caddy backed in under the awning, the contrast was so intense taking a good picture was nearly impossible. Here is one that came out OK:

'59 Caddy

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 234

So Much To Say…

…So Little Actually Worth Saying.

Are you as I tired as I am of the incessant promotions and marketing for the movie Cars? On ESPN’s Sportscenter last night they interviewed on of the actors who voices one of the cars. And some of the characters are so stereotypical they border on insulting; Mater, the slow speaking and possibly dim witted southern rusted tow truck voiced by Larry the Cable Guy. George Carlin the Hippy-Dippy Weatherman voicing the psychedelic VW van, Fillmore. Plus Ramone, the bright purple hydraulically enhanced low-rider voiced by Hispanic Cheech Marin.

Do we really need a movie version of Miami Vice? An 80’s style rap commercial for Pepto Bismo?

And speaking of commercials were these made by the same ad agency? For the Hummer H3 the stylish, eye catching “Urban Techno” and the totally lame and unimaginative “Goldilocks and the 3 Bears.”

Is it WordPress or more probably, my lame web host, but all of a sudden the plug-in I use to attach the thumbnails to posts is no longer working. Tried stopping and restarting the plug-in, but that didn’t work and if I shut it off all the past attached pictures disappear.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 192

Nice Evening For A Convertible

The recent 80’s with low humidity weather, which is very much unlike SC in June, has been perfect weather for top down motoring. After dinner Donna wanted to go over to Hopeland Gardens and take a walk, so we drove over. The parking lot was empty except for two other cars.

Tops Down

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Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 188

Sticker Fun

Put on the replacement C & H sticker on the back bumper. I think it is a little bigger than the last one. The original sticker in silver that I put on crooked was 6″ high and I thought it looked a little big, so when I went to dark yellow I got him to make it 5-1/2″ high. This one looks like we reverted to a 6″ size. Seems a bit too big and I put it on leaning a little too much, but it looks good back there anyway.

I had one zoom-zoom sticker left and I put it in the same spot I have on the last two cars, on the inside of the trunk lid with each zoom straddling the trunk latch, so you can see it when the lid is up.

Now we just have to make a trip to Deal’s Gap to get a dragon sticker and start the under lid collection in earnest.

While I was there I straightened out the lid. loosened the 4 nuts and pushed and pulled until it is pretty good, not perfect, but better than before. I used an 11/64th drill bit as a spacer. On Monday I’ll take the calipers back out and give you the new measurements. Oooh, goody, more trigonometry.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 182

My Sunday Was More Boring Than Yours

The only thing besides the weekly grocery shopping trip to interrupt hanging out on the couch all day was an early morning tandem ride. We went another 8 or so miles, but this time included a stop for breakfast. Because we were too early for a muffin at the New Moon Cafe and the only true bagel place in town folded their tent we ended up at the ABC. We both had a bagel and judged their quality to be just about half way between a store bought one and one from the defunct Best Bagels.

There was an older gentleman a couple people ahead of us that got one too, but we didn’t ask him how he liked his. We sat outside in the patio area and watched as that same gentleman got back in his car to leave. He reopened hid drivers door and poured the contents of a nearly full old Atlanta Bread Company coffee cup onto the ground in the parking lot. We marveled as to why he wouldn’t have just gone back inside the shop and thrown it out. After the cup was empty he got back out of the car and did head back inside. Now we really wondered why he didn’t just throw it away in the store. Then with a flash of realization it dawned on us what he was doing, when he ordered his bagel he didnt get a drink, now he was refilling and old ABC cup with fresh coffee.

Because we did get out on the roads early we encountered very little automobile traffic. On the way home from breakfast there were a few more cars out, probably on their way to early services at church. I am always amazed at these good Christians on their way to worship the deity of their choice are the least courteous drivers on the road. This morning we were on a section of very lightly traveled 4-lane road when a nicely dressed person in a pickup squeezed by us as close as he could. I’m guessing he was a catholic, because after he accidentally ran us over and killed us all he had to do was to go to confession and be absolved from his sins. That way his conscience would have been clear as he sat down to watch the Braves on TV later that afternoon.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 151

We Won

We WonToday the MMC held it’s 3rd annual TSD road Rally and Dona and I came in first. The first year we came in 3rd and last year we finished out of the money, but this year we knocked ’em dead.

There were 14 teams that started and we were #13 out of the gate. When Donna and I arrived at the finish we were the 4th car in. We knew that there a few cars that probably got lost, we had seen a few going the other way as we did the run, but 6 cars had fallen off the course. Turns out it was worse than that because the 3 that were at the finish ahead of us had only made it there by opening their emergency envelopes…

I guess this must have been harder than it looked to us because only one other team besides us finished with an intact envelope before the cutoff time. Four other teams didn’t open the envelope, but came in after the time allowed. Everyone who made it in cleanly got to pick something from the prize table, the top two teams also got a little cash prize to go along with their T-shirt or hat. We got a crisp piece of paper with a portrait of Andrew Jackson and the second place team snagged an Alexander Hamilton.

Started down, went up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 150

Neon Diaries II

Neon Diaries IIGot up this morning and took a road trip. Donna wanted to visit the Swan Lake Iris Gardens in Sumter, SC and I wanted to go to Denmark, so that’s what we did. First stop was to the country, er, city of Denmark which is famous around these parts for two things, it is the closest spot to board an Amtrak train and is the home of artist Jim Harrison.

From there we headed northwest towards Sumter. Somewhere around halfway there we passed a small sign at a gravel road that said Kensington Mansion. About a half a mile later we did a u-turn and went back to check out the place. They offered tours, but we could find no one to tell us anything about them. We walked slowly around the whole outside of the place and just as we finished our circuit the latest tour was finishing up, 4 people and one guide came out of a side door. We asked if there was a brochure or something and Donna got a 1/3 sheet flyer thing and the guide wanted us to stick around for another hour for the next tour. We declined and drove off.

At Sumter, after a lunch at Chik-Fil-A, we visited the Swan Lake Iris Gardens. Lots of hungry swans and turtles and not much on the way of gardens. We walked around a bit and did a boardwalk around the lake which looked remarkably like the boardwalk near the river of two weeks ago in the gardens of Orangeburg. After an hour or so we had had enough so we got back in the car and turned west for home.

Just west of Columbia we almost past right by a little car show at a roadside flea market. I’m hoping we missed the big action of earlier in the day, it was 2:30PM, or this was one very poorly attended happening. I took a few pictures of some of the more interesting cars there before we ate an elephant ear and came on home.

Started up, still up.
Neon Top Transitions since 04/24/06: 0