Cars

American’s Love Stuff

We have way too much of it. A majority of the people I know have two car garages and it is rare that any one uses them to park even one car inside. Those are really 20′ x 20′ storage sheds connected to the house. They are a place to keep toys, old exercise equipment, boxes full of old books, the lawnmower, whatever, just not cars. Once your garage is too full to even walk through you can drive, usually, less than 2 miles and for a small monthly fee, rent another 10′ x 20′ space to put the overflow. What is so amazing is that these places are hives of storage rooms, hundreds per location. Man we have too much stuff.

While watching TV this weekend I saw an ad for the latest in American storage solutions, PODS. now you don’t have to drive two miles to the hive, these people bring a cell of the honeycomb to you!

Bears Oh My

We drove around all day in my sister’s Protege so we wouldn’t have to take two cars. first we went into downtown Hendersonville, NC. This is the town Diane and Allen have picked to retire to in 7 seven years. They have a neat and thriving downtown. One attraction currently running is along the lines of those artistic cows they did in Chicago several years back, only because of their locale here, they used life-sized black bears. Diane and I decided that we would take a picture of every one of the 26 bears. We got the one inside the locked bank and we got the one inside a clothing store and we snapped the one on the awning of a restaurant, but we couldn’t locate bear #5. It was not where it was supposed to be. Maybe Animal Control had to capture it because it attacked a tourist. 🙂 I’ll try and get my gallery online in the next couple of days.

That night we went out to watch some minor league baseball. The Asheville Tourists, class A farm club of the Colorado Rockies were tangling with the Capital City Bombers. The Bombers won the game 3 to 1, but the evening wasn’t a total loss. It was free cap night. The first 1,00 fans got a really nice Tourists’ ball cap (the ads were small and tasteful.) Plus, Donna’s name was pulled in a drawing so she won a throw blanket donated by a local mill. I won an oil change because we had one of the player’s signature on the right page. We gave away that prize to the couple behind us, as for sure we weren’t driving all the way back up there just for an oil change.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $830.88
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 130

How Can You See?

Donna and I are up in North Carolina visiting with my sister and her husband who are down on vacation. We hooked up this afternoon and have a couple of things planned. Friday night’s entertainment was to go out to eat and go see the Music On Main Street concert in Hendersonville, NC. We are staying at the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway and Hendersonville is a 30-mile trip. Donna likes for me to drive and my brother-in-law graciously agreed to let me drive his car (actually it is my sister’s Mazda Protege.) It was that or take two cars because the Miata can’t seat more than two.

I love the Blue Ridge Parkway, it winds along the crest of the mountains, dipping and dodging through some very beautiful country. Plus the best part is dropping of the ridge into the valleys on roads packed with switchbacks. 🙂 It was lightly raining as we took off for our trip and the windshield wipers were kinda old so they left ugly streaks. To top it all off the inside of the window had never seen a drop of Windex in it’s life (I think it is a 2000 model) making me drive a bit slower than I could have had the roads not been wet and you could see down the road.

My brother-in-law Allen said to go slow through the windy roads as this car didn’t handle as well as his Acura. Actually it did pretty darn good, so good that he wanted to drive back. I think I might have scared him a little with my driving. I didn’t even get any tire squeal or anything.

I was kind glad he volunteered to drive back even though it took twice as long. It was dark for the return trip and the glare from oncoming cars was tough stuff. Better him than me.

Blue Sky

Had a real nice turnout for our Meet and Greet with the writers from the German Miata Magazine, Blue Sky, with dozen cars and about 18 people. We hung out and chatted while Eberhard took photos of the cars. Afterwards most all drove into Augusta to eat pizza at the Pizza Joint. On our way back to our cars Rudy said too bad we didn’t take them to the Blue Sky Kitchen a few blocks back. The only thing that salvaged us from this major missed opportunity is that after checking the web page Blue Sky Kitchen isn’t open on Sundays.

Purchased Today: nada
Money spent since 03/03/03: $609.22
Started up, went down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 110

One Man’s Trash Is Still Trash

This morning was Adopt-A-Highway trash pick-up day with the Aiken Bicycle Club. we got about half of 3 block area picked up when the rain started.. No problem as we brought an umbrella because of the weather. I held the umbrella and bag and Donna picked up the bits of stuff on the median. There were 4 others helping us out and 6 people is just fine for our little stretch. Best piece of trash today was a tie, 2 different plastic hub cap/wheel covers from 2 different cars.

Purchased Today: $zero
Money spent since 03/03/03: $609.22
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 109

One Smart Bear

After a hearty breakfast the four of us began the trek back down the mountain. To add a little variety to the trip we took the alternate route back down. You continued on the trail to the inn for an additional mile and ran into the Appalachian Trail Approach Trail and went back to the top of Amicalola Falls where our cars were parked.

To make amends to the Miata for leaving it out all night in the “wilderness” we used the 4 hours we had to waste before checking into the lodge on the state park and went for a drive in the surrounding mountains. We tried to duplicate the loop the bicyclists took last weekend in the reverse direction. We almost made it, missed one turn, so we didn’t drive across the one-lane bridge, but that wasn’t a great loss. The best part of the drive is GA60 north of Dahlonega. There is a stretch of it that is nicknamed “The Snake” and is a Mecca for motorcyclists because of it’s twisty loopy route over a couple of mountain passes. Yehaw! The highlight of the whole drive was about 03/4 of the way through when about 75 yards in front of our 2 car parade a decent size black bear bounded down from the woods on one side of the road and beat feet across to jump the guardrail into the woods on the other side. That was either one smart bear to wait for a gap in traffic or a lucky one.

Purchased Today: $14.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $171.08
Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 71

Quiet Splendor Of The Forest

Up at dawn for the road trip to northern Georgia, again. This time we were with another couple in another Miata to go almost exactly where we were last weekend. We even used the same route we took home last Sunday to get there. Destination was Amicalola Falls State Park. we were parking our cars and then hiking a 5 mile trail to Len Foote Hike Inn where we would spend the night in the quiet splendor of the forest.

It is a fairly easy hike, mostly up, but some down too. We got a slightly early start as there was rain predicted for the late afternoon. We were prepared for rain (stuff packed in plastic bags, etc.) but just really didn’t want to get soaked. The rain didn’t come until around 7 PM and when it did arrive it wasn’t torrential. The best part was the lighting and thunder show. After dinner a lot of us gathered on the porches surrounding the various wings of the inn and enjoyed show. It was nearly dark and the lighting was going off all around us on different peaks surrounding us. As if arranged just for us, the evening’s entertainment finale consisted of a criss-crossing of almost the entire eastern sky with cobweb of lightning streaks. Almost if there was a cause and effect relationship between them, after the lightning a rainbow appeared against the gray sky backdrop. Because there is no TV and heaven forbid, no Internet, we were in bed by 9:30.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $156.58
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 69