Eating Out

Hostess Truck Version 2.0

This model is recognizable by the Hostess logo on the back and the rearview mirrors that I didn’t have time to put on the first version. I’m thinking for Version 3.0 I might have the rear door open with hundreds of tiny Sno-Balls tumbling out of it. I did this one at home using Elmer’s Glue and I’m not that happy with the results. At work I have a glue stick that works a lot better, but more importantly I have a very well lit area that makes it easier to see the cut /fold lines. The glue stick is an easy fix, but I’m not sure what to do about the lighting.

First up today was the usual Saturday breakfast at DD while reading the Weekend Edition of the WSJ they get. We enjoy reading it so much we thought about getting it home delivered, but you can only get the weekend paper if you subscribe to the Monday through Friday editions as well. Those we probably wouldn’t read, so it would be a terrible waste of paper, plus the cost was more than we wanted to spend for a newspaper for one day a week ($119 a year.)

Then we went out in the 27° morning and did a few local and semi-local caches. We found the first two we looked for and then it went down hill from there, ending up finding just three of the next seven. We were about due a few DNFs as we hadn’t had one in three weeks and 30 caches.

We finished out the day at Olive Garden with friends. We always go out to eat early to avoid the crowds, but that plan didn’t work tonight. We arrived at 5:15 and ended up with a 50 minute wait for a table. If it was just Donna and I we would have just walked next door to Wendy’s, but we had Rudy and Patti to share stories with while we waited, so while the wait was long, it was pleasant.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 931

Worst BBQ Ever

We went geocaching today in Crawfordville, GA and A.H. Stephens State Park. We took along a coworker and because the Miata does not seat 3 comfortably we took her car. Crawfordville is where Hollywood comes calling when it needs to film in a quintessential small southern town. There have been about a dozen films that have used this town as a bit player in them and there are 8 caches here with names that are the titles of those movies. We looked for 4 and found 2. The two we missed I don’t count as DNFs because they were in locations that made us very nervous searching which was only heightened by the fact that we were driving a car with New Jersey plates. There were 6 caches in the state park that you can get to by land and we found 5 of them.

Probably the most recognizable movie that was filmed in town was “Sweet Home Alabama” and for lunch we decided to eat at the BBQ place that was used in the bar scenes (Stella’s Roadhouse) of the movie. We were talked into getting the Plate by the almost surly woman behind the counter at Heavy’s as it included meat, brunswick stew and coleslaw. We opted for a rib plate and a chicken plate to split between the three of us. The coleslaw was too vinegary and had way too much pickle taste. The “stew” was run through a food processor for too long as it was kind of a sickly looking brown mush. The only thing remotely edible was the meat and that was overpowered by the amount of BBQ sauce it was covered in. Interesting place to visit, but you don’t want to eat there.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 911

White Friday

No it didn’t snow here (it did rain some though.) Donna and I spent exactly zero hours waiting in line for and spent zero dollars on any door buster deals. We didn’t even leave the house until 5:30PM and that was only to go out and get a Firehouse sub for dinner and ice cream for dessert from the Marble Slab. Tomorrow we will also avoid any sort of areas of consumerism by taking to the back roads of rural Georgia hunting the wily tupperware with guile and the aid of multi-million dollar military satellites.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 905

Breakfast At Home

Not home, home, but the Home Cafe in Washington, GA. Six Miatas with 11 persons onboard made the drive to dine at the spot the locals eat at. From the Bogardus table we can recommend the hash browns and the pancakes, but the biscuit with sausage gravy was unexciting. We didn’t order any breakfast meat because we had cheated on the way to the rendezvous point in Evans, GA, we stopped for an appetizer at the Golden Arches. Sausage McMuffin for me and a breakfast burrito for Donna.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 830

Geocaching Trifecta

I have often spoken here of hitting the trifecta, but that is in reference to eating out all three meals in a single day. Today we hit the Geocaching Trifecta. We hid a cache, found a cache and we DNF’d a cache.

In other Tri news our neighbor the ultra-marathoner saw us dragging out the tandem for our caching adventure and mentioned that she had gone for bike ride yesterday and has given some consideration to maybe trying Triathlons.

This prompted Donna to say later in the day we had done our own triathlon today, we rode 14 miles on the bike, took a 1/2 mile walk checking on a cache and then taken a shower.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 580

One Hundred and Three Thousand :-)

We were gone for 12 hours, basically from dawn to dusk. A couple miles out of Aiken the Emperor passed by the 103,000 mile mark. Drove 325 miles total, probably 45 with the top down, and spent $22.50 on gas. We ate breakfast at Hardee’s, lunch at Jack’s Cosmic Dogs and dinner was chicken salad sandwiches Donna had made and we took with us. Walked around 2-1/2 miles of the West Ashley Greenway. We found 12 caches (a personal best) and DNF’d 2 (pretty much average.) Crossed off Charleston County and Pages 59, 60 & 61 from our South Carolina Challenges.

So were the hot dogs worth the trip? Yes and no. They were My-T-Fine and if I’m ever in the neighborhood again I’ll definitely stop by and try another variety, but I probably wouldn’t hop in the car drive straight there, eat a dog and drive right home.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 529

Onions Are Like Underwear…

…you gotta have ’em. Or so said a contestant on Chopped this evening.

This morning we met the MMC for breakfast in Augusta and Donna and I left a bit early with plans to do a little geocaching on the way. Well it turned out we weren’t that early and didn’t stop anywhere. There was a cache that was located right behind the shopping center where breakfast was to be, so we walked around to grab it before going inside. With the title and the hint we think we found a part of the cache, but the actual container didn’t appear to be around. Dang.

The eleven of us finished eating by 8:15 and we were then stuck, the bowling alley, our post breakfast entertainment, didn’t open until 9:00. We stood around outside the door of the restaurant chatting and watching someone in a truck in the parking lot tossing bread out of his window feeding seagulls. After the novelty of that wore off, we trooped down to Kmart (the only other place that was open in the center) and shopped for blue light specials. Tiring of this Donna and I said, “We’ll meet you there.” There was geocache right down the street. Found it, yeah!

A couple of games of bowling was quite enough (my wrist was sore by frame 5 of the second game) and most of the group were busy picking out a lunch place while Donna and I and another couple walked 2/10 of a mile to behind a restaurant to try and find a cache that was hidden there. It was sprinkling slightly and GZ was between the back of the restaurant and its dumpsters, it wasn’t the tidiest place, so we gave up looking after about 3 or 4 minutes. Darn.

After our failure the 4 of us went our separate ways. Donna and I were going home, but couldn’t agree on what we wanted for lunch, so when we drove by the place the rest of the club had picked, we pulled in. It was BBQ place, not atypical as they had other meat items and seafood on the menu, called Flyin’ Cowboy. The food was slightly better than good and I could probably eat here 2 or 3 times a year, but probably won’t because it is 25 miles away. One of our group ordered a “Manhandler” which consisted of 6oz of pulled pork piled on top of a softball sized loaded baked potato. John was up to the task and finished the whole thing, along with both his side dishes, earning himself the title of “Potatohandler.”

To recap, on today’s Miata Club event, we all drove separately to a restaurant and had breakfast. Afterward we did some shopping together followed by driving to a bowling alley separately. We bowled a couple of games together and then drove separately to another restaurant and ate lunch. Well, at least some of us actually drove Miatas…

Here is the top count from yesterday, the first nice day since it seems like Thanksgiving. Today it was cold in the morning and now hasn’t stopped raining since this morning.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 521