Fam Damily

We Made It To Granite Falls

Bouncy House

And to welcome us, Donna’s brother and family arranged a party for us. Not really, it just happened that a local church was having a festival in the park practically next door to their house. With Bouncy Houses!

As usual with a vacation trip, there are tons of stories to tell and not enough time to tell them. I’ll try and create some draft posts with titles that will hopefully spur an actual post when we do get some down time or when we get back home.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1386

140,000 Black Eyed Susans

Black Eyed Susans

Day 6: Fort Worth, TX – 33.3 miles*

We got up this morning and drove about 10 miles east to a park in a subdivision that turned into town, Trophy Place. There were about 3 dozen caches spread over 4 different trail areas. Trouble was finding a trail head. All the roads were twisty and littered with cul de sacs, there were no signs to trail heads that we could see and none of the caches had a secondary waypoint that was trail head parking. With the busy traffic of the big city and the trouble locating a starting point we almost gave up, but Donna wouldn’t say quit. We finally found a spot that got us going. We ended up finding all nine caches that we searched for. We missed out on a couple on the loop we started on because there was a creek crossing and neither of us felt like getting our feet wet.

This evening Jim, Donna’s oldest brother who works in Ft. Worth, picked us up and we drove to the Grapevine Mills Mall to eat at a place called Love & War in Texas to met up with a co-worker of ours who is dropping off a daughter to go to school in Dallas. Jim can now become a local contact if she gets stuck with car trouble or needs someone to bail her out of the hoosegow.

We did get one Motoring Challenge photo this morning. When we opened up the curtains in the hotel this morning we could see the full moon slowly dropping towards the horizon. We quick like bunnies went downstairs and lined up the Miata for a picture.

Oh, and yesterday, somewhere just before Gunter, TX on Farm to Market Road 121, the Emperor passed the 140,000 mile mark.

Today he got a bath at a coin operated hand wash place in downtown Roanoke, TX.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 0 (-33.3) – Total miles so far: 1499.6

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1345

40,000 Ghostly Images of Old Florida

We are on our way to visit Donna’s sister and her family and my snowbird cousin for a couple of days. Because we will drive back on Sunday on mostly Interstate we are taking two days to drive down on mostly back roads. On today’s drive we came into Florida and took aim half way between Lake City and Jacksonville where we found some small town’s and uncrowded back roads.

We originally planned on driving the Miata and doing some more Motoring Challenge photos, but the weather was supposed to be crappy today and then again Sunday for the drive home, so we opted to take the Sonata for the trip. Turns out there were some towns, counties and photo ops that would have been good for the challenge, but they were mostly mid-Georgia, so we filed them away for a weekend in the future.

Somewhere near the small town of Orange Springs the Purple Whale eased by the 40,000 mile mark. Tonight we are in a new HIE in Silver Springs. While this section of town is too full of modern amenities to be considered Old Florida, once inside our dinner spot we were thrown back in time. The Denny’s was located inside a Days Inn and it was filled with characters from Central Casting, including; a really old man alone at a table wearing shorts, sandals with black socks, a Veterans of Foreign Wars ball cap with large-lensed sunglasses who was chewing with his mouth open and eyeballing us because we didn’t belong, a skinny androgynous African-American who spoke on his cell phone loudly in a high-pitched stereotypical gay queen manner, plus the cook teasing a couple of regulars were they going to eat or were they here for the paranormal meeting.

I thought she was just joking, but when we used the restroom before walking back to our hotel, right next to them was a “banquet room” that was shared by Denny’s and the Days Inn and it was all set up for Investigating the Paranormal with Carolynn and Carla.

35,000 Cloggers

Jump

The Purple Whale ticked past the 35,000 mile mark on one of the many trips up to the SMH.*

We are in western North Carolina visiting my sister and her husband this weekend. This morning we went into downtown Hendersonville to visit the Mast General Store where you can buy all sorts of candy by the pound and spend lots of time looking at spendy outdoorsy clothing. I bought cheap knock-off of a sort of Tilley Hat. It is a distressed wide brim cotton hat that sort of looks cowboy-ish to keep the sun out of my eyes and off the back of my neck at the same time. We promptly removed the leather strap that loops under your chin to keep the hat from flying off your head as you hunt rhinos from the open back of a Land Rover or while galloping across the north 40. Probably have to put it back on when I wear it while driving the Miata.

This afternoon for entertainment we went to the North Carolina Mountain State Fair. We were going to go see the pig races at Hogway Speedway at 3 o’clock but, we were too early, so we headed over to the Got To Be NC Stage to watch clogging. There were several hundred seats under the awning, but no real place to sit because all the chairs were taken by cloggers, their support staff and families. Diane and Allen managed to talk one lady into allowing them to sit in some empty seats as long as they promised to vacate them when her kids came back.

*I want to say it was Donna and I that nicknamed Diane and Allen’s southern retirement place the Stricker Mountain Home, but they have made it official with a carved wood sign to that effect next to the sidewalk leading up to their front porch.

Happy Fat Tuesday

Today is the last day of Mardi Gras. The day before Ash Wednesday and the start of the 40 days of Lent for those of a western Christian beliefs. Donna grew up in New Orleans and remembers while in high school actually participating in some of the parades.

When Donna and I lived in New Orleans in the middle 80’s my idea of a Mardi Gras parade was more of the ones put on by small artsy organizations that marched through the French Quarter. I really wasn’t too excited about the whole St. Charles Avenue or Metairie big parade thing. If I was still living in the Big Easy today I probably would have wanted to attend the Krewe Delusion parade on the 4th, but I definitely would have attended the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus parade last Saturday.

One year my mom and her sister took the train down from New England to New Orleans to enjoy the festivities. We had a good time showing them the sites, dining on spicy seafood and taking them to a couple of parades. But I think both women felt that the party atmosphere on the train trip down generated the best stories and oddball memories from the trip.

From left to right in the photo above: a small glimpse of our 1983 Honda Prelude, me in my quasi-Miami Vice attire, my Mom, and Virginia, Mom’s sister, my Aunt and mother to Martha and Louise.