Miata Mileage

Numbers

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Day 10: Columbus, GA to Aiken, SC – 278.7 miles

Not too far out of Sandersville, Georgia we changed drivers at a spot I picked, just so I could take the above snapshot.

Today’s drive was 38.7 miles longer than our pre-drive Google Maps estimate and our total trip mileage was 2894.8 or 390.8 miles more than the 2504 pre-drive estimate. That is an average of almost 40 extra miles each day coming mostly from detours, both of the planned and unplanned variety, the rest from dinner drives and shopping expeditions.

We filled up with gas 11 times on this trip, on average every 246 miles. I pumped an average 8-3/4 gallons each time at an average price of $3.85. The highest price paid per gallon was $4.27 today in rural GA and the lowest price per gallon was $3.50 at a Kroger in Fort Worth, TX last Wednesday. The Emperor averaged 28.1 MPG for the 10 days.

On the Motoring Challenge front, we photographed the car, one of us and that silly poster 46 times. We nabbed 12 Counties or Parishes, 11 Cities, 9 of the “Destinations”, 8 States and 3 national Forests. We also took 3 Sneak Peek photos, only two of which can be submitted.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1357

141,000 Concrete Expansion Joints

County - Macon

Day 9: Hammond, LA to Columbus, GA – 444.4 miles*

Today was supposed to be a short drive in case we were going to spend the morning in Hammond, no plans materialized, so we opted to combine Sunday and Monday’s drive into one long Sunday drive. Kind of like a horse returning to its barn, we are accelerating home. We even briefly considered trying to finish the whole thing today by driving the last 250 miles, but decided against it when we realized that we lost an hour when going back to Eastern Time at the Georgia border. We will now get home Monday evening, one day ahead of schedule.

Like yesterday we started the trip on the Interstate to make some decent time and progress on our route diagonally across Alabama from Mobile to Columbus, but could only stand so much, about 2/3rds of the drive, before hitting some 2-lane back road blacktop. We managed to snag 4 more Motoring Challenges, 2 cities; Troy and Union Springs and 2 counties; Bullock and Macon (above.) We will probably try and snag a few more on the way back across Georgia tomorrow, including a National Monument, Ocmulgee, that is near Macon.

Somewhere, while bump, bump, bumping along over I-10’s very annoying 141,000 concrete expansion joints, the Emperor bumped past the 141,000 mile mark.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 413 (-31.4) – Total miles so far: 2616.1

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1355

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

139,000 Curves

Ider Public Library

Day Two: Rob­binsville, NC to Huntsville, AL. – 263.7 miles*
We were going to use the lovely Aiken County Public Library, in Our Fair City, for the Motoring Challenge because it is a lovely old building from 1890 that used to be the town’s high school. But today when we exited I-59 just inside the the Alabama line to start our back road drive to Huntsville and stopped at a quick stop to get some cold drinks, we knew that that was going to change.

As I pulled into park, I stayed to the right, to stop in front of the little strip shopping center away from the gas pumps and any other cars. Donna looked and noticed that we were right in front of the town’s library, we knew right away this was going to be our library photo. And to add icing to the cake, 10 seconds after we pulled to a stop, a small red pickup truck parked right next to us. The passenger door opened and a guy got out just so he could let the middle seat passenger could get out to go into the quick stop. Then he got back in and the driver hopped out to go inside too. After just having been in downtown Chattanooga with its young hipsters, these deep down southerners were quite the culture shock.

If you are ever in downtown Chattanooga, perhaps going to the Tennessee Aquarium, and it is lunchtime, walk across the pedestrian only Walnut Street Bridge to the northshore area and find TACO•nooga. Both Donna and I can personally recommend the Carnita Tacos. While you are there, order a Coke and you will get a bottle imported from Mexico where they still use real cane sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup.

Four points for the Motoring Challenge today; one state, Alabama and three destinations, Aquarium, Library and Botanical Gardens.

The Emperor passed through the 139,000 mile mark just outside Etowah, Tennessee.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 240 (-23.7) – Total miles so far: 569.6

Started up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1335

138,000 Seconds Too Late

We have a North Carolina road map, but it is dated 2007, so we thought it might be a good idea to update it this trip and because of the way we were driving up we had an opportunity to cross into the Tar Heel State via I-85. So we planned to pop into the official Welcome Center grab a new map and also take the NC state photo for the Motoring Challenge.

As we cruised into the rest area the state name was on the back of the building, so we figured there would be a nice sign in the front. We were wrong. There is a wood sign that is too far from the parking lot to be seen well and it also had wood letters spelling out North Carolina Welcome Center above the front door, but it too could not be captured photographically. We then struck out on the map front too as we were about a half hour too late, they lock the doors at 5:30 PM.

We did manage to manage to successfully grab three other challenge photos on the trip to Statesville, a County, a National Forest and a Destination:

A little north of Kings Mountain, NC the Emperor passed the 138,000 mile mark this afternoon.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1315

There Are 137,000 Stories In The City

SkyscraperThese are 25 of them.

We drove up to the state capitol this morning with the intentions of getting about a half dozen of the Destinations listed for the Moss Motoring Challenge. We struck out on 2 different WWI monuments/memorials. Our Main Street photos from downtown Columbia were crummy and the Brewery that was on that Main Street had no real sign, so we missed those opportunities as well.

We made it to the Riverbanks Zoo, but opted not to drive to the main entrance to photograph the main sign there as there was a line to get in because it was about opening time on a sunny spring Saturday. Instead we looped a quick u-turn and stopped at a smaller sign at the corner. I got out, backed up a few steps, took a photo and when I got back the car to show Donna the results a cop car pulled up right next to us and asked if we were OK. I said yes and he zoomed off. When I got back in the car to leave I noticed that right behind me was another patrol car. Yikes, but he just sat there as I drove off. The picture was kind of crappy, so an early Sunday morning return trip is needed. The botanical gardens sign at the other entrance to the zoo wasn’t very photogenic either.

The trip wasn’t a total wash as we did get the Skyscraper photo. The Capitol Center, at 25 stories barely qualifying for the Challenge, is the tallest office building in the whole state of South Carolina. I can’t be sure, but that may be the tallest gamecock in the state too. We photographed the Tunnelvision mural and are going to use that for the Tunnel destination. On the drive home we took a picture of the sign for the thriving metropolis of Gilbert and just because we happened to be passing by, the Aiken County Farmer’s Market here in our fair city.

Sometime before the little town of Gilbert the Emperor passed the 137,000 mile mark.

136,000 Calories

136,000 Calories

A little bit of Spring weather today sent Donna and I out into the world with the Miata to have a top down adventure. It was time to go take a few more Moss Motoring Challenge photos and some make up geocaching. We needed a Duck Crossing sign and knew right where to find one because we had stumbled on it while on an unsuccessful geocaching trip about a month ago. When we had gone to sign the log of our first find back then, we realized that neither of us had a pen, doh!

We started in Aiken with a photo of a horse track and then we drove to Augusta to get the Duck Crossing sign photo. I took our laminated Motoring Challenge poster and stuck it right below the crossing sign between the sign and the post while we snapped a couple shots. We then took a walk near Lake Olmstead and the Augusta Greenjacket’s stadium to take care of our cache signings. It wasn’t until we were getting back in the car that I realized that I had left the challenge poster hanging on the Duck Crossing sign. Almost forgot it.

Next we headed for a cupcake bakery. I remembered where one was on Washington Road and Donna remembered where another one was further out on the same road. The first one didn’t actually say cupcake in its name, so we continued out further on Washington Road into Evans where the above photo comes from, a place called “Small Cakes, a Cupcakery.” I made myself right at home at the table right outside to un-opened bakery with my poster propped up at the window.

Seeing as we were this far out on Washington Road we decided to keep on going north and then cross over the Strom Thurmond Dam back into South Carolina. Donna thought it might be cool to take a picture in front of the dam to use as one of our next Sneak Peek photos. Turns out there was a small playground right there, something we needed for the Challenge, so we took a photo of that with the dam in the background. When I opened the trunk to get the camera and the laminated Challenge poster I realized that I had the camera, but no poster. This time, unlike at Lake OLmstead, I did leave it behind.

I was all for just forgetting about it as we did have the back-up smaller version still and I could always make another one, but Donna thought that we should go back to Evans and get it. She reasoned that it was nearing lunch and there were plenty of places to chose from for eating back that way and then we could get a cupcake for desert.

The Emperor passed through the 136,000 mile mark as we crossed the dam back into Georgia. The sign was still there at the bakery, right on the table, where the girl who sold us the cupcake had put it when she opened the store. Originally we were going to share a cupcake, but they looked so good and had such a variety that we opted to get one each. They were moist and dense and the frosting was so superb that I’m betting they packed in about 136,000 calories each.

When we got home it was still too nice a day to stay inside, so I went out and washed both cars. The Emperor will be fine as he will be staying in the garage for the week, but the Purple Whale’s cleanliness will not last, tomorrow it is supposed to rain and with the warm weather, the pines surrounding the Valve Store’s(r) parking lot will be emitting yellow pollen dust soon.

Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1297