Miata Mileage

135,000 Yellow Leaves

135000 Yellow Leaves

Tired of looking at my ugly mug with that scraggly beard? Me too!

We went to the Gap this weekend with the MMC and where we stayed, a cabin at Fontana Village, I had no internet access. There was WiFi at the lodge, but I never really had much free time, with all the driving and socializing, that it was never worth taking the laptop over there and plugging in. Truth be told, I didn’t miss it much.

Unlike 2 years ago when we did this same trip with the Club, this time we hit the fall colors at peak and just past in this neck of the NC/TN mountains. The scenery was fantastic when we occasionally stopped, most of the rest of the time I was busy picking corner apexes between the yellow double and the single white lines, mentally planning shift points and listening to the Racing Beat enhanced exhaust note…

On the drive home, with Donna at the wheel, just south of Spartanburg on I-26 the Emperor passed the 135,000 mile mark.

Weekend Top count: Started down, up, down, up, down, up, down, up, down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1276

134,000 Grains Of Salt

Bridal Veil FallsWow, another thousand miles has gone by. This one in less than a month. Almost seems like old times when the Emperor was our only car and we drove it everywhere. A good chunk of this thousand miles can be directly attributed to our trip to Deals Gap a couple weekends ago.

On our way back home that Sunday we stopped just outside Highlands, NC at the Bridal Veil Falls for a small photo op. We thought with all the recent rains in the area it might have a lot more of a flow, but it seemed to be about the same amount as any old fall day.

Tonight we went out to get some dinner and were surprised by the amount of traffic at, admittedly the busiest intersection in town, Whiskey & Pine Log Roads to turn left. It was backed up about a 1/4 mile with about a hundred and thirty four thousands cars in line. We were going to go left there, but opted to go straight through and turn left further down the street to sneak up on our destination, Captain D’s. Even that left turn was a bit of a wait and the short circuit we were making was crawling (literally) with cars.

We left the house with the odometer on 133,999 and by the time we parked it was right on the 134,000 mark. One mile traveled, but it felt like about five. Our drive brought us to a parking lot area where the were several restaurant options, so when we arrived Donna changed her mind, since she was going to have fish for lunch tomorrow, she would rather go to Five Guys and get a burger. Very little arm twisting was needed to get me to agree. The burgers are pretty darn good and the fries are awesome as well, except they sure do sprinkle on the salt. I bet but our small size had about 134,000 grains of salt on them.

133,000 Angry Crows

Bird of Prey

We went for a Sunday morning hike in Hitchcock Woods and when we got near Fulmer Stable towards the end of the walk we could hear a murder of crows squawking like crazy. It sounded like a hundred thirty three thousand birds shouting about something. As we exited the woods onto the sandy road leading to the parking area we could see what all the hullabaloo was about, a very large bird of prey was perched in what was obviously their favorite tree.

I had just enough time to get out the camera, locate the bird, zoom in and snap this one photo of his backside before he flew to another branch further into the tree. The crows never stopped making a racket and a few minutes later our hawk had had enough and he flew right over our heads and deep into the woods. I never did get another picture of him.

Today on the way to work this morning the Emperor ticked past the 133,000 mile mark, so tonight I gave him a sponge bath in the garage as a present. Well, that and he got filthy when the grounds crew at the plant weed-eated the strip of grass right behind where we park.

132,000 Spider Webs

Lake Greenwood

We did something this morning that we haven’t done in what seems like quite a while, got in the Miata and drove a ways for the express purpose of geocaching. It started out as a big overnight trip that included 3 South Carolina State parks, but settled in as a shorter, day trip that went to one State Park and back. Lake Greenwood State Recreation Area is about 50 miles from us and had 4 caches to find.

One cache was on a nature trail that started near Campground #1 and we got about 20 yards down the trail and the results of all our recent rains presented us with a water crossing that would have left us with wet feet, so we doubled back and found an alternate way to the trail. We made a good bit of progress on the loop before realizing we might have already passed the closest we would come to the hide, about 350 feet. During our bushwhack through the woods to the cache I must have ran into thousands of spider webs. I even kept walking into them after I started waving my walking stick in front of me like a machete to knock them down.

After finding the cache and signing the log we headed back to the trail and because we didn’t follow the exact same route, ran through a ton more spider webs. Upon reaching the trail we just headed back the way we came, never finishing the loop. It was hot, humid and muddy and we still had 2 more caches to find on the other side of the park. Did I mention there were a lot of spider webs? Even on the trail we had just walked 15 minutes ago?

The other trail was way less muddy and only slightly less spider webby. It followed along the shore of the lake and after finding both of the caches on it we headed over to the nearby road so as to enjoy the slight breeze available out of the woods and the lack of spider webs.

The last cache was actually not on the park grounds, but on the road to the park from the state road that passes by. Seeing as Donna had found the first 3 hides and it seemed like the only reason I was here was to part any spider web for her like Mosses parting the Red Sea for the Israelites, I was very happy to spot the final container before she did.

As we got in the car to come home the odometer in The Emperor stood at exactly 132,000 miles.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1233

131,000 Letters

Oliver - 30449

On the way back home from today’s road trip the Miata passed through the 131,000 mile mark. Not too long after that we passed by this cute little Post Office in Oliver, GA and just had to stop.

The Emperor visited the racetrack today, but purely as a spectator. We drove down to watch fellow MMC member John Haff of POS Racing ply his trade at Roebling Road Raceway. There were two other cars with us for the breakfast run to the Lake Restaurant in Waynesboro, one continued on with us and one went home. We were met at the track an hour or so later by another member who didn’t want to get up that early for breakfast. Or anything else for that matter.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1217

130,000 Bad Thoughts

After looking at what we had and where we could go with our (bigger than the cabinet guy thought) kitchen this morning, Donna and I devised a plan that we thought was great. We took the 15″ wastebasket base cabinet that we were going to return and put it on the wall where we had 15″ more room. As a bonus it was a perfect fit to cover up the awkward heating vent to the adjacent room that couldn’t be moved and it placed the trash can in a sweet spot between the sink and the dishwasher. To make the top cabinets match we would then need to buy an additional 15″ wall unit. On the stove side we would take down the 12″ inch cabinet off the wall, return it, along with the 12″ base cabinet and replace them with 21″ cabinets to fill up nearly all of the “extra” 12 inches on the that wall.

The contractor arrived and pitched his idea, buy 4 new 12″ cabinets and add them to the ends on both walls of what we now had. This would work to his best advantage as he could finish installing what we had on hand and then add the new stuff when it showed up. We shot him down for a couple reasons, the main one was something that Donna has been against from the git go, she didn’t want anything to the left of the stove, between it and the door. The cabinet guy originally wanted to put a 9″ thing there and now here was the contractor proposing something 12 inches wide there. Another one is that we didn’t want any more 12″ cabinets or any at all now that we’ve seen one and realized there isn’t much you can put it in one of them.

After the confab with our contractor we went over to Lowe’s in North Augusta and chatted with our cabinet guy. He was apologetic and we kept it civil. He ordered up the 3 new needed cabinets and also ordered a no cost replacement for one of the ones we received where the doors didn’t look straight and wouldn’t close completely. He is going to expedite them, so hopefully we will get them in a week to 10 days instead of the 4 weeks the original order took. Now because of the configuration changes we will get to return some of the already ordered stuff and that will cover about 60% of the cost of the three new cabinets, so it is not a staggering expenditure.

The contractor and some friends thought that we shouldn’t have to pay any more money to make things right, but Donna and I are more pragmatic than that. Sure cabinet guy mis-measured, but the contractor himself should have caught it if he had actually measured instead of just eyeballing the cabinet guy’s print outs and signing off on them. Heck, I should have noticed the difference myself because I had measured the kitchen when I drew up plans for the granite people to use to quote the counter tops with. We figured had the cabinet guy measured right, or someone noticed the difference in the lengths somewhere along the line, we would have been spending that much more on the right sized cabinets anyway. The only real harm done is we will be without a kitchen for a couple weeks longer which when all is said and done will seem like nothing.

Almost about the time we got back home from North Augusta the Emperor hit the 130,000 mile mark.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1201

129,000 Acorns

Monday after work I went rollerblading around the neighborhood, but before I could safely skate from my garage door to the street I had to blow off the leaves and approximately 129,000 acorns that covered the driveway.

On the way to home to go rollerblading this afternoon the Emperor passed the 129,000 mile mark.