Miata Mileage

63,000 Missing Free Electrons

I guess the CTBNL was jealous of the Ladybug because she went for a trip across the country while he was left behind all alone in a dark garage for a month, so it ate all the free electrons in its battery. Last Friday morning I went to pop open the trunk for something and it didn’t open, at first I thought it might be the fob, but when I opened the car door to pull the lever to open the trunk the “dome” light didn’t come on.

I hooked up our cheap-o battery charger and let it run until that night. The dome light still didn’t come on and it is an LED, so you know the battery was really dead. Turns out the charger is more of a maintainer for car batteries, so it is something I should have hooked up before we left for a month. Saturday morning we went down the street to an Advance Auto and bought a new battery.

The starting of this post has been sitting in the drafts folder since April 25th, which is longer than the CTBNL sat unattended in the garage and is when it crossed the 63,000 mile milestone.

62,000 Broken Sea Shells

Astrological Signs 04: Cancer the Crab. Cancer is the only astrological sign in Crystal Lake Mobile Home Park in Myrtle Beach, SC that doesn’t have a street named after it. (3/31/2018)

I haven’t written a blog post in a week, but in the week previous to that I wrote 4 posts (one of which was in two parts) and created 4 drafts. Tonight I’m going to combine 2 drafts into one post because I can barely remember the fully formed posts I was going to create from them…

For the the 3-day Easter weekend we took a trip to Myrtle Beach. One to get away for a bit, another to enjoy some beach time before the spring breakers get there and third to gather a few Moss Motoring Challenge points.

And gather we did. We tallied at total of one point shy of me being able to use the number in the title of of the post (61.) Nearly half of that total was for getting a sign with the name or symbol of each of the 12 astrological signs. One point each for the first five, 3 points each for the next five and five points each for the last two for a total of thirty.

This turned out to be easy pickings because Donna found a mobile home community in southern Myrtle Beach with streets named for constellations, including 11 of the 12 zodiac signs. Guess what one sign was missing? I’ll give you a hint, would you want to live on a street named for something that causes an uncontrolled division of abnormal cells in a part of your body?

After getting eleven of the twelve needed signs within 15 minutes, it seemed too easy and because for some reason we enjoy making these challenges, well, a real challenge, we decided to see if we could replace the eleven street name signs we have now with signs or objects that depict the logo, like we did for Cancer the Crab. By the time we had finished the weekend we had 7 of the 12 taken care of.

Somewhere between Columbia and Florence the CTBNL passed the 62,000 mile mark.

61,000 Water Droplets Per Cubic Foot


I bet you didn’t know that once a year I volunteer to help out at the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame in Macon, Georgia. Every time I go I get a different job and today it was valet parking little sports cars on the sidewalk out front. That’s me above after successfully completing parking the first wave of cars.

OK, that’s really not the truth, I’ve never volunteered there and as a matter of fact, I’ve never visited there until today. And even now I haven’t ever really visited because I never went inside the building. This was our meeting point for 4 other Moss Motoring Challengers because a gaggle of 5 or more of us would be worth 10 big points.

The first 4 arrivals were parked in a tight group of spots right up front, but there wasn’t another one open near us. While we were waiting on the final participant to join us someone wondered out loud what the most of the rest of us were thinking, “Maybe we could line our cars up right on the wide sidewalk entrance way.” Then someone else piped in with that eternal truism, “it is always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to ask permission.” A plan was born.

When car #5 arrived we briefed them on the plan, and we all backed into position. Everyone jumped out to line up their photographs while I just waited by the car. I started to wonder what was taking so long, so I started to go see, and that is when Donna took snapped the photo.

Afterwards the team from Atlanta had worked out a few places that were right there in Macon for us to drive to, to get some more Challenge points. All and all, with the Grand Opening sign we discovered on the way down, today’s 300 mile road trip was worth 27 points.

On the way down to Macon to score major Moss Motoring points, the Car To Be Named Later passed the 61,000 mile mark in a thick fog just outside the community of Grange, Georgia.

60,000 Sparklers


Happy New Year’s Eve! Every year we are invited over to a friends house for their New Year’s party. It includes lots of food, beverages and fireworks. This year because of the high winds the bonfire had to be squelched and it was so cold without it, we didn’t make it until midnight. Plus they weren’t so sure they could do the big finish anyway.

When we first got there I had them set up a ring all around the Miata of the 60,000 big sparklers we had bought on the way over. OK, maybe it really was only a dozen sparklers. The CTBNL actually went over the 60,000 mile mark last night on the way home, but I forgot to blog about it. I was reminded about it when we got in the car to go out tonight.

59,000 Things I’m Thankful For

1. My morning person wife.
We got up on Turkey Day at 5:30, the same time as on a normal work day to drive up to Hendersonville, NC.

2. My patient wife.
To visit my sister and her husband and have our Thanksgiving meal at their community pot luck.

3. My carefree wife.
But before getting to their house we traveled 25 miles past them to the north into Asheville.

4. My curious wife.
To take a picture of an Inspirational Woman’s Monument she found after hours of internet searching.

5. My lovely wife.
Who posed in the near freezing temperatures by a very Large Flat Iron sculpture in downtown for a Motoring point.

6. My flexible wife.
Then when we were stymied in getting the Woman’s statue photo by thousands of runners participating in a Turkey Trot and Gobble Wobble, Donna shrugged and said, “We’ll come back again early tomorrow.”

7. My generous wife.
At the Black Friday sale at Mast General Store she let me buy a $40 hoodie I wanted, but didn’t really need, while she bought a gift to give away at the upcoming MMC Christmas Party.

8. My understanding wife.
She understands that there is no way I can come up with 58,992 more of these.

The CTBNL passed through the 59,000 mile mark a few miles north of Saluda, SC on the way up to North Carolina.

Miles and Miles and Miles

Yesterday’s anniversary got me thinking about just how many miles we’ve been in a Miata.

The original 1990 “Smurf” blue car racked up 108 thousand miles in five years before we traded it in for a new 1995 Miata. The 1995 traveled 128 thousand miles in 8 years of ownership before being traded in on a new 2003 Miata. That car stayed in the family for 13 years traveling 165,000 miles. We’ve owned the current 2002 Miata for a little more than a year and have driven it 11,000 miles. All those numbers total up to 412,000 miles of Miata fun in 28 years. Wow.

Four hundred twelve thousand divided by 28 equals almost 15,000 miles a year and at that rate we’ll reach a half a million Miata miles in the year 2023. But on further examination the trend line for Miles Per Year (MPY)is falling off. The first 5 years the average was over 21,600 MPY, the second 8 years was 16,000 MPY, the third 13 years worked out to be 12.7k MPY and for this car it is down to a under 9,000 MPY, so it might not be until 2027 we get to 500,000 miles.

Maybe I’ll start taking the long way home…

57,000 Something or Others

This picture was taken on US-15 outside Dillwyn, VA. In the 2014 Moss Motoring Challenge this would have been worth 2 points for Bonus #2, it wouldn’t have been worth 3 points in 2015 or 2016 as a Moss Motors Facility (there are only two official ones) and this year it might be worth one point only if I call it a “Roadside Oddity.” Not long before we took this photo the CTBNL crossed the 57,000 mile mark.

The only real points today were 1 for Stonewall Jackson in the Heroes and Villains category and 2 points for 8% (or greater) grade in the Destinations category.