Miatatude

Peach Parade

Destination - Parade

We had a dozen cars show up to be in the parade and that I think is a record for Club participation in the event. Donna took a couple of pictures for the Parade Destination of the Motoring Challenge with all of us were lined up on both sides of the street.

Donna was not going to ride in the car with me and was going to try to get an “action shot” as I drove by in the actual parade. She was standing at about where the parade started and took one photo with me moving, but you couldn’t really tell I was in a parade as there was no crowd in the background. She then moved up to the first turn to get another picture, but I was in the outside lane and didn’t hear her yelling at me to hold up the challenge poster, so we missed a second chance at the action shot. Oh well, the line up photo will have to count.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1383

42,000 Bits Of Metal

Metal Dragon

Day One: Aiken, SC to Robbinsville, NC. – 305.9 miles*
This dragon, that is made up of about 42,000 metal pieces and vehicle parts, sits right outside a relatively new souvenir stand that has popped up just across the street from the original, more motorcycle oriented, souvenir place, at the junction of NC28 & US129 near the start of The Tail of the Dragon.

As I guessed Thursday, by washing the car then, I pretty much guaranteed that the 30% chance of rain we were traveling through today, would 100% fall on us. We had to put the top up just about the time the roads started to get all bent and crooked when it is the most fun to have it down, but it was no real disappointment as it was not raining hard enough to make us put the windows up at all times, so we still got to enjoy the cool mountain air and dulcet tones of exhausting waste gases of burnt gasoline.

The sun did come out long enough after dinner here in Robbinsville to allow a quick run up to the beginning of Deals Gap to capture the Welcome to Tennessee and Welcome to North Carolina signs. As a bonus we also snapped a photo of the Swain (NC) County sign that was steps away from the state sign. This brought our total Moss Motoring points for the day to 10 with the 1 other county, 3 cities, a National Forest, a waterfall and the above photo which will be used for one of this quarter’s Bonus Points.

We drove the Sonata to work on Friday and when I got behind the wheel I realized that the odometer read 42006. Because we had been driving the Emperor to and from the Valve Store(tm) the rest of the week, I couldn’t recall on which day those six miles occurred, oh well, let’s call the 7th of May as the date the Purple Whale ran past the 42,000 mile mark.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 239 (-66.9) – Total miles so far: 305.9

Started down, went up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1331

MMC Tech Day II

Bulldog Blue Meanie

I had grand plans to paint the Emperor’s valve cover with red wrinkle paint when I had it off changing the gasket on Saturday. The local O’Reillys didn’t have the paint in stock in red when I called on Thursday, so they ordered some for me to pick up on Friday evening.

Standing there outside Kurt’s garage on Saturday morning looking down at the cover sitting on a garbage bag, noticing all the things I would have to clean and/or protect and/or mask off, I abandoned the plan. I just didn’t feel like investing the time, besides, it is not like I keep a “Car Show Shine” under the hood (as evidenced by the above photo.)

While removing the cover I had some big help from John “Clunk” Haff, but that help cost me the stock yellow handle of the dip stick as John snapped it off while twirling a ratchet. Not that it took much pressure to break, it is a known Miata issue, because the hard plastic it is made from turns brittle with age and the under hood heat. So much so that mine was not the only one broken on our Tech Day. Dave was having his timing belt & water pump proactively replaced had his break off too. John swore he had nothing to do with it and I believe him as he still had his head under the Emperor’s bonnet, but I suspect it was his partner in crime, Rudy “Thunk” Wilmoth.

John apologized profusely, but I told him, “No worries, mon. I’ve got jus da ting to be repairin it.” This has happened on my previous two Miatas and I had the perfect replacement at home. I still had two of the four heads left from on my Yellow Submarine Blue Meanie Bulldog figure.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1321

We Go To The Zoo

Destination - Zoo

About three weeks ago we had traveled to Columbia to take a picture of the front entrance to the Riverbanks Zoo. It was crowded that there was a line of cars just to get into the parking lot. We took one photo of a nearby banner, but decided later that it just wouldn’t do. I remember from our last visit, several years back, that the entrance had a big ol’ colorful sign and an animal themed mural at the entrance.

We drove via the Interstate on the way back from Statesville yesterday and would pass right near Columbia. Figuring we might be early enough to get that elusive zoo picture we drove over. It was 10:30 and I guess the zoo opened at 11:00 AM because it was already getting busy on the entrance road. There was no line of cars so we took a left, much to the chagrin of the guy with the wands who was pointing right, and pulled to the curb at the main entrance.

It was under renovation. There was no mural and the big sign was not nearly as impressive as I remembered. We took the photo anyway and I think it will just have to do.

Photo Rally Update: We came in 4th place, a long way out of first.
RidgeRunner Tours 2014 Photo Rally
Targa Class Results:
1st….Steve Wilson & Sloane Wilson 106 pts
2nd…Rob Bolling & Amber Bolling 96 pts
3rd…Stephanie Sturm & Teresa DeSantis 94 pts
4th…Brian Bogardus & Donna Bogardus 83 pts
5th…Dwayne Gentry & Lydia Johnson 79 pts

I Is The Loneliest Letter

County - Iredell

Of South Carolina’s 46 counties, it turns out that there none beginning with 6 of the letters of the alphabet. Q, X and Z are to be expected, T & V a little unexpected, but I was surprised that none began with the letter I. But actually I is relatively scarce as the first letter of a county. Of the 3,143 counties (or its equivalent) in the United States there are only 30 that begin that way. Georgia only has one, Irwin, and it is 200 miles away from Aiken. North Carolina only has one, Iredell, and it too is around 200 miles away. But as luck would have it, this weekend’s Foothills Photo Rally 4 that we participated in started in Statesville, NC which just so happens to be in……Iredell County.

As for the rally, we had a blast. We drove over 100 miles of back country roads trying to spot various things we were given photos of, stopping at 4 different checkpoints that involved games of chance or skill, spending nearly six hours doing it. Only once we had to backtrack because of a missed turn and that was the drivers fault as when my navigator said three tenths of a mile until the next turn I heard 3 miles.

I don’t know where exactly we finished in our 20 group class, but I know it wasn’t 1st, 2nd, or smack in the middle. The first place team in each class, of which there were two, each received a Mason jar filled with White Lightning. The second place teams got a Mason jar of local honey. The teams that finished in the statistical middle of each class’s scores got a certificate that will only be slightly embarrassing to have hanging on the wall in their Trophy Room at home. After the awards were handed out we could have gone up and checked our actual place in our class, but opted not to, so we could believe that we finished in third place only one point back of second and two points out of first.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1317

More Moss Motoring Moments

This spot was today’s goal, the only National Park in South Carolina, Congaree Swamp. We didn’t actually enter the park, we’ve been in a couple times previously, back before it was made a NP, so we just took this picture of the sign. On our way there we drove through South Carolina’s recreation of the Scandinavian peninsula:

I’ve created a gallery so you can follow along with our adventures, it is over there on the left – 2014 Moss Motoring Challenge. We also captured a couple of counties, a dead end, an airport and a candidate for one of the next Sneak Peek photos, but I haven’t finished editing and uploading them yet.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1298

The Week That Was

As a run up for Season 2 of Orphan Black the folks at BBC America released 8 sneak peeks and because I’m such a nice guy I collected all of them and made a handy YouTube playlist so you can watch them back to back to back…and when I say peeks they are just that at 15 seconds a piece. To add a little meat to the list I tacked on a trailer for Season 2 at the end.

What does Walt Whitman‘s “Song of Myself” have to do with the Clone Club? I have no idea, but it must mean something as a sharp-eyed Clone Ranger, Valerie Anne of the website AfterEllen, noticed that at the end of each of the sneak peek is a bit of binary code that converts into a line from that poem.

On Sunday John Travolta mangled the name of the singer for Frozen’s Oscar nominated song “Let It Go,” Idina Menzel calling her Adele Dazeem . Now if you’d like, thanks to Slate.com, you can find out how John would has mispronounced your name had you been her. Brian Bogardus would have been Benn Bozowens…

Now if I had known about this around Christmas time last year I would not have wasted my money on that quadcopter that lasted a week. Instead I would have commissioned my very own likeness as a rubber stamp.

I think I have said here before that my ideal Miata would be my first one reincarnated with about 20 to 30 thousand miles on it. Well here is one that is almost exactly fits the bill – Hemmings Find of the Day. It is not Smurf Blue, but I almost bought one in white when the wait for a blue one got past 100 days.