Miatatude

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.

Spring Is For The Birds

I think.

Last week at this time the freezing rain was still falling, now seven days later we drove home from work with the Miata’s top down in the upper 70’s with the sun shining.

The weather is certainly springlike and there must be birds singing out there, but you can’t hear them over the sound of the whirring of chainsaws. Every street in town is lined with pile of upon pile of fallen tree limbs and broken branches like hedgerows. Some streets in our neighborhood have been narrowed down to a single because of the tree debris lining both sides.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1294

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.

Car Camo Considered

bmw m4 camo small

This is the back end of the new BMW M4 covered in camo because they are not ready to actually debut them yet, although they are out test driving them. I drove its predecessor, the M3, back in 2008 at a Susan B Komen Ultimate Drive and effervesced about the experience:

414HP V-8. Yikes! This car should be illegal, but I’m glad it is not. Just the exhaust note alone is enough to make the hairs on your arm stand up. Not deep throaty Detroit rumble, but raspy, race car purposeful. One suggestion, when you mash the go pedal to the floor you should already have your head back on the headrest or it will be snapped back to it. This is as close as you can get to experiencing a catapult launch from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier on land, unless you drag race funny cars on the weekend.

If I was really rich, or kinda rich and single, this thing would be my daily driver, but seeing as I’m neither of those things I drive a 10 year-old Miata (not that there is anything wrong with that.)

What I think might be cool, and I wouldn’t even have to be rich, would be to find a place that vinyl wraps cars and cover the Miata in that black & white swirly camo. Although, I think to do that I would need to be single, or if I did that without asking for permission, I would end up single. 🙂