Miatatude

0.08 Gallons Of Gas

After tonight’s Master’s Miata Club meeting it was such a pretty night that Donna wanted to go the long way home. Well, she didn’t have to twist my arm very hard, but first we needed some gas. The first place I pulled into must have run out of gas because the numbers were moving real slow and they stopped dead on $0.12, netting me a total of 0.08 gallons of mid grade. Drove about a mile down the road to the next station where I finished filling up.

I wonder how much it is going to cost that store and my bank to transact a twelve cents purchase?

Purchased Today: $13.87
Money spent since 03/03/03: $843.75
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 137

High & Dry

After Wild Bill the Tropical Storm passed our are in the night, we woke up to a forecast that called for no rain. The skies looked threatening, but bolstered by the forecast I left the top down and used our new cockpit cover.

About 10 o’clock my wife called and said that it was raining and maybe I should go put the top up. About that time I heard the sound of a really hard rain hitting the roof above my head. It only lasted about a minute. After it quit I thought I’d go look under the cover and see how wet it might be. Walked out to the car in the still sprinkling morning and when I peeked inside it was 99% dry. Cool the new cover worked like a charm

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $830.88
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 137

198 Miles

Because we filled up at the Inn on Friday, didn’t drive the Miata at all on Saturday and drove right home this morning, we still have a half a tank of gas left over. Mileage from the Pisgah Inn to 778 Boardman Road, Aiken, SC is 198.

Spent the afternoon catching up on Barndoor Fan Club business, washing 4 loads of clothes and catch up blogging.

While taking the bear pictures yesterday I just had to snap a picture of this Office Supply store, Sinclair’s.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $830.88
Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 133

Bears Oh My

We drove around all day in my sister’s Protege so we wouldn’t have to take two cars. first we went into downtown Hendersonville, NC. This is the town Diane and Allen have picked to retire to in 7 seven years. They have a neat and thriving downtown. One attraction currently running is along the lines of those artistic cows they did in Chicago several years back, only because of their locale here, they used life-sized black bears. Diane and I decided that we would take a picture of every one of the 26 bears. We got the one inside the locked bank and we got the one inside a clothing store and we snapped the one on the awning of a restaurant, but we couldn’t locate bear #5. It was not where it was supposed to be. Maybe Animal Control had to capture it because it attacked a tourist. 🙂 I’ll try and get my gallery online in the next couple of days.

That night we went out to watch some minor league baseball. The Asheville Tourists, class A farm club of the Colorado Rockies were tangling with the Capital City Bombers. The Bombers won the game 3 to 1, but the evening wasn’t a total loss. It was free cap night. The first 1,00 fans got a really nice Tourists’ ball cap (the ads were small and tasteful.) Plus, Donna’s name was pulled in a drawing so she won a throw blanket donated by a local mill. I won an oil change because we had one of the player’s signature on the right page. We gave away that prize to the couple behind us, as for sure we weren’t driving all the way back up there just for an oil change.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $830.88
Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 130

Now That’s Italian

On our way up north to meet sis and hubby in North Carolina. The most interesting thing of the whole drive occurred just outside of downtown Aiken on Laurens Street. Just as we were passing the post office a small gray object fell rapidly from the sky above us and hit the road a few inches in front of the nose of the car with a splat. As I looked in the rearview mirror I could see the squirrel dash towards the side of the road. I guess he missed a branch. Just imagine if I was 2 secs earlier leaving home or a light changed on a different schedule or the squirrel paused a beat longer thinking about the gap between those branches? I wonder what kind of havoc a squirrel landing in the cockpit of a moving convertible might cause? Would not be pretty!

In our increasingly harder to accomplish task of finding a different way north we crossed into Georgia for a bit of our trip. As luck would have it we were in the small burg of Clarksville, GA around lunchtime. We stopped in the center square and walked around looking for like candidates for a nice meal. We ended up going into the Zanzo Side Door Deli. It was on one side of a building and the regular Italian restaurant was on the other. Donna had a chicken salad plate on some greens with fruit on the side and I opted for the lunch portion of baked ziti. Man it was good. Almost worth the 100 mile drive it would take just to go back. This food was so Italian good and we were so in the middle of nowhere, backwoods Georgia that the folks running the place had to be witness protection relocatees.

Purchased Today: $26 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $830.88
Started down, went up, went down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 130

Close, But No Cigar

The Aiken 9 year-old All Stars lost tonight 7 to 5 and North Augusta took home the slightly bigger trophies. They played well, but the other team just made fewer errors. Our friend’s son started and pitched the first 4 innings. When he was pulled after the 4th, Aiken was ahead 5 to 4. Unfortunately North Augusta had the number of the 5th inning starter and jumped on him for 2 quick runs. NA scored scored one more on the 3rd Aiken pitcher and the damage was done. When Aiken came up in the top of the 6th for their final shot, they went down 1-2-3.

Off to the mountains in the morning. If you are on the Blue Ridge Parkway west of Asheville on Friday and see a blue Miata flash by; wave, its me.

I’m going to take the notebook and do some analog blogging this weekend. When I get back on Sunday I’ll post the entries from each day.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $804.88
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127

Trip Delayed Because Of 9 Year-Old

And we don’t have kids. A friend’s son is on the Aiken 9 Year-Old All Star baseball team and they won tonight to claw their way out of the loser’s bracket into a Championship Game tomorrow. They defeated the team that sent them to the loser’s bracket on Monday by a score of 7-6.

We watched them play Saturday and they won, we watched them Sunday and they won and we watched them tonight and the won. Monday and Tuesday we didn’t watch them and they went 1 and 1. Donna and I figured they had a better chance of winning if we went, so we are.

Instead of driving up part way on Friday and spending some time driving twisty roads on our way to the Pisgah Inn to meet my sister and her husband, we will just get up early Friday morning and drive up.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $804.88
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127