Miatatude

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

A Day In The Ho-Hum Life

Woke up, fell out of bed,
Dragged my comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup…

About the only non-standard blip in my day was sitting inside a 2002 Mustang Cobra. A fellow brought in his brother-in-law’s car for the day. Thought it might be fun to park it next to our Director of Operation’s 2003 Cobra. At lunch a few of us went out and oohed and aahed. Boy Howdy I’m glad I didn’t have to drive that thing in the Peach Parade on Saturday, I’d have never made it. I’m not sure I could make it through a long red light with that thing pushed in. Yikes that clutch is a stiff. Not sure how the action is as I didn’t drive it, but a few seconds with the clutch pushed in was a definate quad workout.

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

Shopping Spree

Mazda has changed the diameter of the stock oil filter (rambled on about that back on May 31) Today I decided to buy the new filter wrench to fit them from Finish Line Performance. While I was there I figured I might as well buy a couple of filters too. Total spent here was $$22.96.

I need to replace my cockpit cover. I’ve only had it about a year, but it seems to be deteriorating at a rapid rate. My SWAG is that once I Scotchguarded it started to eat away at the fabric and ever since it has been leaving a fine white powder behind when I take it off. Shopping at Moss Motors cost me $63.40. For that I got a new cockpit cover and the cleaning solution/new oil for K&N air filters. The K&N has been in there for a while and it is probably past due for cleaning.

Purchased Today: $86.38 ca-ching
Money spent since 03/03/03: $804.88
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127

Is That All?

Donna and I went for a hike in Hitchcock Woods this morning. We got in early, 8:00 AM, and it was actually cool in the beginning, because of the hills and trees it was still a little dim as well. After about an hour the sun was penetrating enough that I needed to put on my sunglasses. After about an hour and a half I pushed up the sleeves on my shirt and by the time we exited the woods 15 minutes later I had worked up a nice little sweat. Very pleasant little walk. Probably around 4 miles, but we have stopped keeping track. The only downside was walking though the webs of industrious spiders hoping to catch a morning meal.

The entrance to the woods is probably 2 miles from the house and that is all exercise the Miata got. The drive to and from the walk was about the same amount of miles we covered while in the woods.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $718.52
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127