Misc Photos

Vacation Wrap Up

Tomorrow it is back to reality, so let’s hang on to the vacation just a little bit longer shall we. The Emperor used nearly all of the 15 fill ups he received in the last two weeks averaging 29.1 MPG for the trip. Because he is royalty he only drinks Premium Fuel at an average cost of $2.656 per gallon. The highest gas price paid was $2.959 in Pennsylvania and the the cheapest was $2.449 in Arkansas.

We took over 320 photos with the vast majority of them for the Motoring Challenge, but a few of them were just for the heck of it. Here are most of those:

Cub In

Cub In

The last post’s photo came as we were leaving the Aiken Radio Control Society‘s 3rd Annual Cub-In on Saturday. It’s called a Cub-In because if you are flying a Piper Cub replica you get extra point credits, but you can fly anything you want. There were Piper Cubs there with wing spans ranging from 2′ to 6’ and there were also a lot of other types of aircraft on the “tarmac.” It seems like most of the folks in attendance had one Cub and then some other flying thing.

The wind did seem to die down a bit as the morning progressed, but it would still gust at times causing some of the planes to end up in the weeds or upside down even while doing the Ground Pylon Event. It may have not been the fun event the participants had hoped for, but Donna and I did enjoy watching the planes fly when they could. By lunchtime though, we had had enough sunshine, and headed back home.

Got Some Splainin’ To Do

Splainin'

I’m now averaging sucking a bird to its death into the grill of the Emperor every 7 years or so.

Yesterday we took a long overdue road trip. The first objective was to head to our favorite bookstore in the Richmond Hill, GA. Objective #2 was to gather some Moss Motoring Challenge points and lastly was to enjoy a nice drive with the top down before the brain-frying weather that is called summer in the south shows up.

Inside a half full outlet mall just south of Savannah, Georgia is Book Warehouse. Hard cover books for $1.99. They are used /returned / off-lease library books, so they are about a year old and covered in shiny acetate with stickers plastered everywhere. In spite of the convenience of the Kindle, there is something neat about holding a hefty collection of inked paper bound together, inside a couple sheets of cardboard. For around thirty bucks we came away with half a trunk full of fine literature, Daniel Steele for her and Robert B. Parker for me.

On the trip down and back we made a few stops and racked up 5 Motoring Challenge points, two lakes, a state park, a city and one sneak peek.

Mission accomplished. We were gone from home on Sunday for 2 meals, nearly 300 total miles and 9-1/2 hours. This splains why all I had the energy for posting last night was two pictures, one from Saturday (we helped set up the reception room for a co-workers wedding) and one from Sunday (a variation of the sneak peek photo.)

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1476

Motoring Challenge Points 5, Approx Miles Driven 215
Totals So Far: 39 points & 930 miles

Sunday

Water Tower Alternate

A 16 mile bike ride that accomplished bill paying and breakfast eating.
Home in time to watch CBS’s Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood.
I read a book made out of paper.
Wasted the rest of the day watching football.

Christmas in Hopeland Gardens

Hopelands

The last time we walked up to see the lights in Our Fair City’s Hopeland Gardens was 5 years ago (we tried last year, but were shut out.) Tonight we made the walking trip over to see if they had added anything new and they hadn’t. We were slightly disappointed, but in talking about it on the walk back, we decided that it is better if they don’t keep piling more stuff in there otherwise it would get too gaudy.