Motoring Challenge

Well, That Was A Nice Surprise

A month ago I wrote about the 2020 Moss Motoring Challenge and how it was the last one and it looked like we finished out of the money. In today’s mail was an envelope from Moss Motors and inside was a $50 gift certificate.

Wow, that was not expected, but thank you very much. I guess because it was the last year of hosting this event they were extra generous with prizes. In spite of COVID-19 there were 6 people who scored 304 points, only missing the five points each for visiting the Moss warehouses. Also probably because of the pandemic there were quite a few who signed up (looks like about 200 total) and nearly half scored no points at all.

I have already spent the prize money on some new silicon wiper blades. When I drove the Miata to the a doctor’s appointment back in January it started to sprinkle on the way back and when I turned on the wipers they squealed like a stuck pig. Needless to say, on the short drive home, they were used sparingly.

Out of the Money

2020 was the 8th and last of the Motoring Challenge contest put on by Moss Motors. We participated in 7 of them, the first year Miatas weren’t invited, and 2020 was our worst year ever scoring a measly 21 points and for only the second time we weren’t one of the 50 runner-ups and not earning a $50 Gift Certificate.

One reason for this years lack of motoring challenging was our late start, our first photo wasn’t taken until April. Back in Aiken because of the milder winter we would jump on the challenge in January, but here, pleasant drives start much later on the calendar.

Another reason was there were several categories that left a lot up for interpretation, like The Science Corner (Signs or Scenes) with requirements like Geology, Meteorology, Mycology or Physics and the category like Sign Up For Interpretation with requirements of The Meaning of Life, Promises Kept, I Would Do Anything for Love or But I Won’t Do That. We always found it easier to search for the more straightforward things, like cities that begin with every letter of the alphabet.

But the main reason was really the whole pandemic thing. Because the biggest reason we enjoyed the event was that it got us planning and then taking trips to find all these challenges. We decided that this year discretion was the better part of valor and it really wasn’t worth getting sick, really sick or dead for a $50 gift certificate.

Once More Into The Breech

Trees in Bloom

This is the eighth year that Moss Motors has been doing the Motoring Challenge and this is our 7th year doing it. It is also our last, not because we don’t want to do it anymore, but because they are going to stop running it.

Because of the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders we figured we would just wait to start the Challenge once Oregon started easing up on restrictions. But Monday we noticed one challenge that we would have missed out on if we waited any longer, Trees in Bloom. It has been spring here for a couple of weeks and a lot of the trees are already dropping their blossoms for leaves, fortunately whatever kind of trees are, they held out for us.

Well, doing the challenge is sort of like eating Lays Potato Chips, you just can’t eat one, so we went back out today and grabbed a couple more local ones. I hope the Governor understands that driving around with the top down on a nice spring day to do the Motoring Challenge is essential business…

2019 Motoring Challenge Results

Alliteration: I only wish Wayne sold Wasabi instead of fireworks…(2/26/19)

In spite of missing out on 3 months of prime Aiken photo taking weather at the end of last year, we still managed to finish as one of the 50 runners up in the 2019 Motoring Challenge. Our final score of 152, or a little more than half the total of the Miata Division winner’s, put us in 34th place.

The photo above is probably both Donna and my favorite photo from last year. The fellow running the contest thought it was pretty cool too as he included it on the 2019 Winners Page (keep scrolling, it is way towards the bottom.)

Our second favorite photo from last years is below. One of the objectives was a picture with the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile. This one is on a page on the Moss Motors site as well, 2019 Motoring Challenge Wieners! (this time we are just the 5th one down.)

Wienermobile: With fingers crossed, hoping the Wienermobile App was going to be right, we braved driving into the outskirts of the Atlanta megalopolis to go to a Walmart parking lot in Lithonia. We were all smiles as soon as we pulled into the lot and could see it in all its glory. (2/17/19)

Our runner-up Gift Certificate showed up in today’s mail. Within an hour it was spent. It took care of most of the cost of a front license plate relocation kit for the Miata. Or more accurately, a front license plate mounting kit. Because South Carolina didn’t require a front plate I never had a front plate mount, but because Oregon requires both front and back plates I need one now.

Perfect Timing?

This year’s Moss Motoring Challenge is chock full of obtuse “challenges” and some of them have us really scratching our heads on how to capture them. The current popcorn husk stuck between our gums and teeth is Perfect Timing. We can both think of several things that would be perfect timing, but none of them lend themselves to a photograph.

Just as you get to the other side of some railroad tracks, the crossing arms come down and an eight mile long freight train passes. Approaching a stoplight on a 4 lane road, to avoid the half dozen cars in the right lane you switch to the empty left lane, halfway to the front the light turns green and you zip through.

While passing through downtown Aiken the other week we drove by the Bank of America. It had a sign out front that had a time and temperature display. An idea was formed, we could park in front of the bank and snap a photo when the time on the sign matched the time displayed on our radio. While this seemed like an interesting and capturable image it just didn’t excite us. Last night, after coming up with nothing else, we set out to take the picture.

When we arrived at the stoplight kitty-cornered from the sign we noticed that the two clocks didn’t match up. Damn. So we drove around some more hoping to find another bank with a similar sign. We could swear there used to be several, but there were none to be found.1 Unable to think of what else to do, I parked in front of the bank, adjusted the clock in the car back 38 minutes so it matched and took the photo.

While we could probably use the picture without describing how we got it, but it would kind of be cheating and we just can’t bring ourselves to do it. After we got back home Donna searched the internet for “perfect timing” and after weeding through a bunch of results she found an auto-repair place in Savannah, GA called Perfect Timing Automotive Services and I see a road trip in the near future…

Where’s That Confounded Blimp? Act II

Two weeks ago we missed out on the Goodyear Blimp that was covering the RBC Heritage Golf Tournament in Hilton Head Island because we didn’t know what airport it was based out of. This time we knew exactly which airport it would be at.

Wingfoot 3 was scheduled to provide TV coverage for the Wells Fargo Championship in Charlotte, NC. The official Find the Blimp page didn’t list the golf course like it did for the Hilton Head Island event, it listed the town of Chester, SC. As it happens there is a Chester Catawba Regional Airport just north of town. Donna searched Facebook for “Chester Catawba Regional Airport blimp” and there were pictures of the blimp there in May of 2016 and May of 2018.

We got up this morning, loaded some snacks in a small cooler, had breakfast at Dunkin’ and headed north. We dodged rain showers for most of the 100+ mile drive, even putting the top up for a stretch and arrived at the airport at around 10:30 AM. I pulled up to the spot that was clearly where those Facebook photos were taken and…

…No #%$&ing Blimp!

Where’s That Confounded Blimp?

In this year’s Motoring Challenge the two big point earners, worth nine each, are the Wienermobile and a Blimp. We snagged the rolling hot dog back in February, so now we needed the blimp.

Turns out there are 3 active Goodyear Blimps, each with their own home base. The first is just where you’d expect it to be, Akron, Ohio, Home of the Goodyear Company. The other two are on opposite costs of the country, Carson, CA (AKA Los Angeles) and Pompano Beach, FL (AKA Miami.) Akron and Pompano are around 600 miles away, neither would be an attractive drive, and LA, forget about it. Our best bet would be to catch one in its travels.

Unlike the Wienermobile, there is no smart phone app to keep track of Goodyear’s 3 airships, but you can find out where they are going to be appearing right on its very own web page. And as it turns out Wing Foot 3 would be providing aerial coverage of the RBC Heritage Golf Tournament in Hilton Head Island, SC (a mere 130 miles away) on April 20 & 21.

We had a Miata Club event on Saturday, so we planned a day trip down to HHI on Sunday. Knowing they wouldn’t fly the blimp back to its home base for one night it would have to be parked at an airport overnight. But, which one? The small airport on the Island or the bigger one near Savannah, GA. A blimp would be too big to put in any old hanger, so it should be visible by driving by. We would leave early in the morning, take a picture and be back home by mid-afternoon.

Because HHI is sort of on the way to Savannah the plan was to check there first. Plus an early Sunday morning arrival on the Island would make the normally busy traffic somewhat lighter. We plugged the airport location into Google and made a bee-line there. The road leading to the terminal had several places where we could see onto the runway, but no blimp sightings. Pulled into the small parking lot out front and walked into the terminal. We could see through several of those windows onto the runway too, but no blimp. We cruised more of the roads surrounding the one runway getting a few more peeks, but never saw a blimp.

We did spot a vintage VW Beetle in a parking lot of a small business park near the airport. This fits one of the Motoring Challenges, My First Car, because Donna’s first car was a 1971 Super Beetle. After watching us park near his car in two different spots and taking pictures, the owner of the car came out and asked if we needed any help. After explaining what we were doing, I asked, “Have you seen the blimp?” He said it wasn’t at this airport, it was at Savannah International.

That airport is north and east of the city of Savannah and it is easily accessible from Hilton Head in about an hour. The longer, but only slightly quicker way is US-278 to I-95, yuck, so we took the shorter route along scenic coastal back roads that took 5 minutes longer. We circled the perimeter roads around the airport, including a dead end road that led to the Gulfstrean factory where we passed a couple of private jets having their jet engines tested. No blimp. I then circled back and drove near the terminal to see if we could get a view on that end of the airport. As I slowed at a crosswalk near the departure gates there were a couple of women in yellow vests that read SECURITY. I asked them had the seen the blimp. Both responded with, “What blimp?”

It was now nearing noon and by now we should have been heading home. CBS’s coverage of the final round of the tournament wasn’t supposed to start until 3:00 PM. I suggested we head out to I-95 and find a lunch place before starting back to Aiken. Donna countered with, we should drive back to Hilton Head and get lunch there, kill some time shopping and then hunt the blimp in the air. So we re-traced our back road route the HHI.

On our way back through Bluffton, SC we stopped into a little restaurant that we ate at about 28 years ago called Squat ‘N’ Gobble. Probably the only thing different since that last time were the waitresses. Donna had Crabby Benedict and I got a Western Omelet. We did try and eat here a few years back, but it is so popular there was a 30 minute wait (and we don’t wait.)

Our big problem in capturing the airborne blimp would be we couldn’t get close to it. The golf course they were using is in Sea Pines Plantation that takes up the whole end of the island. It is a gated community and any old Joe can’t just drive in. Normally you can buy a day pass for $5 to go to the shops and restaurants in the Harbour Town area, but not during tournament time. Even spectators with tickets had to park on the other end of the island and get bused into the plantation.

When we got back on the Island we took the Cross Island Parkway, which is a toll road that by-passes the congested US-278 to go from one side of the island to the other, because there is an elevated bridge on the end closest to plantation and we figured it would give us a nice view of the sky. It did but there wasn’t a blimp in sight. We still had an hour and a half before the TV coverage was to begin, so we parked and wandered the shops of Coligny Plaza, had some ice cream, decided to toss in the towel and head home.

We decided to drive back across the Cross Island Parkway to get another skyward peek. When I rolled to a stop to pay the toll I asked the women inside if she had seen the blimp. “I can’t see nothing in here,” came the reply. we half repeated the trip to Savannah in hopes that the blimp might come that way, but no blimps were sighted.

We will have another chance at seeing the blimp because it will be covering another golf tournament in Charlotte (about 160 miles away) the first weekend in May…