Motoring Challenge

Just Can’t Stop

In a Barn

After racking up about 560 miles on Saturday and Sunday chasing Motoring Challenges today we promised to just take it easy and not drive too far. And we didn’t. Our neighbor across the street is the wife of a local horse trainer, so when I saw her outside this afternoon I asked if she could find me a barn. When I explained what for for, she had just what I needed right up the street.

Because the Miata is only a two-seater I could only take her and not my usual photographer, so Vicky agreed to take the pictures. While we were messing around in the horse district I mentioned I also needed a horse track photo, so we went over to the Aiken Training Track. She suggested maybe parking on the track right in front of the gates and I thought that was an awesome idea. But as we got on some of the dirt approaching the track we could feel how soft and deep it was, so opted out on trying to drive on the track. It would have been extremely embarrassing to have to have some horses pull the Miata out of getting stuck. So I pulled up next to the rail on the grass. As it turns out the Horse Track photo required a sign, so good thing we didn’t get stuck for nothing. Maybe I will use the picture for a Sneak Peek entry.

The Purple Whale got a nice wash this afternoon and I gave The Emperor a sponge bath (AKA Mequier’s Quick Detailer) too. I also changed the Miata’s oil, after all with all this Motoring Challenge stuff we have traveled nearly 4,000 miles in the last couple weeks.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1362

Was Clean

Was Clean

This is what the front of yesterday’s washed Miata looks like now. And look at those dead bugs! Any of them would be Big Bug Trophy winners. Where are these things when you need them?

So we slept in this morning, until 5:00AM, and had a nice breakfast at home before hitting the road. First stop was Denmark for an Art Gallery photo. We were in Denmark a couple months ago getting the “City starting with a D”, but ignored this South Carolina landmark because we thought the challenge wanted an Art Museum. Mr. Harrison paints rural scenes of barns with Coca-Cola ads painted on the side and I always wanted to commission one of those with a Miata in it. I’m sure he would laugh at the idea or offer to do it a price that even Warren Buffet would balk at.

From there we captured Olar for the City O, Hampton for the County H and Varnville for the City V. We now need just the Q to complete the City alphabet. Well, all except the X. The closest X town is Xenia, OH which is “only” 575 miles away. There are now only 5 County letters left, with F, K & Y obtainable. There is no X county in the US at all and the closest Z is Zavala County in Texas which is still 350 miles further southwest from Fort Worth where we just barely made it to last week.

We also snagged a vineyard in Ridgeland, SC, a cobblestone road and an island in Savannah, GA from the Destinations Column. This leaves only 12 left on that list and all look doable if only Donna and I can agree on exactly what constitutes a harbor…

If you could get every point available in the challenge you could score 201 points. After today we are halfway there at 100 points. My best guess for our highest possible score is 139 and that is going to take crashing 9 more car shows and a trip to Richmond, Va to a Moss Motors Facility.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1361

Snake!

Snake

We got up at 4:00AM this morning so we could watch the supposedly spectacular new meteor shower, the Camelopardalids. Some folks were predicting that the sky would look like the star streaks that most SciFi shows use to signify transitioning to faster than light travel. We drove 6 or 7 miles north of town to a big dark field. I looked up right after parking and saw a streak that moved through about 15° of sky and then nothing. We sat for about 15 minutes and not another meteor trail appeared. We moved the car a few more miles north to get past I-20 and the only moving lights I saw there were the green eyes of a couple of deer crossing the road as we came to stop in the new spot. Now they are saying that some astronomers were not surprised by the lack of a spectacular show, it might be because the parent comet is rather dim or they might have miscalculated and the big show will be tonight. Ha, fool me once…

After the sun came up and breakfast was finished we decide to spend the day filled some holes in our Motoring Challenge list with some local places. We managed to grab 2 cities; an A & a J, 2 counties; an E & a L, and a National Park. We’ve already scored the only National Park in the state, Congaree, but National Park Service run sites count too, so we went to the Ninety Six National Historic Site. After parking the car and taking our challenge photo we took a walk around the site on their 1 mile loop trail and that is where we saw the above critter. Kind of hard to tell size from the photo, but if he was stretched straight out I bet he would have been about 3 feet long.

This evening I washed the last 1500 miles of Texas Road Trip grime off the Emperor, but he won’t stay clean long though as we are planning on taking a day trip tomorrow to Savannah…

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1360

Numbers

141414

Day 10: Columbus, GA to Aiken, SC – 278.7 miles

Not too far out of Sandersville, Georgia we changed drivers at a spot I picked, just so I could take the above snapshot.

Today’s drive was 38.7 miles longer than our pre-drive Google Maps estimate and our total trip mileage was 2894.8 or 390.8 miles more than the 2504 pre-drive estimate. That is an average of almost 40 extra miles each day coming mostly from detours, both of the planned and unplanned variety, the rest from dinner drives and shopping expeditions.

We filled up with gas 11 times on this trip, on average every 246 miles. I pumped an average 8-3/4 gallons each time at an average price of $3.85. The highest price paid per gallon was $4.27 today in rural GA and the lowest price per gallon was $3.50 at a Kroger in Fort Worth, TX last Wednesday. The Emperor averaged 28.1 MPG for the 10 days.

On the Motoring Challenge front, we photographed the car, one of us and that silly poster 46 times. We nabbed 12 Counties or Parishes, 11 Cities, 9 of the “Destinations”, 8 States and 3 national Forests. We also took 3 Sneak Peek photos, only two of which can be submitted.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1357

141,000 Concrete Expansion Joints

County - Macon

Day 9: Hammond, LA to Columbus, GA – 444.4 miles*

Today was supposed to be a short drive in case we were going to spend the morning in Hammond, no plans materialized, so we opted to combine Sunday and Monday’s drive into one long Sunday drive. Kind of like a horse returning to its barn, we are accelerating home. We even briefly considered trying to finish the whole thing today by driving the last 250 miles, but decided against it when we realized that we lost an hour when going back to Eastern Time at the Georgia border. We will now get home Monday evening, one day ahead of schedule.

Like yesterday we started the trip on the Interstate to make some decent time and progress on our route diagonally across Alabama from Mobile to Columbus, but could only stand so much, about 2/3rds of the drive, before hitting some 2-lane back road blacktop. We managed to snag 4 more Motoring Challenges, 2 cities; Troy and Union Springs and 2 counties; Bullock and Macon (above.) We will probably try and snag a few more on the way back across Georgia tomorrow, including a National Monument, Ocmulgee, that is near Macon.

Somewhere, while bump, bump, bumping along over I-10’s very annoying 141,000 concrete expansion joints, the Emperor bumped past the 141,000 mile mark.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 413 (-31.4) – Total miles so far: 2616.1

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1355

Missed Ferries

Kistatchie National Forest

Day 8: Natchitoches, LA to Hammond, LA – 305.5 miles*

We headed due south from Natchitoches (na-ka-tish) to fill our last available National Forest spot. Nice back country touch with the three bullet holes in the sign… Next up was a parish that started with a letter V and because of the scarcity of V counties back home the major prize for today’s drive. We took photos for more four items, but will probably only use 2 of them.

I had a semi-short mileage day planned, but the beautiful weather and scenery of northwest Louisiana just begged for more exploring. When we stopped in Lecompte (luh-kawmpt) for lunch at the famous Lea’s Lunchroom my navigator plotted an awesome detour around the north of Baton Rouge on LA10. As I was tracing the route on the state map I noticed that there were not one, but two toll ferries, which are another Motoring Challenge Destination goal. As we approached to the town of Melville where the ferry across the Atchafalaya (a-cha-fa-lie-a) River was we started to worry as we didn’t see any ferry information signs.

Sure enough, when we got to the river all we found was a Dead End sign. We backtracked to a small closed convenience store to look at the map and check our options. As we were sitting there we heard a voice with a Cajun accent say, “Are ya’ll lost?” Up walked a fellow in a straw cowboy hat, missing half his top teeth and a belt buckle the size of dinner plate with the outline of the state of Louisiana on it. Donna, with a smile in her voice asked,”How’d you know?” The fellow replied,”Because that is right where all you cars and bikers park when you find out there ain’t no ferry no more.” “Ain’t been one in about two years.” We asked if the the other ferry further along the road was still in operation and said he thought that it was.

He was wrong. There is a brand spanking new bridge over the Mississippi River at the town of New Roads where our official, published by the Department of Transportation, 2014 Map of Louisiana said there was a Toll Ferry.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 262 (-43.5) – Total miles so far: 2171.7

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1353

Parishes Not Counties

De Soto Parish

Day 7: Fort Worth, TX to Natchitoches, LA – 366.6 miles*

Up at 5 and out of the hotel at 5:30 so we could beat the big city traffic. And we did for the most part, traffic was dense at several spots on the upper loop around Dallas/Fort Worth, but it never slowed down from 75 MPH, even through the narrowed lanes of the construction near the airport. Tiring of the standard “free” hotel breakfasts we sought out a DD in Garland for our morning repast.

We are back in one of favorite states to visit, Louisiana, especially for eating. Today’s lunch was barbeque at a spot our GPS led us to south of the town of Mansfield. As we cruised down the street it didn’t look like anywhere a restaurant would be and it really wasn’t a restaurant, but just a take-out joint. It reminded me of the place that Frank Underwood went to in the TV show House of Cards, one man, his smoker and a cleaver. We both got a sliced pork sandwich and ate it on a picnic table outside and watched a steady stream of cars pull in, get a bag of BBQ and drive off.

Tonight we went down to the historic Front St of Natchitoches and ate at the bar of Mama’s Oyster House. Donna got some of that gumbo she has been craving since we were in Baton Rogue two years ago. Then we shared fried crawfish, peel ‘n’ eat shrimp and spinach & artichoke dip appetizers. The dip had a neat twist, instead of tortilla chips to scoop with, you got battered and deep fried bowtie pasta.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 290 (-76.6) – Total miles so far: 1866.2

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1351