Motoring Challenge

A little bit of Spring weather today sent Donna and I out into the world with the Miata to have a top down adventure. It was time to go take a few more Moss Motoring Challenge photos and some make up geocaching. We needed a Duck Crossing sign and knew right where to find one because we had stumbled on it while on an unsuccessful geocaching trip about a month ago. When we had gone to sign the log of our first find back then, we realized that neither of us had a pen, doh!

We started in Aiken with a photo of a horse track and then we drove to Augusta to get the Duck Crossing sign photo. I took our laminated Motoring Challenge poster and stuck it right below the crossing sign between the sign and the post while we snapped a couple shots. We then took a walk near Lake Olmstead and the Augusta Greenjacket’s stadium to take care of our cache signings. It wasn’t until we were getting back in the car that I realized that I had left the challenge poster hanging on the Duck Crossing sign. Almost forgot it.

Next we headed for a cupcake bakery. I remembered where one was on Washington Road and Donna remembered where another one was further out on the same road. The first one didn’t actually say cupcake in its name, so we continued out further on Washington Road into Evans where the above photo comes from, a place called “Small Cakes, a Cupcakery.” I made myself right at home at the table right outside to un-opened bakery with my poster propped up at the window.

Seeing as we were this far out on Washington Road we decided to keep on going north and then cross over the Strom Thurmond Dam back into South Carolina. Donna thought it might be cool to take a picture in front of the dam to use as one of our next Sneak Peek photos. Turns out there was a small playground right there, something we needed for the Challenge, so we took a photo of that with the dam in the background. When I opened the trunk to get the camera and the laminated Challenge poster I realized that I had the camera, but no poster. This time, unlike at Lake OLmstead, I did leave it behind.

I was all for just forgetting about it as we did have the back-up smaller version still and I could always make another one, but Donna thought that we should go back to Evans and get it. She reasoned that it was nearing lunch and there were plenty of places to chose from for eating back that way and then we could get a cupcake for desert.

The Emperor passed through the 136,000 mile mark as we crossed the dam back into Georgia. The sign was still there at the bakery, right on the table, where the girl who sold us the cupcake had put it when she opened the store. Originally we were going to share a cupcake, but they looked so good and had such a variety that we opted to get one each. They were moist and dense and the frosting was so superb that I’m betting they packed in about 136,000 calories each.

When we got home it was still too nice a day to stay inside, so I went out and washed both cars. The Emperor will be fine as he will be staying in the garage for the week, but the Purple Whale’s cleanliness will not last, tomorrow it is supposed to rain and with the warm weather, the pines surrounding the Valve Store’s(r) parking lot will be emitting yellow pollen dust soon.