Motoring Challenge

Hey! That Rhymes!

Saturday morning was the first Masters Miata Club Breakfast of the year at the traditional spot, the Steak & Shake in Augusta. Donna and I went with them the first time in 2013 and her eggs were served cold. This, on top of a couple slow or sloppy services at past visits to this franchise, made her swear off ever going the January MMC breakfast again.

My meal was fine back in 2013 and I was feeling bad about not going to a club event in a while, so I convinced Donna to go this year. Well, you can guess what happened, cold eggs. She ordered the bacon, egg & cheese biscuit, but asked them to leave off the cheese. Well, you guessed it, there was cheese on there and that is how she knew her eggs were cold, the slice of cheese was showing no signs of melting what so ever. You can now bet that if the only restaurants left on the face of the planet are Steak & Shakes, Donna will learn to catch wild animals with her bare hands or starve to death before going into one. The sign on the pole outside of our dining spot was the best part of breakfast.

I think the tradition for the Club is over as well because Donna’s wasn’t the only one who got cold food. My hash browns were cold, as were the ones served the wife of the couple who instigated the Steak & Shake breakfasts. As we were breaking up, I heard her say to her husband, “Maybe we should start going across the street to the Cracker Barrel.”

When we started the morning, the was top up because it was cold and we really weren’t thinking Motoring Challenge, so we didn’t bring the clue sheet. Not knowing just what to look for, except for the “Signs of Winter”, I choose a route to breakfast along a very commercial road hoping to catch a Winter Sale sign. No luck.

When talking about this year’s challenge over breakfast when asked what some of the challenges were, we came up a couple off the top of our memory, Roller Derby Rink was one and another was a Sign that Rhymes. Turns out that Augusta has a Roller Derby team and they practice at a rink over on Washington Road which was between where we were and home. A stop was planned to see if they had a sign outside the skating rink. No luck there either, so I started to drive off when Donna said, “No. Even though no roller derby, we still need a plain old roller skating rink.” A few miles from home we pulled into a strip shopping place near Walmart and found my Winter Sale sign at a The Shoe Dept store. So we ended up with a three point day even though we had zero expectations.

Signs of Winter

Signs of Winter 01 – Flurries: Hopefully Wednesday, January 17th’s flurries is the only snow we see this winter here in Aiken. (1/17/18)

Yesterday we had some morning snow flurries here. I watched them come down for a while and when the really small flakes turned into really big flakes, I walked outside to take a photo. By the time I got my coat on and walked out to the north forty where I park the Miata, the flakes had downsized to normal and were not nearly as thick and impressive, but I couldn’t stand around in the snow forever, so I took a couple selfies with the CTBNL in the background and beat feet back indoors. Behold, our first Motoring Challenge point of 2018, Flurries, number one of three for Signs of Winter.

Of course by the time I got back to my desk and looked out the window, the heavy, densely falling flakes were back.

60,000 Sparklers


Happy New Year’s Eve! Every year we are invited over to a friends house for their New Year’s party. It includes lots of food, beverages and fireworks. This year because of the high winds the bonfire had to be squelched and it was so cold without it, we didn’t make it until midnight. Plus they weren’t so sure they could do the big finish anyway.

When we first got there I had them set up a ring all around the Miata of the 60,000 big sparklers we had bought on the way over. OK, maybe it really was only a dozen sparklers. The CTBNL actually went over the 60,000 mile mark last night on the way home, but I forgot to blog about it. I was reminded about it when we got in the car to go out tonight.

Last Minute Point Grabbing

Down to the final 2 days of the year 2017 we drove around yesterday trying to pick up as many points as we could reasonably get locally. Most of today’s photos were ones we looked for all year long hoping to find just the right one, but for one reason or another we dismissed what we saw, thinking that a better one would come along, and then realized we were running out of time to take the photo. We almost waited too long too on the water fountain as several of the local ones we had marked as “aces in the hole” were shut off because of the cold weather.

It’s not over yet either. We have procrastinated ourselves into a whole on the “Epic Sunset” photo, so Sunday night (AKA Six Hours to Deadline) we are going to go out and take a picture of whatever kind of sunset that happens and call it Epic and hope it counts. We also have a New Year’s Eve gather to go to that has a Fireworks Display” involved, so that will be another point. If we get both we will end up with a total of 242. Probably not a winner, but should land us in the money of one of the top 50 runners up.

Saturday in the Swamp


Saturday morning we headed out to get a few last minute Motoring Challenge points. We got a Haberdashery, Sorority/Fraternity, a Natures Giant and a Hero/Villain for 4 big points. This is the second time we have taken a photo of the sign at the entrance to the Congaree Swamp. This year we are using it for Nature’s Giant, but in 2014 it counted for a point as a National Park.

We now have 233 points out of a possible 257. Of the 24 remaining points, if we are lucky and diligent, we will get eight of those. Even if we managed to snag all 24, we still might not end up in the top 3 anyway. Some folks may have a higher possible total because of the scrabble points, those that find 3 words that total more than our 92 points would finish ahead of us.

59,000 Things I’m Thankful For

1. My morning person wife.
We got up on Turkey Day at 5:30, the same time as on a normal work day to drive up to Hendersonville, NC.

2. My patient wife.
To visit my sister and her husband and have our Thanksgiving meal at their community pot luck.

3. My carefree wife.
But before getting to their house we traveled 25 miles past them to the north into Asheville.

4. My curious wife.
To take a picture of an Inspirational Woman’s Monument she found after hours of internet searching.

5. My lovely wife.
Who posed in the near freezing temperatures by a very Large Flat Iron sculpture in downtown for a Motoring point.

6. My flexible wife.
Then when we were stymied in getting the Woman’s statue photo by thousands of runners participating in a Turkey Trot and Gobble Wobble, Donna shrugged and said, “We’ll come back again early tomorrow.”

7. My generous wife.
At the Black Friday sale at Mast General Store she let me buy a $40 hoodie I wanted, but didn’t really need, while she bought a gift to give away at the upcoming MMC Christmas Party.

8. My understanding wife.
She understands that there is no way I can come up with 58,992 more of these.

The CTBNL passed through the 59,000 mile mark a few miles north of Saluda, SC on the way up to North Carolina.

Let’s Take A(nother) Drive


So yesterday morning we drove to Columbia in the Mini, essentially a one hundred twenty mile round trip for breakfast. Some people might question this method of purchasing the most important meal of the day, but we could think of no finer way to spend 3 hours on a lovely fall Saturday.

On second thought, we could.

So after a lunch at Subway here in Aiken yesterday, we filled up the Miata, dropped the top and drove to Greenwood, about 60 miles away, to take a photo of a train locomotive. Not just any locomotive, but one worth 10 points in the Moss Motoring Challenge in the category “117 Years of Transportation.” Before we took this drive we still needed 4 of the 12 photos, the decades of 1900, 1910, 1950 & 1980.

On our way into Greenwood I got a fleeting glimpse of a car repair place that had a very interesting old truck parked outside. Because we were going to go back out of town the same way we were coming in I didn’t pull an immediate u-turn. The shop was further back than I thought though and I was just beginning to worry I had imagined it, when it popped up on the left.

The 111-year old train was the big prize, but this auto repair was a nice prize in it’s own right. That old truck was a 1954 or 1955 Chevy 3100 pick up. And in the back was our 1980’s point just sitting there, a nicely preserved Pontiac Fiero. Before we had headed north we cut through a local golf course neighborhood to get a photo for our last point in the “Around the World” category.