Destination Brunswick, Georgia and the rain threatened all the way until Statesboro, where we stopped for dinner, before it actually materialized. From there until we made it too the Hampton Inn it rained at a rate of about 56K drops/hour.
Somewhere about 10 miles before it started raining the Purple Whale rode through its fifty six thousandth mile.
Yesterday’s bouncing bolt was not the only thing the Emperor tried to eat on the drive home. For the second time in the last two months the mouth of the Miata has swallowed a bird.
This time Donna was at the wheel and I didn’t even notice the impact at all. We were heading north on US301 and quickly running out of Georgia when she calmly mentions, “I just hit a bird.” Sure enough after we crossed the Savannah River into South Carolina we stopped to change drivers and discovered a decent size female cardinal plastered against the mesh grill.
Donna pointed out that this bird was likely bigger than the one I hit in May. “OK,” I said, “You win the biggest bird trophy, but I’m still ahead 2 to 1 in quantity standings.”
About 50 miles from home, half way between No & Where, there came a bang and a loud clattering from under the Emperor.
Donna: What was that!?!
Me: Ran over something.
Donna: Something fall off?
Me: Dunno.
Donna: Think we should check?
Me: Guess so.
So I pull a u-turn and about a 100 feet back is a big bolt smack in between the yellow lines. I continue past a bit and pull another u-turn. Stopping in mid lane I get out and pick up the bolt. Yikes! It’s hot. And it has a very thin coating of something that looks like anti-seize compound. Now is it hot because it just came off our car or a car not too far ahead of us or because it is 95° out and laying on a dark surface? Time-wise I can narrow it down only to it has been on the road since after the last thunderstorm here because otherwise the fluid on it would have washed off.
I pull the car off the road onto the shoulder and crawl around a bit underneath looking around at the suspension because that is the last thing that was worked on. I also take a peak at the brake calipers as it almost looks like a slider pin, but see nothing amiss. Might be off the PPF as that was probably loosened or removed for the recent clutch change, but I can’t get that far under there to see.
We get back in the car and slowly start back down the road. I get it up to about 15 MPH and hit the brakes hard and the car responds as it should, with a sudden stop. I then wig/wag down the road like a race car driver warming his tires on the pace lap and the Miata dances back and forth with no drama. But we are both a little spooked, so I drive home at the speed limit with both hands on the wheel.
When we got home I jacked up the car about 12″ off the ground and put all 4 jack stands under it. Looked at everything I could possibly see and there was nothing missing on the PPF or nothing absent at any of the suspension connections. Must be someone else’s bolt.
I swear I did not see anything on the road in front of me before the sudden noises1, so I’m guessing it was there already and I scooped it up with a tire and bounced it back and forth between the car and road a bit before ejecting it out the back.
I had already planned what I was going to take a picture of for Washington County, Florida, the courthouse. I’d eyeballed it on GSV, but boy was I surprised when we got to where the courthouse was supposed to be. It was gone.
There was a small sign saying where everyone had moved to, so we plugged that into the GPS and headed over there. What we found was a totally unassuming one-story structure. Eeh. In the end we drove across the street and captured another totally unassuming one-story structure, that of the Washington County branch of the Florida Department of Health.
Driving towards Chipley knowing I was going to get the courthouse for Florida’s Washington County, it got me thinking that maybe I should get courthouse photos for all 15 Washington Counties. I’d only have to retake the one Georgia county, but now that plan was moot. Seeing as the Georgia Washington County sign had a Georgia shaped “Buckle Up, It’s the Law” sign in the background we’ll just have to differentiate using signage. Which is why we picked the unassuming one-story building we did.
We had been running through on and off rain since we left home and it seemed to have stopped when we took the image above. It didn’t seem as quite as hazy in person as it tuned out looking in the photo. We kind of planned on using this picture for Washington County Georgia because last year we used the sign for Jefferson County that was on the other side of the Ogeechee River on the other side of the road. But we ended up liking the more interesting one we found when leaving the county heading south on GA-231.
Somewhere between Pineview & Rochelle amidst about 152,000 acres of peanut farms the Emperor moved past the 152,000 mile mark.
As a testament as to how much we hate Atlanta traffic, we have driven to Tallahassee, Florida to get our 4th state capitol building even though it would have been fewer miles round trip to the Peach State’s capitol building than these miles one way to get the Sunshine State’s.
We left Florence this morning and took a combination of back roads and I-95 to get to Midlothian, VA. This stop is for two reasons, Donna’s Cousin Susie & Family live here and it is 6 miles from the capitol building of the Commonwealth of Virginia.
One of the first things we did this morning was make a stop at South of the Border because one of the Motoring Challenge destinations this year is a Truck Stop and Pedro has one. While I’m sure any Pilot Travel Center, Love’s Travel Stop or Travel Center America would count, they said truck stop and by golly I was going to get one that said Truck Stop. The photo above is the out-take, the one below is the official submission.
Another reason to take US301 here is that you could get two state signs (1 point each) with ease. So we checked off NC & VA within 100 yards.
Today’s title comes courtesy of some high as a kite patron of a quick stop. We got off I-95 near Dunn, NC to make a pit stop and start on a back road, but couldn’t go much further than a 1/8 mile because a state trooper car had the road blocked. It was then we noticed the two police mobile command centers parked across the street with perhaps 2 dozen LEO vehicles parked there too. When we got to the counter with our drinks there was a dreadlocked individual in front of us trying to explain why he was so upset. After he loudly proclaimed he had to use the restroom, he exclaimed that he was upset because the cops took his biscuits. We asked the proprietor what was going on and it turns out that the house just past the stationary trooper’s car there was a big drug bust.
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.)
