Road Trip

Trailering the Purple Whale

Trailer

Donna flew down last Sunday to spend some more time with her sister. I drove the Sonata down to Florida yesterday. This is a couple of firsts (for a while) as we can’t really remember the last time Donna flew on a commercial airplane* without me sitting next to her and the first time we have spent more than 5 nights apart since 1983. This is also the first time I’ve driven that far without her sitting next to me since way back when we first knew each other back in 1976.

Kids, don’t try this at home, somewhere on I-95 I caught up to a shiny trailer hauling who knows what and thought that maybe I should take one hand off the steering, root around in the center console, find my camera, pull it out and press some buttons while driving at 80 MPH.

*She did fly on a couple of military hops to visit me once while I was on Guam before her (back in 1976 too.)

Happy Birthday From Officer Krupke

WarningIt is actually fall around here, so for my birthday we were going to drive down to Folly Beach in an attempt to get a Moss Motoring Challenge photo of their fishing pier and to get some seafood for lunch on the beach.

We started our road trip today in the usual way, by going to the local DD and getting my coffee and Donna’s hot chocolate, when we left the parking lot it got slightly unusual. It was early, so there was very little traffic on the 5 lane Whiskey Road and it was still dark, so picking the spot to exit was easy. I waited out the two cars coming from the left that were close together and there were two more coming from the right that had a enough separation to get between, so I swung left, out between them and got in the far right lane because I was turning right at the next intersection about 200 yards away.

As I stopped at the light and prepared to make a right on red, that second car that I had got in front of, pulled to a stop behind me. It was a white car and I instantly recognized the headlight signature as that of a Dodge Charger, which probably meant one thing, city cop.

My blinker was on and the car behind me put his on. I turned right and moved to the left turn lane in preparation for my next turn. Sure enough the white Charger followed in step and when he got in the left lane, he lit ’em up. I hung another left into the back parking lot of the quick oil change place there.

We were in the Miata with the top down and as the officer approached the car, Donna “helpfully” told him it was my birthday and it was her fault we were going this way as she forgot something at home. I think our LEO was more nervous than I was because as he tried to explain why he was pulling me over he was stumbling over his sentences and was a little confused as to where I came from when I got on Whiskey Rd. He did get out that the reason we were gathered here together was that when making a left turn onto a multi-lane road you should enter the leftmost lane first before moving into the right one.*

I handed him my license, insurance card and registration and as he walked back to his car he said, “If everything checks out OK, I’ll probably send you on your way.” Well, of course everything checked out, so our friendly young officer reiterated why he pulled my over, then explained he was just giving me a warning, which generated the piece of paper he was giving me. He then wished me a Happy Birthday, told me to drive safe and sent me on my way.

I blurred out my driver’s license number in the image above (I didn’t do any of the rest of the info as it is already readily available elsewhere on this site.) I did change the name of our police officer** and blurred out his badge number as well.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1424

*South Carolina Code of Laws, SECTION 56-5-2120. Required position and method of turning. Paragraph (b), Left turns … Whenever practicable the left turn shall be made to the left of the center of the intersection so as to leave the intersection or other location in the extreme left-hand lane lawfully available to traffic moving in the same direction as the vehicle on the roadway being entered. I’m guessing that if I was to get a ticket it would be for a violation of that bit of very confusing legalese. It is the only thing in the vehicle code that I can find that is remotely on point.

**to the first name that popped into my head, it’s from West Side Story in case you were wondering.

What Goes Around

The Sunday before last on our way to Palm City we stopped for lunch at a Carrabba’s in Jacksonville. Donna had a series of coupons from a newspaper awhile back that were 2 for $10 off two dinners and in the middle was a $5 off two lunch entrees. We thought we’d use the lunch coupon, but as it turns out, there is no lunch menu on Sunday. Not a problem, we could just use one of the $10 dinner coupons. Figuring we would not use the other dinner one before it expired, Donna gave it away to a couple that was at a table near us.

We usually come back from FLA and stop near Ocala which is about halfway home. This time, because the University of Florida had a home football game, the usual Hampton Inn we stay at for $98 was charging a hundred bucks more. So last Saturday and instead of coming back up the Turnpike like we usually do, we opted to go straight up I-95. This put the halfway point on the southeast side of Jacksonville’s outer loop. I found a Hampton Inn there for a mere $75. When we were checking in, Donna asked the lad behind the desk if there were any restaurants within walking distance. He mentioned three, one of which was a Carrabba’s.* Because Donna really likes their Mama Mandola’s Sicilian Chicken Soup and I’m easy, that is where we went for dinner. Guess we should have kept that other $10 dinner coupon.

It was a lot busier on a Saturday evening compared to a Sunday lunch, but fortunately it was still early enough that there wasn’t any real wait for a place to sit. We couldn’t get a booth of course, but ended up in a half booth right next to a family that had a baby in a stroller between their table and ours. We both thought to ourselves, “Uh oh,” but they had just got their check so we knew it would be OK. As they were leaving, the woman leaned over to Donna and handed her a piece of paper and asked if we wanted it. It was a coupon for $10 off two dinner entrees…

*Not the same one as last week, that was on the north side of town.

46,000 Floridians Waiting At A Light

The Purple Whale clicked past the 46,000 mile mark just before we got off I-95 to head into Palm City, Florida. This is about the fourth trip down to visit Donna’s sister in as many months and we are starting to get the hang of it. It is still a long dang trip, but each successive time it seems to get easier.

The part that we still despise is the side trip off the Interstate to get gas, snacks, a meal or a rest room break. Invariably there is a traffic signal at the end of the off-ramp with a No Turn On Red sign in which we have to wait 2 or 3 minutes to turn in our favor. Then we race 100 yards or so to be stopped at another light with the same or longer wait for the cross traffic left turns, the cross traffic straight across traffic, then we wait for our left turners before we can finally proceed. Sometimes we even have to wait through yet another light a 1/4 mile further down the road before we reach where we want to be. Then we repeat the process all over again to get back to the Interstate.

I think this adds at least 20 extra minutes on top of whatever time it takes to complete what we got off the highway for…

45,000 Cars A Hour

About 15 miles south of Jesup, GA the Purple Whale hit the 45,000 mile mark.

We were traveling north on US 301/GA 23 and if I would have taken a picture through the windshield, with the rear view mirror in the frame, it would have shown almost a mile of two lane road total, with zero other cars on any of it. As we traveled the 45 mile stretch between Folkston and Jesup (a few miles outside the city limits of both towns) we probably saw 2 other cars. Using totally made up calculus, I figure that works out to forty-five thousand cars travel on that road that way a month.

I probably would have taken that photo if I had though to take one using the same framing while Donna was driving on I-75 just north of Ocala, FL. All 6 lanes of the Interstate (3 in each direction) were stuffed with cars with usually nothing more than a car length between them. If you could have stood in the median so you could watch both flows of traffic and could count really, really fast I bet it would come out to be about 45,000 cars an hour.

Woo-Woo

Auto Train

On Friday night, just south of Ludowici, GA we were stopped by a train. Ohh, its an Amtrak train going north, it’ll be stopping in Denmark, SC soon. Hey, it’s one of the Auto Trains, it won’t be stopping until Lorton, VA. That is what my sunbird cousin uses when she transitions between Maine & Florida. By the time I get my camera out and turned on I almost missed getting a picture.

143,000 Cars On The Interstate

Destination - Dude Ranch

We started the drive home this morning from Ocala on I-75 with plans to make a little time and get off on to the back roads north of Lake City. Donna was driving and all three lanes were pretty full, so I started map perusing to look for a way off the Interstate earlier. We hated to have to drive thru Gainesville on surface streets, so she gutted it out until north of the home town of the University of Florida.

We have really been racking up the miles on the Miata with this whole Motoring Challenge thing, added another 1200 miles since last Thursday. The Emperor actually went over the 143,000 mile mark yesterday around Groveland, Florida, but I forgot to write about it yesterday. It seems like I forgot to write about when we went over the 142,000 mile mark too, but it probably had to be over the Memorial Day weekend…

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1376