Road Trip

New Britain 3

By a NoseOr 61,000 Carousel Horses.

Today we all piled into two cars and headed over a couple towns to Bristol and visited the Carousel Museum. I am not as big a fan of carousels as others in the group, but it was a very interesting couple hours, mostly due to our guide. She was only two years out of high school, but her knowledge and interest in the subject as well as a natural way with us, John Q. Public, made the subject almost exciting.

This evening Donna and I went over to catch up with a boyhood chum and his wife who we hadn’t seen in a while. We had a good time catching up on the events of the distant and recent past. Unfortunately a lot of the discussion centered around the foibles of our being upper middle-aged.

The Emperor clicked over to exactly 61,000 miles as I pulled into the hotel parking lot tonight.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 249

New Britain

Monkey on a WireWashington DC to New Britain, CT. We were on the road by 8:00AM and leaving DC on the GW Parkway is a treat. Nice quiet tree lined road that I’m sure is busier at other times, but on Sunday morning is almost lonely. Traffic didn’t really pick up until we got into Delaware, by NJ it was massive. Ten lanes of Turnpike, five each direction, were filled with travelers. The Garden State Parkway was busy as well until we got north of Passaic. Fortunately there were no incidents or accidents to bring things to a standstill.

Once we were across the Tappan Zee Bridge we got off the highways and started driving the byways. But first we stopped in Tarrytown and got a slice of pizza. It was lunch time, but it didn’t matter we wanted some pizza, every time we come up here we try and eat pizza at least every three days, because to quote my sister, “The south may be friendly and have good BBQ, they don’t know pizza.” Fortunately for us pizza joints in the northeast are as prevalent as drive-thru espresso places in the northwest, i.e. on every corner.

No waterfall picture today. As a matter of fact I didn’t take a single picture, so for your enjoyment, here is one from yesterday’s visit to the National Zoo. They have set up some high lines between several points in the zoo and the orangutans have the freedom to roam them. Just don’t stand directly under the wires….

Started up, went down, back up, down again, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 239

Washington DC 2

Lemur Island Today the three of us visited the National Zoo. It is just a $1.40 Metro ride from the station near our hotel/Sally’s apartment. We got there around 9:00AM and just walked right in. Cool, my (and your) tax dollars at work. Maps of the zoo are free, but there is a mandatory $1 donation. Stroller rental is free, but there is a mandatory $11 donation.

After three hours we had seen about 90% of the place and what was once cool and sparsely attended had became hot and crowded. Time to go. When we got off the train back in Rosslyn we had lunch at a Red, Hot and Blue BBQ place just up the street. The rest of the afternoon was spent at rest nursing the blisters on our feet. Because lunch was bigger than we expected, when the three of got together at Sally’s place for the evening meal it was just cheese, fruit and crackers.

Tomorrow it is off to Connecticut. My Mom’s Obituary was in today’s New Britain paper.

A couple of catch-up items from the trip that I forgot to blog about on their respective days:

1. Wednesday in Asheville After dinner we went to a Marble Slab Creamery for dessert. Whenever I get ice cream I always get some sort of coffee flavored dish. I also love malted milk balls, but when combined as ice cream and a mixin they subtract from each other’s deliciousness. Note to self, don’t do that again.
2. Thursday on the way to Salem The Emperor passed through the 60,000 mile mark.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 235

Washington DC

Wigwam FallsSalem, VA to Washington DC. Fifty miles on the Interstate, and then 60 miles on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Then 100 miles on US 29 before finishing up on I-66. The last 30 miles into DC was very busy with two slow downs to crawl speed before we go onto city streets and started to hunt our hotel.

We checked in and called Sally. We met at her apartment where a plan was formulated: dinner and a jazz concert at the Capitol. We dined at the Asian Kitchen just around the corner. After a brief pit stop at our respective rooms for the proper shoes, we started to walk over to DC. Hey, the Capitol is just on the other side of the big pointy monument. It was a nice night for a walk and it was a good thing because by my rough measuring on a map it is about 5 miles from where we started. The concert start time was 8:00 PM and when we got close to the Capitol we didn’t here any music. When we finally made it at 8:30 we saw them taking down the signs announcing the event and loading them on a bus. They called it because it might rain. We took the Metro back.

Today’s waterfall, Wigwam, was a mere pup at 30′ compared to the past two days, but the walk to it was a piece of cake, about a hundred yards off the parkway.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 235

Salem

Cranberry FallsAsheville, NC to Salem, VA. We got up this morning and drove down the road a piece to get on the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Parkway is a little busy in the mornings. I think that is because Ashevllians use it to commute from the southwest side of town to the northeast, or vice versa, because there are no lights. So what if you can’t go 70 MPH like on I-240, there are no trucks or merging traffic every mile, just a tree lined, windy 45 MPH cruise.

We stopped at the Folk Life Center just outside of town to get a map of the Parkway, but we were way early because they didn’t open until 9:00AM. So we took a little stroll on a nature path. When that left us still 10 minutes until opening, we got in the car and left. Forty miles later we stopped at the Crabtree Meadows facility to get that map and a Coke. Turns out there is a trail right there for a short hike to the Crabtree Falls. It is a loop, with one segment to the falls listed at .9 miles and the other being 1.6 miles. What they don’t mention is that it is a half-mile to the beginning of the loop. We took the shorter path to the falls and boy was it interesting, steep, rocky, and full of roots and all downhill. The 70′ falls were definitely worth the walk though and seemed taller than yesterday’s 90′ Pearson’s Falls. We hiked back the long way and that is the way to do it, the trail was a whole lot less rocky and because it was longer, it was less steep.

When we got back to the car after our 3-1/2 mile hike, we looked at the clock, looked at the map and decided that our best option was to go get something to eat at the “Snack Bar” right there. The food wasn’t the greatest, but it was better than the other option, drive 20 miles further on the Parkway, get off and drive 20 miles to Morganton, VA. When we finally did get in the car to start moving again, Donna remarked that we had so far gone 40 miles in 4 hours. With still 200 to go to our destination, we had better get cracking.

The Blueridge Parkway is a beautiful drive and a national treasure, but you can’t be in a hurry. We drove another 65 miles before we couldn’t take the slow pace any more and exited at Deep Gap. Sixty miles of US and State highways lead us to I-81 for the last 70 miles to Salem, VA.

Salem was chosen, like Asheville last night, for the presence of a minor league baseball team and like last night, we didn’t attend the game. By the time we got to the hotel it was 6:00PM and with the game starting at 7 there was no way we could eat and make the start. Plus we were tuckered out from the long day in the car and the strenuous hike to the waterfall. Donna wanted seafood so we found a place not too far from the hotel called Awful Arthurs. It is a local 3-location chain and while the food was not actually awful it was certainly not worth the $40 it cost the two of us to eat there.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 233

Asheville

Pearson's Falls, Saluda, NCAiken, SC to Asheville, NC. We stopped and mopped up a half dozen PO’s that we didn’t get to when we were in the Greenville area two weekends ago. Boy did we ever take the circular route to them too. We got turned around at the start in the search for the Furman Post Office and I’m not sure we knew where we were most of the time, but we still managed to get all of them.

We chose Asheville as a destination partially because we like the town and we also planned on attending a Tourists baseball game. When we got here we decided we didn’t want to go to the game after all. After the no attendance at Greenville we have come to the conclusion that we don’t know that we like attending minor league games anymore.

We ended up downtown to get dinner. There were two restaurants that we remembered from previous visits that we wanted to eat at. The choice would depend on the availability of parking near them. First up was Tupelo Honey. It is near a small park that seems to have been taken over by Asheville’s homeless population since our last visit. Fortunately there was no parking close to the restaurant, I wouldn’t have felt comfortable leaving the top down there for fear people would rifle through the interior like any other street side trash can. We had better luck at Doc Chey’s, a truck was just leaving from across the street and it freed up two primo parking spots.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 229

59,000 Raindrops

Litle FenwayAlternate Title: Down on the Farm.

The Single-A farm in Greenville, South Carolina. The Drive are affiliated with the FRS and to show the love, last year they opened a new stadium with the same dimensions as Fenway Park in Beantown (including a 30′ high Green Monster with manual scoreboard.

Because we are traveling we are eating out. Breakfast with the MMC at the Sunrise Grill in North Augusta. The joint we were supposed to meet at at 7:00 AM had changed their opening hour from seven to eight recently leaving us locked out in an empty parking lot. No worries mate, we just moved the show a 1/4 mile up the street. Half a waffle and two eggs for her, western omelette with home fries for me. I had a cup of joe and she had a hot chocolate.

Meal Cost: $15.63
Tip: $3.00
This Meal: $18.53

Lunch at a Cracker Barrel in Greenville. I had the spicy grilled catfish sandwich on sourdough and Donna had a bowl of tortilla soup. One iced tea, one water to drink and guess who had what.

Meal Cost: $13.25
Tip: $3.00
This Meal: $16.25

Dinner at the ballpark. $5 a piece tip to the Maitre De got us in the door (AKA General Admission tickets.) Nachos for her, Italian sausage for him. Diet DP for him, bottled water for her. We split an 8-pack of chicken nuggets a little later.

Meal Cost: $16.00
Tip: None
Spent Today: $50.78
Year to Date: $1314.32
Meals out, 73 of a possible 498.

The game was supposed to start at 7:00 PM, but it was probably still pouring down rain at that time. The rain did stop and the game started at 7:30. We entered the stadium at 6:00 when they opened the gates and after eating and taking shelter, by the time the game started we had had enough. From the way the skies looked we were sure it was going to rain some more any minute, so we left. Seeing as the rain showers were scattered we opted to drive around Greenville and take some of the PO pictures we were going to do tomorrow. Ended up doing all of them (that we could find.) There is one on the Furman campus according to USPS.com, but we didn’t see it.

At the last one of the night, a CPU in an ACE Hardware store, the odometer read exactly 59,000 miles.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down once more, up yet again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 203