Road Trip

Red Hot Pepper

Spent another day learning stuff that we’ll never use at GibbsCAM school. It was not a total waste, although we will never be doing exactly what we covered today, we may see something similar in the future. Plus he more we monkey with the program the better we get with the interface and will feel more comfortable using it. And a dull day at training beats a good day at work anytime.

Tonight after school we headed over to the Concord Mills mall area. After a brief shopping excursion into the Bass Pro Shop we headed over to Razzo’s Cajun Cafe for dinner. The food and atmosphere when we visited in October were so great we just had to make a return trip this time. We asked to sit in Madeline (our waitress from last time’s) section, but were told she didn’t work there anymore. Oh well, we were seated in a booth just two away from where we were seated before. The place was pretty quiet tonight compared to last time and our server turned out to be a red hot little number named Pepper. Mark and I would have enjoyed flirting more, if we were into young men. No kidding, the guy’s name was Pepper. He said he was named after a famous baseball player from St. Louis in the 30’s, Pepper Martin.

Even though our plan of getting Madeline to hold up a “I miss you Mark” sign and having her picture taken with us in the booth, to email back to the other Mark who was with us last time, was foiled, we are still planning a trip back to the restaurant in two weeks when we return for our last training session because the food is that good. We just won’t necessarily be asking to sit in Pepper’s section.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 19

Monday In Albemarle

Mark and I are off on another two-day training adventure in Albemarle, NC. We are saying in our usual Holiday Inn Express (Mmmm…Cinnamon Buns.) and this time I won’t be able to complain about the parking lot lights interfering with my beauty sleep. After my complaint at breakfast last trip, Mark cued me into the secret, ask for an odd numbered room. The odd numbers are on the backside of the hotel and face a patch of woods. Very dark.

Another plus about this trip was the drive up, I’m driving the Miata and in an effort to not get stuck in rush hour traffic in Charlotte, I charted a route that got us off I-77 about 30 miles south of the big city. It took us through a couple small towns (and a few really small burgs too) on the back roads. Even though the mileage was a little longer, we got to the hotel at about the same time as the earlier trips. As a bonus we were in Monroe, NC about 5:30 and found a Sagebrush Steakhouse to eat at. instead of having to wait until we got to Albemarle. The food was just as good as the one in Albemarle and the waitress here was a whole heck of a lot better than the one we had back in October.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 17

12 Hours

We left Stuart, FL at about 6:30 AM and we arrived in our driveway at 6:40 PM. That includes 2 meal breaks, lunch at a Hardee’s in Lake City (FL), dinner at Waffle House in Augusta, plus about a half dozen driver changes/leg stretches/potty breaks/refueling stops.

I’m sure we could know an hour or two off that time by taking the most direct route, but we hate I-95. There are always too many people going too fast, too close. We actually go west then east to get home and pay for the privilege. Florida Turnpike ($12.90 in tolls) to I-75 to somewhere north of Valdosta and then duck onto the two-lane GA state roads to get to Aiken. Yahoo maps says it is a mere 521 miles from Aiken to Stuart. I’m not sure how long the return trip was, it was a slight variation of the one down which totaled 640.2 miles, because I kept the total trip distance (1363.3) and didn’t pay attention to the 2 days worth of driving around down there. Now you wouldn’t think there would have been much mileage drive because we were visiting family and the motel we were staying at was less than 5 miles from the house, but you probably wouldn’t factor in a 45 mile round trip to see the sunrise over the Atlantic on Hutchinson Island with a trip to Ft. Pierce to eat at Dave’s Diner because it was rated one of the top 3 breakfast places on the Treasure Coast to go along with the last minute shopping trip.

We did start the trip out with the top down because it was 63 in Stuart this morning. We made it about 60-70 miles before the rains came. The rest of Florida was off and on rain, but by the time we got to Georgia the temps had cooled and with the cloud cover, we just left it up for the rest of the drive.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 390

Saturday In The Park

Saturday In The ParkNo state parks for Christmas Eve, but we did walk a few blocks from Sandy’s house to a small city park. The adults stood around chit-chatting while some nephews-in-law played in the sand and a niece related by vapor swung on the swings.

That night the kids were going to open one gift after Uncle Paul read them Clement Clarke Moore’s “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” Donna and Brian were going to open a couple because they weren’t going to be there Christmas morning, but one of the relations (who likes to be the center of attention and in charge of everything) proceeded to hand out gift after gift after gift until the tree was empty underneath. Oh well, at least “Santa’s” gifts to the kiddies were in another room, so they would have some surprises in the morning.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 388

33,000 Orange Trees

33,000 Orange TreesToday’s State Park of the Day was Lake Louisa in Florida. There was no fancy lodge for lunch like yesterday, but there were a few hiking trails available for a walk. We didn’t walk any because we were pressed for time, but we did drive around and check the whole place out. A nice oasis of nature not too far from Orlando.

Somewhere around the state park driving through endless miles of orange groves, the Emperor passed the 33,000 mile mark. It was exactly a week ago that it went by 32,000. The miles can really mount up when you are having fun

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 386

Lake City, Where?

Lake City, Where?When Donna and I planned this little Holiday trip we decide to take two days down and one back up. To pick a place to stay that was about half way I used the scientific method of stretching my finger from Point Aiken to Point Stuart and looked at a spot about half-way for the overnight stay, unfortunately that point was in the middle of the Okefenokee Swamp. Went a little past half, to make the second day’s driving easier, and settled on Lake City, FL. Made a reservation at the Holiday Inn Express there and started counting down the days until I would get a cinnamon bun for breakfast.

After we had eaten lunch and gone for a hike in the Little Ocmulgee State Park, Donna took out the reservation sheet for the Holiday Inn Express and went to check the directions to get there. For the life of her, no matter how hard she looked, she couldn’t find US52 nor US378 anywhere near Lake City, FL. It was then that she noticed the address on the reservation confirmation I had printed out, Lake City, SC. At first I thought it had to be a misprint, but then I noticed the hotel’s phone number and sure enough I recognized it as a SC area code. DOH!

Got on the cell phone and called Lake City, SC and canceled my reservation. Asked the clerk there to give me the phone number of the Holiday In Express in Lake City, FL. There was not an Express, but there was a plain ol’ Holiday Inn, with a vacancy, so we reserved a night there. I wasn’t going to get my cinnamon bun, but at least we would be staying in a room on the way to Stuart, FL not 300 miles away in the wrong direction.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 384

30,000 Orange Barrels

30,000 Orange BarrelsOn last night’s trip up to the mountains to spend the night, there was construction on US441 between Clayton and Dillard, GA. We must have past 30,000 of those orange construction barrels as the Emperor past through the 30,000 mile mark.

Yesterday morning I washed the car because we had a MMC event in the early afternoon. This was our Senior Drive. One of the Club members is the Administrator of the Elmcroft Assisted Living Center in Martinez. He and I concocted a scheme in which the Club would come over and take the residents who wanted to go on a top down Miata drive instead of their usual Saturday 8-passenger van ride. We had a perfect day for it too, lower 70’s and a cloudless blue sky. We had 5 cars and 5 passengers for the first trip and when 4 more people showed up, we did a second slightly shorter trip for them. The one fellow who I drove was so appreciative that I was embarrassed by it. This is definitely an item we should do at least once a year.

When we got up this morning in the north of Georgia it was in the lower 30’s and there was a layer of frost covering the car. We wimped out for the first couple of hours of driving. The leaves didn’t cooperate in the whole picturesque, blazing fall color, Norman Rockwell painting we had hoped to see, but you take what you can get and we got extremely patchy color. We even did a 20-mile segment of the Blue Ridge Parkway in hopes, but the colorful vistas never materialized. There was one short stretch of NC 215 coming down off the parkway that in a matter of minutes we went from bare trees to patchy color to green. Never the less we had a wonderful time in our 24 hours of the mountains. We got in a night away from home, a short hike in the woods, a look at a beautiful twin waterfall and miles of twisty roads.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/05: 343