Road Trip

Travel Plans

Donna and I are driving up north to Connecticut for my Mom’s birthday starting the 27th. Our itinerary (so far) is as follows:Thursday, Aiken, SC to Brevard, NCFriday, Brevard, NC to Lexington, VASaturday, Lexington, VA to Cumberland, MDSunday, Cumberland, MD to Williamsport, PAMonday, Williamsport, PA to New Britain, CTTuesday, Wednesday, New Britain, CTThursday, New Britain, CT to ???Friday, ??? to ???Saturday, ??? to Aiken, SC. So if you live anywhere near these places and you see a Garnet Red Miata zip by, it is probably us.

Burglar Note: Donna’s Mom is not traveling with us and she keeps a shotgun near her bed (with the safety off.)

We’re Back

Two major events over the last 4 days to report:1) It has only taken 5 months for me to realize I can’t see very well close up. Way back when I had a the Splash Green loaner, I wrote about The Good, The Bad & The Ugly and under Bad #3 I mentioned that the speedo was calibrated in 2MPH increments between the major numbers making it hard to know how fast I was going. Today on the trip home while trying to set the cruise control at 65 I noticed that it wasn’t in the center. Upon closer inspection I realized that there are only 3 ticks, not four, between every 10 mile per hour mark. Doh!2) File this one under ugly. The night we left I slightly misjudged the location of a curb and drove right across the corner of one in a Hardee’s parking lot. The front tire went up and over and when it went back down I hit the bottom of the car hard on the curb and then the back tire went up and over. Big thud! I managed to slightly bend over the 1/4″ thick seam that sticks down along the outside edge of the car. Didn’t hit the red painted portion of the body, just the flat black area.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho, It’s Off To HHI We Go

Time to go pack the trunk with our custom fitted luggage for the weekend get away to Hilton Head Island. It is a semi-working trip as Saturday morning I will taking condo interior photos so the web site can get updated some. Hope to snap a couple new Post Office pictures for that gallery on the trip too.

Picked up the framed new caricature tonight. I’m going to hang it on the same wall as the old one. They are going in a vertical arrangement and I can’t figure out which one I should put on top. Should it be the new one as the top would be considered a position of dominance, or should the new one go in the lower position as that is more eye-level? Stay tuned….

I really should be out with the California Duster and/or Quik Detailer erasing the pine pollen dust off the car in prep for the trip, but instead I sit here typing away.

Quiet Splendor Of The Forest

Up at dawn for the road trip to northern Georgia, again. This time we were with another couple in another Miata to go almost exactly where we were last weekend. We even used the same route we took home last Sunday to get there. Destination was Amicalola Falls State Park. we were parking our cars and then hiking a 5 mile trail to Len Foote Hike Inn where we would spend the night in the quiet splendor of the forest.

It is a fairly easy hike, mostly up, but some down too. We got a slightly early start as there was rain predicted for the late afternoon. We were prepared for rain (stuff packed in plastic bags, etc.) but just really didn’t want to get soaked. The rain didn’t come until around 7 PM and when it did arrive it wasn’t torrential. The best part was the lighting and thunder show. After dinner a lot of us gathered on the porches surrounding the various wings of the inn and enjoyed show. It was nearly dark and the lighting was going off all around us on different peaks surrounding us. As if arranged just for us, the evening’s entertainment finale consisted of a criss-crossing of almost the entire eastern sky with cobweb of lightning streaks. Almost if there was a cause and effect relationship between them, after the lightning a rainbow appeared against the gray sky backdrop. Because there is no TV and heaven forbid, no Internet, we were in bed by 9:30.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $156.58
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 69

100 Best Road Trips In America

The people who write directions for books, obviously don’t have someone other than themselves drive it and try it out before publication. We were trying to follow the directions in a book from Reader’s Digest entitled 100 Best Road Trips In America through northern Georgia. We missed a few turns. No real problem as we are on vacation with no real deadlines, but frustrating nonetheless. Found a couple of the highlights, drove by a couple and skipped the rest when it got too hot to keep the top down any longer. On arrival in Chattanooga we circled the downtown area a couple of times looking for the Holiday Inn Choo-Choo Hotel. Finally we double parked in front of the Visitor’s Center and asked. Oops, no wonder we couldn’t find it, either they moved the hotel and train 8 blocks north or our memory of the location was faulty.

Big Game Miss

Rainy morning-top up, cloudy afternoon-top down. Went shopping tonight and the rain was still hit or missing our fair city, so while inside the store we put it up. Good thing it wasn’t raining when we came out as the leaf blower box wouldn’t fit in the trunk, so it went on the back behind the seats.

As you can tell from the tone of this that we didn’t hit the Big Game last night. When Donna checked the numbers this morning she commented, “Doesn’t even look like we were playing the same game.” But that is OK as nobody else won it either. I sense another road trip tomorrow as the jackpot is estimated at $200 million. If we win that – Miata SEs for everybody!

Started down, went up, back down, back up, and down again, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 83