Road Trip

We’re Sorry Rudy & Patti

Charleston AquariumAlternate title: We Drove All The Way Here For That?

We have the week off and the plan is to go see Donna’s sister and family in Palm City, FL for Thanksgiving. Originally we were going to leave on Saturday and take the real slow way down, but then friends from the MMC decided to hold their wedding reception on Sunday (they got hitched in Vegas a couple weeks ago), so we postponed leaving until Monday morning to take the just plain slow way down.

Well, we did OK on Saturday, but by this morning the call of the road was too great. At 7:30AM we got out of bed, by 8:45 we were packed and on our way. Sorry Rudy & Patti, we’ll give you our wedding gifts next week at the MMC Holiday Party, hopefully you’ll be able to end up with them after the swaperoo gift exchange.

Breakfast at the New Moon and then US78 East, destination Charleston and it’s aquarium which opened in 2000 and we have yet to visit. I had checked the SC Aquarium’s web page for times and ticket prices, but neglected to get directions. How hard can it be? Bound to be signs directing visitors to it when coming into town, right? Wrong. After driving around town in frustration we decided to head out of town on I-26 and see if we could find a sign for it or a visitor’s center. Nope. After about 10 miles we got off at an exit and turned back around towards Charleston. Guess what? There are signs directing you to the aquarium if you come into the city on the Interstate.

Of the half dozen or so major aquariums Donna and I have visited this one ranks at the bottom. It was nice and all, but the big tank wasn’t that interesting and all the side exhibits didn’t really flow right. Everything seemed small, except for the gift shop, and some of the best things about the aquarium were the outside overlooks facing the new Cooper River bridge and the USS Yorktown at Patriot’s Point.

After our aquarium visit we walked the 6-8 blocks down to Market St and the main touristy section of town for a late lunch. The first place we came to was the Noisy Oyster and in we went. The food was good and it might b worth another visit if we ever get back this way just to see if they can get the food uniformly hot.

Our drive out of town was similar to the drive in as we made several wrong turns before finding our was back to I-26. I could have sworn Donna said she wanted to see the Citadel…

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 469

I’ve Fallen Off The Wagon

Garnet, SC 29922I’ve been driving by a lot of cute little ones lately. They have been calling out to me, “Take my picture. Take my picture. Come on, you know I’m cute. The light is right and the car is clean. What are you waiting for?” We have driven by this little Post Office numerous times on our trips to, and from, Hilton Head and every time I see it I note the name and it’s correlation to the Emperor’s “official” color name. And every time I see it I am tempted to stop. This time I did. A Garnet Red Mica Miata in front of the Garnett, SC 29922 Post Office.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 449

POS Racing Fan Club

POSAfter breakfast in the condo Donna and I drove over to Roebling Road Raceway outside of Savannah, GA to see a couple of friends race in an SCCA Solo1 event.

John is a heck of a driver that I hate following through the twisty roads on MMC events, because I know if I try and keep up with him I’ll end up getting in trouble. On the road he drives with what seems like abandon, but he always keeps in on the pavement. On the track he is a terror and usually once an event he manages to find the dirt, but he still has wrapped up first place in the southeast region in the CSP class. The car he drives, and consequently the race team, was christened by his wife the day he brought the well used red early model Miata home from the dealer, POS (and I’m betting you can figure what those three initials stand for.) After these last few years POS now has an alternate nickname, the Money Pit. Hey, it keeps John off the streets, literally.

Today when we got to the track John made me an honorary pit crew member by giving me a ball cap embroidered with the words POS Racing and a small red Miata complete with his car number in the white meatball on the door. I’m not sure if you get to pick your own number, but John’s is 54 and I wonder if it has anything to do with his propensity to leave the track and Officers Toody & Muldoon.

When we got back from watching racing this afternoon I changed the oil and rotated the tires on the Emperor. At 48,840 the car was about at the halfway point between Mazda’s recommended service points of 45,000 and 52,500.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 446

48,000 Leaves

OverlookThat is the average leaf count on a mature maple tree* and coincidentally, the mileage the Emperor passed on the way to to meet the participants of the MMC Leaf Peeping Expedition. Over 400 miles and 11 hours later we are home and just a little tuckered out.

We had pretty much the average turn out for our club on an event recently, 3 cars. I threatened to cancel if at least 4 cars didn’t show up, but that was an empty boast as my navigator told me that even if we were the only car we we going on the run. The six of us devoured enough breakfast at the Cracker Barrel to sustain us for a week in the Amazon before setting out in search of chlorophyll challenged leaves. The first 11 miles were Interstate, but after we got to two-lane blacktop 2/3 of the tops folded down. The sun was just beginning to peek over the tree tops and the temps were in the low 60’s so the windows and wind blockers were still up.

After our first pit stop and because one couple had yet to experience them, we made a stop at the Georgia Guidestones, AKA the American Stonehenge. The journey then continued up the eastern edge of Georgia. A quick dip into SC before ending up at Black Mountain State Park back in north Georgia. Two years ago when we did this trip with the Club we were about two weeks late and the vistas were of a uniform brown. This time we hit at just about peak and the mountains were very colorful.

Lunch was at the renown Dillard House just up the road from the state park. The six of us devoured enough food at lunch to sustain us on a circumnavigation of the globe. After eating we took a winding road to Highlands, NC where we lost one car to shopping in the downtown. Donna and I, along with, the appropriately named Autumn and Dave, gassed up and headed down the mountain and back into SC.

Highway 28 from Highlands back to the flatlands is a great Miata road full of twists and turns and all manner of decreasing radius bends. I won’t mention any names, but one of this crew really regretted the amount of food they consumed at lunch. About halfway through the good stuff we came up on a Mazda Tribute (the mini-SUV) who obliviously didn’t get zoom-zoom memo. He was going around the turns so slow we could have passed him on a skateboard. With no place to really pass and with two cars to boot we played whip with him for about 20 miles, alternately slowing way down letting him get a “big” head start and then charging back at a more appropriate Miata speed.

Awesome trip, but a long day, so I’m glad we only do it once a year.

* Oh yeah, I made that leaf count statistic up so it would fit the car’s mileage.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 436

Best Laid Plans

On our drive up to the upstate the fall colors ranged from none, to some, back to none, into really great to just a touch. My plan to take a picture of the car with a vivid fall backdrop was forgotten because the only time the leaves were what I might be looking for was in the middle of the drive up into the mountains at the NC border and I was busy driving like a mad man to even think about stopping for a photo op. This is usually how it works on our trips to the mountains, the really good scenery is reduced to a blur and not captured photographically as it unfortunately falls during the best sports car driving segments.

Tomorrow morning it is supposed to be raining, so depending on how long it looks like it will continue, we may forgo further leaf peeping and just head for home. Either way there will probably be no picture taking tomorrow either.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 429

RAT TOES!

Thanks to the cloudy day we managed to keep the top down the whole way from Aiken to Chesterfield. We had a nice visit with Donna’s aunt, cousin and spouse of cousin. The cousins had just this year retired from the New Jersey, actually eastern PA, rat race and moved to South Carolina. After getting a tour of the new house we settled in for some reminiscing. We thought for lunch we could all go into downtown Chesterfield and find a nice local restaurant to eat at. But apparently dining options are limited in the town of 1,338, so lunch was had at the local Subway.

After lunch we said goodbye and instead of turning left and heading home we went right and headed north to Concord, NC. That’s right, Razzoo’s for dinner. The wait for a table was 15 minutes, but definitely worth it, although after we were seated we couldn’t figure out why the wait because there were still plenty of empty tables and it looked like there was plenty of wait staff. Speaking of servers, my buddy Mark asked me to pat ours on the butt because everyone of the females that ever waited on us were very young and attractive. I think Mark thought I would get in trouble with my wife if I did, well the joke is on him. It didn’t bother Donna at all, but Spence was a little weirded out by it.

I had Rat Toes for appetizer (I saved you 3 Mark) and Donna got the Crawdaddy Fondue Dip. For dinner we split a Li’l Side Salad and the Cajun Combo Skillet. We were so full we skipped desert…for about 60 minutes. After we got back to the hotel we walked across the street to a Sonic for a Sundae and a Blast.

In an effort to burn off a portion, a very small portion, of the calories consumed at Razzoo’s we risked life and limb walking across the huge parking lot from the restaurant to the Concord Mills Mall. We then risked our charge card balance by walking all the way around the 1.4 million square foot shopping mall. We actually showed some restraint there, I bought the movie Grand Prix on DVD at FYE and Donna bought a couple of bracelets at a kiosk called Be Unique.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 279

“Small” Car

Somehow the other day I got in a discussion about the Dodge Caliber with my current cubicalmate and summer hire. He told me it was a small car. I told him he was nuts, I had seen one in a motel parking lot on Donna and my last road trip. It was parked right next to a last generation Mustang and the Caliber seemed to dwarf the ‘Stang. From my vantage point, a second story balcony, it looked taller, wider and longer. I countered with, “The Neon, the car the Caliber is replacing was a small car.” Adam countered with, “The Caliber is smaller than the Neon.” The gauntlet was thrown down. Off to the internet for some research.

The following are from Automotive.com:
2005 Dodge Neon
– Overall length (inches): 174.4, overall width (inches): 67.4, overall height (inches): 56, wheelbase (inches): 105, cargo volume (cu. ft.): 13.1 trunk, curb weight (lbs) 2,582.
2007 Dodge Caliber
– Overall length (inches): 173.8, overall width (inches): 68.8, overall height (inches): 60.4, wheelbase (inches): 103.7, cargo volume (cu. ft.): 18.5 w/seats up, curb weight (lbs) 2,996
2004 Ford Mustang
– Overall length (inches): 183.2, overall width (inches): 73.1, overall height (inches): 53.2, wheelbase (inches): 101.3, curb weight (lbs) 3,254

Boy do I feel like a fool, somewhat. The Caliber’s length and wheelbase is shorter than the Neon, but it is 1-1/2″ wider and nearly 4″ taller with 5 more cubic feet of storage (35 if you fold the back seats down.) The only thing bigger about the Caliber over the Mustang is height. Must have been parallax error or maybe too many refreshment from the mini-bar.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 273