Road Trip

The Hat

While on a road trip, an elderly couple stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch. After finishing their meal, they left the restaurant and resumed their trip.

When leaving, the elderly woman unknowingly left her glasses on the table. And, she didn’t miss them until after they had been driving about twenty minutes. By then, to add to the aggravation, they had to travel quite a distance before they could find a place to turn around in order to return to the restaurant to retrieve her glasses.

All the way back, the elderly husband became the classic grouchy old man. He fussed and complained and scolded his wife relentlessly during the entire return drive. The more he chided her, the more agitated he became. He just wouldn’t let up one minute.

To her relief, they finally arrived at the restaurant and as the woman got out of the car and hurried inside to retrieve her glasses, the old man yelled to her, “While you’re in there, you might as well get my hat.”

Back Home II

As promised, the lowlights:

  • Friday Morning: Spray painted graffiti on Georgia’s Stonhenge.
  • Friday Mid-day: Road construction in Clarksville, GA kicking up clouds of dust that settle on our cars as we eat lunch.
  • Friday Night: The mostly crummy meal served for dinner at The Sweet Magnolia Caf? in Robbinsville.
  • Saturday Early Morning: The continental breakfast at the Microtel.
  • Saturday Mid-Day: The freakin’ traffic in Gatlingburg, TN.
  • Saturday Afternoon: Some members of our group holding up a rice rocket longer than they needed to while transiting the Gap.
  • Saturday Night: Driving 49.7 miles on the Cherohala Skyway to dinner in Townsend, TN (although to be fair this can also be listed as a highlight.)
  • Sunday Morning: A crowded drive with straight piped Harley cruisers and old folks on the way to church through Maggie Valley on Hwy 19/74.
  • Sunday Mid-day: Meeting my sister and her husband at their Asheville hotel to find out they just got water restored after the flooding from T.S. Frances.
  • Sunday Afternoon: The drive home always seems so long…

Comet Gestation Counter: 48 days

Back Home

Great trip, here are the highlights:

  • Friday Morning: Oddball side stop on the way up at Georgia’s Stonhenge.
  • Friday Mid-day: Lunch at Zanzos in Clarksville, GA. Great Italian food in an unexpected place.
  • Friday Night: 2 clean runs through the gap, out and back. First time that has happened in 3 or 4 years and if we had gone home immediately afterwards the trip would have been worth it.
  • Saturday Early Morning: 2 nearly clean runs. About 8 miles out of a possible 11 before being temporarily slowed for some motorcycles. Nearly similar result for the trip back.
  • Saturday Mid-Day: Carnitas at No Way Jose’s in Gatlingburg, TN.
  • Saturday Afternoon: Coming back to Robbinsville through the gap, this time with a little more traffic, but sometimes it takes a slower drive through to appreciate the sights outside the yellow lines…
  • Saturday Evening: A Cherohala Skyway scenic overlook with the slowly setting sun as a backdrop on the way to dinner in Townsend, TN.
  • Saturday Night: That same Cherohala Skyway scenic overlook with the field of stars spread across the night sky with a background of the milky way overhead on the way back.
  • Sunday Morning: A nice lonely drive on the normally crowded Hwy 19/74 through the Nantahala Gorge on newly resurfaced asphalt.
  • Sunday Mid-day: A meatloaf sandwich at Cracker Barrel.
  • Sunday Afternoon: Home unscathed except for the layer of dirt, brake dust and insects on the car.

Tomorrow, the lowlights…

Comet Gestation Counter: 47 days

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