Sonata Mileage

41,000 Something Or Others

I apologize, I usually have some sort of cute total of something that may or may not have happened on the day when a car in possession passes through a thousand mile increment, but today I have none. Today after work Donna and I drove both cars to West Columbia and passing through Wagener on the drive there the Purple Whale ticked past the 41,000 mile mark.

The Emperor is going to a warrior’s retreat and hanging with a bunch of Miata race cars for the next few days. The folks at Panic Motorsports have agreed to see if they can get rid of his annoying 1st gear standing start random stumble.

I can’t swear to it, but this little foible seemed to start not long after the 125,000 mile major service about 2-1/2 years ago. At first it was very random, it didn’t seem to matter whether the weather was hot or cold, if it was day or night or even if the car was warmed up or not, but its happening was few and far between. Then the Sonata joined the family and the Miata got driven less, so the little stumble was even less frequent. As time progressed it became more frequent in rearing its ugly head, I became more adept at sensing its arrival and compensating by slipping the clutch and goosing the gas to to avoid bucking at standing starts. I started considering the stumble part of the car’s patina, a bit of character that is the hallmark of owning a true sports car.

For the last few months it was still random, but it was much more frequent, so I finally opted to have an expert look at it. A couple of weeks ago I called Steve at Panic and worked out a time that was amenable to the both of us and of course, since then, the Emperor has been acting up less. Only happened a couple of times on the Savannah trip this weekend and only once today, at the DD drive thru, but it still needed looking at, so look here.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1303

40,000 Ghostly Images of Old Florida

We are on our way to visit Donna’s sister and her family and my snowbird cousin for a couple of days. Because we will drive back on Sunday on mostly Interstate we are taking two days to drive down on mostly back roads. On today’s drive we came into Florida and took aim half way between Lake City and Jacksonville where we found some small town’s and uncrowded back roads.

We originally planned on driving the Miata and doing some more Motoring Challenge photos, but the weather was supposed to be crappy today and then again Sunday for the drive home, so we opted to take the Sonata for the trip. Turns out there were some towns, counties and photo ops that would have been good for the challenge, but they were mostly mid-Georgia, so we filed them away for a weekend in the future.

Somewhere near the small town of Orange Springs the Purple Whale eased by the 40,000 mile mark. Tonight we are in a new HIE in Silver Springs. While this section of town is too full of modern amenities to be considered Old Florida, once inside our dinner spot we were thrown back in time. The Denny’s was located inside a Days Inn and it was filled with characters from Central Casting, including; a really old man alone at a table wearing shorts, sandals with black socks, a Veterans of Foreign Wars ball cap with large-lensed sunglasses who was chewing with his mouth open and eyeballing us because we didn’t belong, a skinny androgynous African-American who spoke on his cell phone loudly in a high-pitched stereotypical gay queen manner, plus the cook teasing a couple of regulars were they going to eat or were they here for the paranormal meeting.

I thought she was just joking, but when we used the restroom before walking back to our hotel, right next to them was a “banquet room” that was shared by Denny’s and the Days Inn and it was all set up for Investigating the Paranormal with Carolynn and Carla.

39,000 Falling Tree Limbs

We went to bed last night with power, but at 1:30 in the morning I awoke to silence, the power was off again. Getting back to sleep took awhile because of the sound of falling stuff. There was the light crack and rattle of bushes covered in ice falling over and then there was the groan followed by a loud crack as tree limbs plummeted to the ground. A couple of times the tree limb’s progress to earth were interrupted by our roof with a loud thud and a rumble, rumble as they rolled off.

So far we have escaped with only minor damage considering the size of the limbs falling. In the second picture the dark line above the windows in the sided area is from where a limb hit the gutter on the way down and bent it. In the third picture on the left side is a pile of branches that landed on our wire fence between yards, crushing it in the middle. And the branch laying on the ground in front of the garbage can dragged its end down along the wall in that area and broke a bunch a pieces of siding on its fall.

By late morning we were getting cold, the temperature in the house read 57, we picked up our friend Joan who was in the same situation and slowly drove around Aiken looking for something open. There were a few places that looked open but they weren’t really, just employees inside stranded from getting to their homes from the last shift. We were a half hour early for the Golden Corral being opened, but by the time it did it would have been over run by all the folks out cruising like us. We went back to Joan’s house where she packed a bag, then to our house were we did the same and I got on US78 and headed west.

We finally got our hot lunch in Branchville, SC at a Chinese restaurant. They didn’t have electricity, but their gas burners were going and the three of us each had an egg roll and split some fried rice and chicken and broccoli. The little hole in the wall was unheated and the steam was rising off the food as we ate, but the three of us agreed it was the best Chinese food we had ever had. It really wasn’t until we hit I-95 about 20 miles later that the trees painted white with a coating of ice and sagging started to thin out.

We tried a couple of hotels at the first two exits but we were not the only one’s escaping the ice and they were already filled. The Emperor passed the 39,000 mile mark somewhere on I-95 south on the way to our final destination, a HIE in Hardeeville, SC.

38,000 Flashing Lights

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eu3kKd9-vI

This is my first video uploaded to YouTube. Go watch it a hundred times OK? Next, I need to figure out how to add some cheesy Christmas music.

We left Hendersonville early this morning to avoid the really nasty line of storms marching their way east. For the first dozen miles or so it looked like we didn’t make it. But once we got down the hill in South Carolina the dense fog cleared and took the heavy rain with it. We drove through some light rain on and off for the middle third of the drive, but last third, while cloudy, was dry.

Just north of Greenwood the Emperor passed through the 38,000 mile mark.

37,000 Creeping Cars

House Of Refuge
Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge No. 2

We started our drive home from Florida this morning just like we started our trip down on Tuesday, under cover of darkness and in the rain. This morning’s rain did not rival Tuesday’s, but at times it still caused us to slow a little bit for safety (although quite a few fellow travelers didn’t subscribe to this theory.)

The rain mostly disappeared around Cape Canaveral at about the same time as the Purple Whale passed through it’s second milestone in a little more than a week at 37,000.

We had an early lunch at a Cracker Barrel just into the state of Georgia and we were making pretty good time until about 30 miles later when all three lanes of traffic came to a grinding halt. Unlike last time we stumbled onto an Interstate Parking Lot, this time we were just coming up to an exit. Donna crept the 1-1/4 miles to 36B and started our back roads journey about 60 miles sooner than planned.

We both agreed that it would be fine even if the detour took us an hour longer than it would have had we stayed in the crawling traffic, as traveling at 65 MPH was literally and figuratively 10 times better than 6.5 MPH.

36,000 Words In A Vaguely Familiar Manner

Sunrise

We took little trip down to HHI this weekend to get away from the hectic “big city” and to take some updated photos for the Hilton Head Condo Rentals web site. The above picture is of this morning’s sunrise from the balcony of B327.

While we were down in this neck of the woods we made a side trip to our favorite little book store in a fading outlet mall just south of Savannah. They sell hardcover books that are returned off lease from libraries across the country for just a buck or two. Donna picked up 9 books for herself, a few kids books for the west coast and I found myself eight to read. Total cost was a little over $23.

I’ve read every one of Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels, but not all of his Jesse Stone books, not recognizing the title of one I found on the shelf, Killing The Blues, I picked it up. When I started reading it this afternoon it had all the usual elements, but it seemed a little off. When I looked closer at the cover I realized why, it said Robert B. Parker‘s Killing The Blues not Robert B. Parker. At the bottom of the cover, under the “A Jesse Stone Novel” line was By Michael Brandman.

With permission from the estate this fellow was allowed to write a new novel using the characters Mr. Parker had created. He has the pedigree, Mr. Brandman supervised the screen plays for three Jesse Stone TV movies, co-wrote three others and was Executive Producer on all 8 of them, but it wasn’t a Parker book. I finished it, but I’m not going to read any more faux Robert B. Parker books. I may take a look at finding some more real Jesse Stone books to read though.

Not far out of town on our way to HHI the Purple Whale passed the 36,000 mile mark.