Just back from Lexington, VA and I have 33,000 stories to tell. Unfortunately you won’t get any of them tonight.
OK, maybe just one: We stayed in room number 309 at the Hampton Inn Col Alto.
Well, because I’m a nice guy, two: On the drive back, a few miles short of the North Carolina border on I-77, the Purple Whale passed the 33,000 mile mark.
Not too far out of town the Purple Whale glided through the 32,000 mile mark. We were on our way to Greenville for lunch at Joe’s Crab Shack. Back in April when we were in Myrtle Beach we ate at a Shack and bought a buy one steampot meal and a get a Classic Steampot for free certificate for a $10 donation to Autism Speaks. Today we would cash in on that deal.
We planned to do a little geocaching on the way up with stops at two parks near Greenville and that is exactly what we did, a little. Very little. At the first stop there were 3 caches and we DNF’d all three. At the second stop we found an ammo can right near the start of the trail and as we started to continue down the trail we were both being harassed by horse flies, so we decided to quit while we were ahead and go get lunch.
Construction here continues at a slow pace while the Purple Whale racks up miles at a fast pace, 30,000 miles in about 22 months.
Because the kitchen is a mess and unusable yesterday we had a rare weekday trifecta of dining out. Breakfast at Dunkin Donuts, natch. Lunch at Betsy’s on the Corner and dinner at Cracker Barrel.
As soon as we got into Florida we took the second exit off I-95 and got on A1A heading east towards the ocean where we had a picnic lunch on the beach in the city of Fernandina Beach. Because we were not in any hurry we just stayed right on A1A all the way to Daytona Beach Shores where we are spending the night over looking the Atlantic Ocean from the sixth floor of the Holiday Inn Express (mmm, cinnamon buns.)
In the early part of the trip along the coast we get a very short (0.9 mile) ferry ride across the St Johns River between Fort George Island and Mayport Village. It departs every 30 minutes on the 1/4 & 3/4 hour and costs a whopping six bucks. We arrived, pulling up behind 2 waiting cars, with 6 minutes to sailing, talk about great timing.
Just north of Daytona Beach the Purple Whale passed the 29,000 mile mark.
Ran out to the store this evening to pick up a couple prescriptions. When I parked the car in the driveway on my return I noticed the odometer on the Purple Whale read 28045. Huh? I passed the twenty eight thousand mile mark and didn’t blog about it when it happened.
To the store and back was 2 miles. The round trip to work and back today another 13. That takes us to 28030. Yesterday’s round trip to work was another 13, 28017. New Year’s Day we did a small trip to the BBHIW, a friend’s house and out to eat. That was probably 8 miles, so I’m thinking we were then at 28009 the morning of 1/1/13. This means the Sonata crossed the mark on the way home from work on the last day of last year.
Only we didn’t take it to work that day we drove the Miata. That means it happened over the weekend, crap, what did we do. On Sunday I think all we did was grocery shop. On Saturday we did some driving around while granite/tile shopping, so it had to have happened then. As long grocery shop was all we did on Sunday. I’m going with Saturday.
Its fall, quite literally around here. Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend we raked up all the leaves shed by the dozen or so hardwood trees on our lot. A little less than a week later we had to rake again, this time we just did the front yard.
Less than 4 days later, upon our return from Hilton Head, it was hard to tell we had done any clean up at all. So this time we opted to do the “Let’s At Least Make It Look Like Someone Lives Here” minimal sweep, I took out the leaf blower and forced about 27,000 leaves off the sidewalk and driveway into the street.
During that return drive from Hilton Head, the Purple Whale rode through its twenty-seven thousandth mile.
We took a little trip to Florence to visit Cousin Laurie and current beau Harold. With one cup of coffee each for Laurie and I, plus a refill or two, between us, we used 8 little creamer containers and about 26,000 granules of real sugar. The little bowl for the creamer cups was empty and the sweetener packet holder was left only holding those blue, yellow or pink packets of synthetic stuff.
Maybe because it is past the summer I-95 Florida tourist time and not late enough for the I-95 Snowbirds, the Cracker Barrel was not really busy. As a consequence of this we ended up with an overly attentive waiter which became a source of both amusement and irritation.
But somehow attentive didn’t translate into efficient. We didn’t get our food to us in a very timely manner, it seemed to take longer than usual and when it arrived nothing was outright cold, but nothing was really hot, just warm. Plus Harold’s breakfast meal came without any bread (everything at Cracker comes with biscuits), when he asked for some toast, it came very quickly, so much so that it almost didn’t look toasted. No butter or jelly came along with it though. Now, suddenly, the guy that was asking how everything was, seemingly between bites, was nowhere to be found.
After we parted ways, Donna and I did a little geocaching (9 for 9) on one of the sections of Florence’s wooded trails that is near the Mall. On the drive home the Purple Whale passed by the 26,000 mile mark.