Sonata Mileage

12,000 Men in Blue and Gray

On the way back from HHI we grabbed a cache in another State Park in the Sandhills Challenge, Rivers Bridge.

Easy walk to the cache. We swapped out a couple SC Parks items for a couple of McToys and a coveted South of the Border bumper stickers.

After finding the cache we walked the mile straight trail to visit the battlefield. I guess because we are close to the anniversary of the actual February 2nd & 3rd battle there were a group a Civil War re-enacters touring the site as well. We stopped and listened as one gentleman read a letter from a Confederate survivor of the battle.

Thanks for bringing us here.

On February 2, 1865, a Confederate force under Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws held the crossings of the Salkehatchie River against the advance of the right wing of Sherman?s Army. Federal soldiers began building bridges across the swamp to bypass the road block. In the meantime, Union columns worked to get on the Confederates? flanks and rear. On February 3, two Union brigades waded the swamp downstream and assaulted McLaws?s right. McLaws retreated toward Branchville after stalling Sherman?s advance for only one day.

Although historically not a large battle, the Battle at River’s Bridge was significant because it is the last defensive effort of the Confederates against the march of Sherman’s army to Columbia. Actually, only in total, approximately 6,200 soldiers were involved in this battle – 5,000 Union soldiers, and 1,200 Confederate. 262 men were killed – 92 Union and 170 Confederate.

Somewhere on I-95 North this morning the Purple Whale passed over the 12,000 mile mark.

11,000 Episodes

100 episodes is the usual limit that once a TV show passes, it becomes eligible for syndication, and apparently, The Big Bang Theory has recently crossed that threshold, because it is on all over the place.

Being a minor geek, I of course had heard about the show, but never watched it. Until now.

BBT has now replaced Two and a Half Men as our 7 to 8 PM must see TV as it airs then on the local CBS affiliate. It is also on TBS, where if desired you can waste all of Tuesday night away watching back to back episodes for 3 solid hours.

The Purple Whale crossed the eleven thousand mile threshold on Sunday.

10,000 Miles To Egypt

Somewhere a little south of Egypt, GA the Sonata passed the 10,000 mile plateau. I was hoping for a Welcome To sign to add to my Travels With Brian gallery, but there was none and really the only thing to distinguish Egypt from any other stretch of south Georgia road was that I had to slow to 45MPH for about a 1/4 mile as we passed a crossroads.

The photo is of a M3A1 Stuart Tank used in WWII from Thursday’s stop at the Georgia Veterans State Park.

9,000 Gallons of Black Oil

This is what the Purple Whale looks like reflected in the side of a tanker truck, possibly carrying Black Oil, on one of Eisenhower’s Interstate Highways. Early this morning, somewhere not too far from Aiken the Sonata’s digital odometer blipped past the 9,000 mile mark.

We searched for a total of 10 caches today and found 7, while DNFing 3. Those finds were very productive though, as they did net 7 GA Counties, 2 GA Delorme pages and one State Park.

8,000 Pieces of Risky Business

Spent the day looking for more of those caches in the RISK Series. We found Argentina, Central America, Greenland, Iceland, North Africa, Northern Europe, Northwest Territory, Ural, Western Australia & Secret Mission #1. Twenty five down and twenty one to go.

If we had traveled to all those places we might have had to drive the Sonata more than the 8,000 miles it now has on its odometer.

7,000 Widgets

Went to SOUTH-TEC 2011 Expo, AKA the Charlotte Tool Show, today with some co-workers. We were there to place eyeballs on a new fancy-schmancy CNC machine we bought and won’t take delivery of for another 16 weeks. And of course, wander every aisle and marvel at all the widgets on display, while managing to score free pens, cheap bags and multi-colored lanyards to give away to the unlucky souls back home who didn’t get to go. We might have even picked up some useful information.

When I first heard we going it was in the company’s Ford 9-passenger van. Ick, who wants to spend 3 hours each way in that thing. When it was confirmed that it was just 4 total going, I offered to drive the group in the Purple Whale. Even with it raining for almost all of the trip, I definitely enjoyed driving in my own car than riding in that van for 340 miles.

Somewhere just south of the South Carolina state line on the way home the Sonata hit the 7,000 mile mark.

6,000 Boards of Knotty Pine

We are in a cabin outside Gatlinburg, TN tonight, sharing the place with Donna’s oldest brother and his wife. We are here because we are visiting with some cousins of Donna & Jim from Canada who are in the area while on their vacation. Because we passed right by, at about the right time, we had to have lunch at our favorite place in Hendersonville, West First. They had the whole of downtown Hendersonville, NC blocked off for a classic car show, so we had to walk a little extra bit to get to the restaurant. But that was no real inconvenience because there was plenty of cool old automotive iron to see, but only one was pixel worthy, this spiritual successor to the Miata, a 1965 Lotus Elan.

The Sonata passed the six thousand mile mark somewhere between Gatlinburg and the White Oak Lodge & Resort