Month: January 2019

Pete Bostwick Trail

The bottom sign “To South Boundary” has always been here, the Pete Bostwick Trail part is kind of new.

 

Work on that New Years Resolution is going smoothly, we have now walked in Hitchcock woods more in the month of January 2019, than we have done in the last two years.

We entered at the South Boundary Entrance for the first time in a long time and made our way through Memorial Gate to the Horse Show Ring before heading back. With a little side trip following an unmarked (and as it turned out, dead end) trail we probably covered about 2-1/2 miles. Maybe next time we’ll remember to bring the GPSr so we can get an accurate mileage figure.

Everything Comes in Threes?


First it was a nail in one of the Miata’s tires, so we had to buy a new set for the car. Then came the desktop PC breaking, necessitating a new one. And now we are the proud owners of a new Washer and dryer.

About 6 months ago of piece of the plastic bushing that the dryer drum spindle rotated in broke off. This made the dryer squeal slightly while in use. My solution to this was to occasionally squirt some 3-in-1 oil on the bushing. A couple months ago while washing the mattress cover the load became very unbalanced and the washing machine tried to walk out into the garage, stopped only by rubber inlet hoses, and placed a couple of dents in the water heater. Ever since then, when doing a full load of clothes the odds were 5 to 3 that there would be puddle of water under the machine at the end of the cycle. As the days went by, the odds of it occurred never wavered, but the amount of water left on the floor started to increase.

We have always opted for a basic washer/dryer combo, not the bottom of the line, maybe a couple steps up. What we were replacing cost us a little over $500 fifteen years ago. Using the same criteria this time as well, even with these machines being on sale it cost us $500 each… Sounds like a lot, but figuring we do about 10 loads a week, for the next 15 years with these that is a little over a quarter a load and is a magnitude cheaper than a laundromat visit.

After About 31,000 Minutes

We went up to Hendersonville, to the SMH to visit with my sister and her husband the weekend before Christmas. They had just moved in and wanted our help in hanging all their paintings, prints, diplomas, bits of memorabilia and whatnot. We originally planned on spending two nights, but by late in the second day, having finished hanging everything up, having not slept well on night one and me starting to feel a little sick, we opted to pack our bags after dinner and leave. This got us home early enough get a full night’s sleep in our own bed and not have to drive on the roads on Christmas Eve.

Part way home, Donna decided to put some hand cream on. As she always does, she removes the wedding ring from her hand and places it on the pinkie of my right hand to hold while she completes this task. Trouble was, there was no wedding ring on her left hand. A quick search of her purse and immediate passenger seat area turned up nothing. When we got home we made a more thorough search of the car interior and every nook and cranny of our luggage, but still no ring.

We figured the most likely spot the ring was left was on top of the dresser, in the bedroom we spent the previous night in. Donna does remember putting hand cream on shortly before we made the decision to pack up and go. She texted my sister to go in the bedroom and see if she could find it. The reply came that the ring was not anywhere to be found in there. Our speculation was that it probably fell off the dresser and hit the carpeted floor so it wasn’t heard and one of their pesky cats has batted somewhere not easily visible. We asked for a second check around and they still didn’t find it.

After a couple weeks, or about twenty thousand minutes, Donna felt funny not having a wedding band on, so we took her retirement watch that has been collecting dust for the last year and a half down to a local pawn shop and sold it. We then took the proceeds and walked next door to one of those perpetually Going Out of Business jewelry stores and bought a wedding ring as similar as we could to my band.

About 31,000 minutes after the wedding ring disappeared, it magically reappeared. My sister texted Donna that she had looked down, and there it was. Obviously our cat theory was right and now one of them had batted it back into the daylight. Yesterday we made a day trip to North Carolina to retrieve the wondering ring. While motoring along I-385 not far from Gray Court, SC the Lady Bug passed the 31,000 mile plateau.

That Went Easier Than I Thought


The CTBNL only had forty some-odd thousand miles on it when we got it, so the interior was still fairly new looking. In the thirty some-odd thousand miles we have put on it since, it still looks pretty good, but the cloth driver’s seat had started to fray in three spots over the summer. We figure the velcro closures on the pockets of my cargo shorts were most likely the culprit.

We hemmed and hawed about the possibility of buying leather replacement seat covers, but in the end decided to replace the covers with the OEM cloth. While we have been happy with leather seating in the previous two Miatas, I really like the not too hot or not too cold aspect of the cloth. And as a bonus you don’t slide around on them in spirited driving. The cost of buying new Mazda cloth covers is only marginally cheaper than aftermarket leather, $660 vs. $800, but for now, seeing as the passenger seat is fine and we are not replacing it, we are in for just $330.

The internet “experts” said changing the covers was easy as pie, but because I am not the most skillful person when it comes to do-it-yourself type projects I wasn’t so sure. I read all I could on the Miata forum, watched some youtube vids and figured taking my time, in a couple days I could do it.

Turns out it took me a just little over 4 hours to finish the job. And at least 30 minutes of that was returning inside to do further research in disassembly of the seat. All the videos I watched were of the 1st generation Miata seats and the NB versions, being that there have been ten years of advancement in seat technology since then, were different in several ways.

That $330 spent is really more like $395 because I spent $20 on some Hog Ring Pliers plus 150 rings. Another $20 was spent on a pair of dedicated hog ring cutters seeing as my 40-year old diagonal cutters are literally not the sharpest tool in the box. I also spent twenty-five dollars at the local auto upholstery shop to have them sew a small half moon of fabric on the top back of the seat cover. This will hopefully replace the squeak preventative cloth and look cleaner than what I have wrapped around the roll bar now.

In the above photo I have finished replacing the seat back and was mid way through putting the new cover on the bottom. The bicycle helmet with an LED headlight on it is there because I was working on the floor of the garage and the door opener lights and my hanging drop light never seemed to be enough or coming from the right direction.

10 Cool Miatas & A Cool Pickup Go See 30 Cool Cars

Cross posted from the Miata Club web site…

When we rolled out of Greg’s Gas Plus at 11:30 for the drive to Greenwood we were 8 Miatas strong. We also had an OTM bringing up the rear, a Ram pickup truck, because Caleb and his friend refused to ride in the trunk of Jennie’s Mazdaspeed Miata. The Wilms’ got a late start and met us at the lunch spot and Daryl Shipman met us in Greenwood.

The drive started cloudy and a bit chilly so everyone’s top was firmly in the up and locked position. The fog was supposed to break near midday, so we hoped to be able to put the tops down part way to Greenwood, instead, the further north we got, the thicker the fog became. Amazingly enough our practically mile long conga line of cars remained intact on the back road drive, until we got into the Saturday afternoon traffic on the US25 bypass around Greenwood. The left turn into our lunch spot was the trickiest part of the drive and true to form, we lost one car, temporarily, in the maneuver.

On the recommendation of Mr. Shipman, lunch was at a place called Migs Pizza Castle and it turned out perfectly in nearly every way. You ordered at the counter, so no waiting to be seated and can I get you drinks, etc. It was crowded so we sat where we fit, no rearranging the furniture into one long “last supper” style table. The food was actually quite good and the service was fast, I’d be willing to bet this is the first time in history that 20 people from this Miata Club got out of a restaurant in an hour.

Knowing the trouble we had getting into lunch, with the left turn needed, it would be impossible to get eleven vehicles in row, so Brian made sure everyone knew the short route to meet up with the Corvette Club just short of our final destination. When we got to the correct Greenwood High School parking lot we found not many Vettes and a whole lot of pickup trunks and SUVs. Quite a few of them were coming with more than two guests. It was suggested that anyone who could, carpool, so as to not overwhelm the quiet subdivison we were headed to. It helped some, but we still lined the street in front of the Von Seleens.

Arranged up the driveway hill to Hartmut’s two garages were a series of Porsche automobiles to boggle the mind. From the amazing 911R, to an 80’s cool slant nose 930 Turbo Convertible, to the insane 911GT2 RS, to the bonkers hybrid 918 Spyder, to my favorite, the 1969 911S in Cream with a brown interior. At the end of the driveway was the Lava Orange 911GT3 RS that came to Deals Gap with us in November. There was also the relatively sedate late model 911GTS and LeMans race car in street car clothing, a Carrera GT.

All these cars fit in the one garage at the top of the hill, with the red and yellow tiled floor and one wall covered with trophy cases filled with awards from car show and racetracks across America. The two car garage attached to the house held the “pedestrian” family cars, a Porsche Macan SUV (the GTS version) and an S Class Mercedes Benz (the AMG version of course.)

If that wasn’t enough, we then packed up and drove a couple miles cross town to visit Hartmut’s other garage where he keeps his more eclectic collection of cars. There were a little over 20 cars parked cheek by jowl and ran the gamut from a 1959 Corvette race car to a McLaren 650s Spider, a 1963 Porsche 356C to a Spyker C8, including the first car he bought when he came to America, a 1970 Mustang Boss 302. The last photo below is a 90° panorama I took from the front left corner, how many cars can you identify?

On Green Pond

An algae covered pond along the Low Country Ride trail.

 

Donna needed a break from the gym today and wanted to join me on my morning walk. I said, “OK, but instead of the usual dirt road road, we take a walk in Hitchcock Woods.” She readily agreed. We used to walk a ton in the woods, but it recent years it has only sporadically that we have entered the 2200 acre oasis. So much so that when we do, it gets blogged about. The last time we did it was July of 2018 and the time before that was April of 2017. After we got back to the car to drive home, we agreed that was fun and we need to do it more often from now on. So, I guess we have our New Year’s Resolution set.