Cars

Gonna Need A Bigger Garage

We have been virtual wishful car shopping recently, maybe it is because we are under a year in the countdown to a New Miata or maybe it is talk of taking this year’s trip out west in a car instead of a plane or maybe it is because automakers are offering great deals at this time of year (Mazda is offering $4500 off left over 2009 Miatas), but I have been hitting the web and having fun.

If you had told me 4-1/2 years ago that I might be driving anything other than a Miata I would have told you you were crazy. But now I’m not so sure. It all harkens back to our first ride in the current generation Miata back in October of 2005, we were underwhelmed, so the seed of doubt has been planted. The Miata is still at the head of the list, but there are a couple of other contenders on our radar, cars that are in our cost comfort level, around $25k and are convertibles and are available in blue. From worst to first they are:

  1. Sebring. This only makes the list in that it fits all three criteria, but its faults are many, chief among them is that it is as ugly as sin.
  2. Mini. High fun to drive factor, but we were underwhelmed when we drove one back in 2003 and the convertible version takes a big hit in the looks department, both up and down, over the closed car.
  3. VW Beetle. Donna has always liked the looks of these, I have to admit that I do too. Downsides include no manual transmission and cockpit wind with that big an opening.
  4. Mustang. The base V-6 falls in our price range, but the blue is kinda odd and it is 7″ wider and over 2 feet longer than a Miata, contributing to the title of this post.
  5. Miata. Needs another test drive and to take advantage of the the current deal we would have to accept a color that sucks.

Now let’s go a little further out there, what if we don’t get a convertible at all. Wild huh? Suppose we consider a little larger “sporty” car instead of a convertible. The car would have to be in the same price range and it would have be a coupe (I may be getting older, but I’m not ready for a 4-door Buick just yet.) From worst to first they are:

  1. Accord. We were Honda folks (2 Accords, 2 Civics and a Prelude) before the Miata revolution, but my how this car has grown. It weighs as much as a Mustang and is a foot longer than one too!
  2. Gensis. The front look leaves me cold and there is that still lingering Hyundai crap car association.
  3. Altima. Really like the looks of this and the blue is a terrificly bright shade, but I know nothing else about it.
  4. Mustang. With the convertible we were stuck with the V-6, but a coupe means we can squeak a GT with a V-8 in under our spending cap.
  5. Mini. It has lots of techno gizmos to go wrong and doesn’t have the best reliability record, but it is fun to drive, good looking and will fit in the garage.

A wild card in the coupe class would be a Miata with the detachable hardtop, leave it on nearly all the time and just pop it off for nice weekends.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 519

15 Years Ago

I didn’t have a blog back then, so my creative writing outlet was the Aiken Bike Club’s newsletter. I tried to add a little humor to the meeting minutes and the ride reports, but the most fun came from making up the Ride Schedule. Find an obscure event that happened on a particular day and spin a title and text from it. Here is the December 1994 Aiken Bicycle Club Ride Schedule:

Sat Dec 10 – 10:00 AM
SHOOT the ROCK, BAY-BEE! Ride. 98 years ago today in New Haven, CT an event happened ensuring that Dick Vitale wouldn?t have to try to make a living selling cars. Wesleyan University played Yale in the first inter-collegiate basketball game. Yale won 39 to 4. Doug Walker is today?s ride coach/announcer. (40 miles/M)

Sun Dec 11 – 1:45 PM
Christmas Parade Ride. Once again the club will ride in the Aiken Jaycee?s Christmas parade. Deck the bikes with boughs of holly, garland, etc. The tackier the better and meet at Weeks where we will ride to our starting spot, do the parade thing and ride back home. (10 miles/E)

Sat Dec 17 – 9:00 AM
Saturnalia Ride. The masters and the slaves will ride the same trails on the first day of the festival in honor of the Roman god of agriculture, Saturn. Meet Brian Bogardus with your ATB on the car rack for the trip to the trailhead. (8-12 miles/M)

Sun Dec 18 – 1:00 PM
Extol the Ride Leader Ride. Today?s route will will be fairly circuitous as ride leader Donna Bogardus takes the group to every drive-up window on the southside of Aiken to compliment the employee behind the sliding glass window on the first day of ?Tell Someone They Are Doing A Good Job? Week. (10-15 miles/E)

Sat Dec 24 – 1:00 PM
Christmas Eve Ride. If you are not too busy assembling tricycles put some warm spiced, not spiked, cider in your water bottle and go for a ride with Doug Walker in search of roasted chestnuts. (30 miles/M)

Sun Dec 25 – 1:00 PM
I Got Some Really Cool Stuff Ride. Nobody volunteered to lead this ride, but if you want people to see those new bike related presents, show up and show off. Bring a $1 grab bag type gift for swapping. (10-15 miles/E)

Sat Dec 31 – 5:00 PM
First Night Aiken Non Ride. Meet some of your fellow club members at this family oriented New Year?s Eve celebration on Laurens Street. Starts at 5:00 PM and runs ?til the New Year starts. To purchase admission buttons ($5, kids six and under are free) or for more information stop by the Aiken Center for the Arts <641-9094> at 112 Laurens St.

Sun Jan 1 – 10:00 AM
New Year?s Day State Park Ride. Steve Nolan is up as ride leader for this Bike Club tradition. Start out the year the right way! Ride to Aiken State Park, eat some cookies, and ride back. (45 miles/M-D)

Started up, went down, back up, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 508

Belton And Back

Although we swore we were going to be staying home this weekend because we will be on the move the next two, we couldn’t stand it. We had completed the Alphabet Soup – South Carolina Style Challenge a couple months ago by grabbing 26 caches within the state’s border, each one beginning with a different letter of the alphabet, we hadn’t done the final stage in Belton. That was today’s destination.

We started by doing the bread crumb series of caches which start in North Augusta and end in Greenwood (or vice versa.) At each cache you get part of a set of coordinates and after doing all 6 you end up with the whereabouts of 2 different caches, one in each of the end point cities. Seeing as we were heading north, when we got to Greenwood we plugged in our bonus cache coords and headed off for it. When we pulled into the park where it was located the place was jammed with cars and people soccer balls. Turned around and left, to come back another day.

We also had a few others to look for on the way up and way back besides our goal cache in Belton. We finished the day with 10 caches found, 2 counties checked off, one more DeLorme page complete and one DNF.

Unfortunately the DNF was for the one cache we really wanted, Alphabet Soup. I know I really shouldn’t wear shorts when caching, but I’m willing to put up with a few random scratches for comfort, so I risk it. Hunting for this cache I really regretted it. Here is the log I left on the cache page:

It was easier finding the 26 letters of the alphabet caches than it was finding this one.

Walking along next to a stream when the arrow of the GPSr points 40′ into the the brush perpendicular to the trail. After about 5 feet in I knew I was not coming out of this unscathed, there were pointy thorns aplenty tangled everywhere. I got within 25′ of GZ and couldn’t get to it for the brambles. Backed up a few feet and attacked at another angle. Different briars stopped me, still about 25′ away.

Struggled back to the trail looking for another way in. Spotted something promising about 15 feet further along. Only a few steps in and already it was major pokeville. Dodge. Weave. Duck. GZ is 25′ way. Dang it. I’ve already been stuck several times, so I barge along parallel to the trail and get myself locked in real good in a tangle of stickers. Check the GPSr, yep, 25′ away. Losing a little more skin and blood I forge through the stickers in that direction.

I stop when I get to a point where there is an inch of water on the ground. The arrow on the GPSr is pointing back the way I came and you can guess as to how far away it said I was…twenty-five feet.

My wife, who had given up long ago because of the briers, talked me out of the sticker bushes before I passed out from blood loss and we mumbled and grumbled our way back to the car. I am not going to look good in shorts for several weeks…

If we ever come back for this one I’m bringing a DR Brush Mower!

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 475

98,000 Pieces of Coal

Loading CoalSaturday the MMC took a trip to Winnsboro to visit the South Carolina Railroad Museum. This weekend there was a visiting steam engine to give that old time feel (and smell) to your train ride. We combined the Club’s monthly breakfast with the train event, plus following the hour long train ride we drove to a nearby town for lunch making for almost a full day Miataness.

After lunch Donna and I went our separate ways from the group because we had an alternative agenda, that’s right, geocaching. Before leaving we made tentative dinner plans with another MMC couple to meet in Lexington at the Uno Chicago Grill at 5:30 to complete the Trifecta (all 3 meals out.)

Got all caught up chasing camo’d containers in the north central part of the state and ended up not being able to make it back to Lexington in time for pizza with Rudy & Patti. We were disappointed on two levels. With the dreary day and approaching of dusk we opted for the more direct way home from where we were and resigned ourselves to eat in Newberry at whatever place we could find. Luck was on our side though, willing to dine in a Hardee’s or a Subway, we stumbled on The Flying Pie on Main St and had a wonderful pizza about half way between the thin crust of West One in Hendersonville and the thick Chicago style pie in Lexington.

Saturday by the numbers:
299 – Miles driven on the day
98,000 – Total miles now on the Emperor
1 – Tank of gas used
5 – O’clock wake up call
14 – Hours from leaving home until returning
58° – High for the day, 20 below normal
9 – Cars in a line (7 Miatas, 1 Boxster and a Jeep)
11 – Mile train ride (5-1/2 under steam power)
100 – Pounds of coal burned by the train per mile traveled
8 – Caches found
3 – SC County Challenge caches and
2 – DeLorme Challenge pages finished

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 437

The Biggest Thing To Hit Aiken Hits Johnston

After a couple of weeks languishing on the eastern bypass of Aiken and setting tongue’s a wagging all over town, the biggest thing, literally, to hit town has moved on. We know this because on our way back from Hendersonville this afternoon we were stopped by a huge commotion of cop cars and 18 wheeler trucks in the town of Johnston. The 1.2 1.89 million pound generator (according to an earlier referenced Aiken Standard article) and its entourage was parking for the night at the corner of SC 121 & SC 191.

Big Thing

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 430

4.5 Months To Go

Until Season 6 of TDTVS. They are already filming episodes in Hawaii and like the junkie I am I’m already reading the spoilers…

I had downloaded all the Season 5 vids from a back alley of the interweb and burned them onto DVDs. I lent these out to a co-worker a couple of weeks ago and yesterday he came up to me and asked what he needed to do to get another set of discs. Seems he has misplaced them. He has turned his office, home and cars inside out with no luck. Curiously a Neflix disc of Air Bud: Golden Receiver (AKA: Air Bud II) is also missing from his possession. Coincidence, I think not.

This Sunday is Episode 5 of TDTVS2 and AMC is going to run a mini-marathon of the first 4 episodes leading into numero cinco. Guess where I’ll be from 6:00PM until 11:00PM?

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 385

Dead Bugs in the Middle of the Car

2009 Bug Splat WinnersTonight was the MMC’s Annual Bug Splat Rally. With only five cars in attendance nearly everyone was assured of a prize. From left to right, John Nicholls, Closest to the Dot with his prize of Bullseye BBQ Sauce; Dave Schumacher with the Cleanest Car prize of Bug Stickers to use next year; Donna Bogardus with Bath Time Stickers to wash the Most Bugs off the nose of the Emperor and Denny Smith with the Trophy for Biggest Bug. If you look just to the right of the Big Bug on the Trophy you will see the ghostly apparition of Rudy Wilmoth who was the driver of the only car not to take home a prize. Don’t feel too sorry for Rudy as he and Patti are past winners of the coveted BBT and are just coming off a two year streak of winning the Cleanest Car.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 356