Miata Mileage

93,000 Empty Seats

93,000 Empty SeatsWhile circling the Lowes Motor Speedway loop road looking for the registration building, the Emperor rolled past the 93,000 mile mark.

Today’s mission was a resounding success. We spent the morning watching all variations of cars race around 3/4 of the big oval and a t-shaped infield course at the Speedway. Lunch was a taste bud tantalizing mixture of red beans and rice with andouille for me and stuffed shrimp for Donna. That was after our appetizers of Crawdaddy Fondue Dip for her and Rat Toes for me (don’t worry, I saved you some Mark.) We found some nice light hikers for Donna that were cheaper than expected and we snagged three caches (1 at the race track and 2 near the mall.)

I even have the film I kiddingly promised, but it is so lame I won’t post it. I decided to use the camera and take a short video of our friends Miatas as they went by. The movie consists of about 3 seconds of cars flashing by and then the next 12 seconds are of my (and Donna’s) feet and legs as we walk away from the fence. I forgot to push the shutter a second time to stop the movie…

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 279

92,000 Noodles

Tonight was the monthly MMC meeting and we gathered at a place called River House in North Augusta. It is a Thai restaurant with some “American” food on the menu to please the unadventurous.

Donna got the Pad Thai and I got the N-3 (which means it was four small words that had an odd, to my eyes, combination of letters that I didn’t even try to pronounce) which was a dish of ground beef and vegetables in a mild curry sauce over rice noodles. Both meals were delicious and plentiful enough that we only ate half and brought the other half home for tomorrow’s dinner.

It has been a rainy day, but we tried to go to and come home from work with the top down anyway because when we started each trip it wasn’t actually raining. Both times we didn’t even get halfway before having to put the top up. After the car club meeting it wasn’t raining, so naturally we put the top down for the ride home not expecting to make it, but we did. I did put the top back up at home when we got in the garage because it was pretty wet when it was folded back in North Augusta.

Just as we approached the restaurant the Emperor ticked past the ninety-two thousand mile mark.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, down again, up once more, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 229

91,000 Fried Synapses

Looked down this morning on the way to work and I noticed the odometer read 91047. When did that happen? Over the weekend? Some time in the last couple of days?

I couldn’t stand it any longer, upgraded WordPress to Version 2.7 tonight and to top it off I added a new look (with still some tweaking to do.)

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 200

90,000 MPH Winds

While traveling the roads of Nebraska, New Mexico and eastern Colorado you will see various forms of this sign. This picture is from New Mexico, but my favorite is from Colorado where it reads WINDS MAY BE GUSTY. While they probably hope you interpret the sign as “WINDS MAY BE GUSTY“, for some reason I read it as “WINDS MAY BE GUSTY”. Like they weren’t sure there was such a thing as gusty winds.

Trust me though, there *were* gusty winds and they were powerful enough to make it difficult to drive in a straight line for me in a Mustang. I imagine it was a lot harder on 18 wheelers and motor homes to stay in their lane.

More often than not, less than a 1/4 mile after the gusty winds signs there was a big sign giving a toll free number to report suspected DUI drivers. Just how were you supposed to know? Everybody was bobbing and weaving…

Before I got to the end of our street on the way to work this morning the Emperor flashed past the 90,000 milestone.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 176

89,000 Raindrops

We made the trip east this morning for Breakfast With Laurie. For grins I decided to look for an easy geocache in Florence somewhere near the Cracker Barrel where we meet to maybe entertain us after eating Pecan Pancakes and Eggs in a Basket. Much to my surprise there was one real close, like so close it was actually at the Cracker Barrel. Q is for Quackers. How did I know? For one, its location on the map placed it right at the intersection of I-95 & US52 and secondly this phrase from the description: No rocking chairs were injured during the making of this cache. Looks like we wouldn’t even need the GPS for this one.

And it was a good thing we didn’t need it, as for some reason this morning I couldn’t download the data from the web site to the unit. I tried from both geocaching.com and the Garmin site with no luck. I tested the plugin and it said it was fine. I rebooted the PC. I turned off the GPS a couple of times and it still didn’t work. When we got home from breakfast I finally got it to work by reinstalling the firmware on the Venture HC.

About 4 miles east of the thriving metropolis of Salley, SC the Emperor crossed the 89k miles in service mark.

Oh, yeah, about that cache, we found it no problem. Thanks to the clue – Let this not wash you up for the day, the description of the cache – You are looking for a black magnetic key holder and the logs – I had to get over my shyness about sticking my butt up in the air. It was under an old timely washing bucket with a mechanical wringer in between two rocking chairs on the porch of the restaurant.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 144

88,000 Genetic Manipulations

We went grocery shopping on Friday afternoon and I bought a small bunch of 4 bananas. Buying bananas always seems to be a chancy proposition, invariably they are either bright green or so ripe they are fit for nothing but an ingredient in banana nut bread. Friday was my lucky day (or so I thought), as the bananas on display were the very definition banana yellow.

Saturday morning I went to peel one of the bananas and I knew I was in trouble because the skin was thick and hard to tear. Ever hopeful, I took a bite, big mistake, it was tough as shoe leather, I spit it out and threw the rest away. Using all the brain power I could muster I determined that these pieces of fruit were not ripe and decided to skip Saturday’s banana and wait until Sunday before eating another.

By Sunday the peeling process was slightly better and the banana was almost al dente, but I choked it down anyway. No banana this morning and I am hopefully that by tomorrow they will be really ripe.

The only way I can explain it is that these bananas have been genetically altered so that they turn yellow when they really should still be green.

The Emperor flipped past the 88,000 mile mark on the way home from Augusta on Saturday.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 128

87,000 Pieces Of Spanish Moss

We traveled straight to Florence on the interstate to have breakfast with Donna’s cousin (Hi Laurie) and came back entirely off of it. Last night we looked for someplace along the return to catch a walk in the woods, Pointsett State Park fit the bill perfectly. While trying to follow the photo copied trail map we came to where we thought was our additional loop and started along it. It took us about a 1/4 mile before we were positive we were following the park’s border fire break and turned around. Sure enough, about 50 yards down the rejoined trail, there was the plainly marked Hill Top Loop. We are definitely going to make a return trip to this park the next time we are over this way.

Somewhere southwest of Columbia the (recently sponge bathed) Emperor passed through the 87,000 mile mark.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 105