Miata Mileage

72,000 Grains Of Rice

The “Gang of Six” meet tonight at Miyabi Japanese restaurant in Augusta for dinner. We had a 5:30 reservation and it is a good thing, as Donna and I arrived first, a couple minutes after five, and there was already a wait for walk-ins of 45 minutes.

Every one is seated at tables of 8, so we six are joined by a woman and her 5-year old son. They sat on the same end of the table as Donna and I and the little boy was very well behaved. Turns out they have eaten here before and it his favorite restaurant, even more so than McDonalds. He even ate with chop sticks (although they did have training wheels.)

If you have eaten at one of these places, you know the drill, a chef comes out and cooks in front of you. There are slashing knives and flipping spatulas. There is copious amounts of food cooked in a lot of butter and soy sauce. He sautees up some vegetables and then brings out this giant bowl of white rice and inverts it on the grill. It is the size of a basketball, I bet there are 72,000 grains of rice there. After it is separated into 8 parts, each serving is 3 x 6 x 2″ thick. Finally the meat is cooked and added to your plate, the pile of food in front of you is now enough to feed a small African nation. All 3 couples left with enough stuff in a to go box for lunch for two for another day.

For dessert we had homemade raspberry yogurt at one couple’s home and discussed everything from Presidential campaigns to Japanese after market parts for Miatas to whether Gene Simmons either aced the previous evening’s Celebrity Apprentice challenge or maybe marked himself for firing next week.

On the way back to Aiken the Emperor clicked over the 72,000 mile mark.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/08: 1o

71,000 Lights

Christmas TreeWould you believe 7,100? How about 710? 71? There are probably somewhere between those last numbers decorating this spectacular Christmas tree on the back wall of my cubical/office. It is two sections of mesh net lights that go on the shrubs in front of a house. They used to grace our old artificial tree, but now that we have a smaller tree they are obsolete. When I first put them up I just hung them as a big ol’ rectangle. It looked awful, but I didn’t know what else to do. When my wife showed up for lunch she suggested the tree shape by letting the top panel hang from a center point. Smart girl.

Christmas DecorationsWe gathered some small bits of discarded valve parts for decorations, but more was needed. So I brought in a box from the attic at home that contained all my old drafting supplies from way back in the day — pre-computer. I probably have the only tree decorated with circle & lettering templates, pencils with different grade leads, technical pens of varying line widths, a compass for drawing big circles and a pocket protector. Plus there are even some small actual Christmas ornaments on there.

On the way back from checking the MMC P.O. Box in North Augusta tonight the Emperor clicked over the 71,000 mile mark.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 495

70,000 Sunrises

Sunrise Which is over 191 years worth, neither I nor the condo balcony I was standing on when I took this photo will ever see that total, the Emperor won’t make that many either, but it had traveled over that number in miles by late this afternoon.

Donna and I went to bed around 9:30 last night so we were up at the crack of dawn, literally. After breakfast we postponed our usual walk on the beach because it was quite chilly and windy. Instead we hopped in the car and drove to Bluffton, Hardeeville and Ridgeland to take Post Office Portraits. Our little loop brought us back to HHI where we ponied up the $5 for a day pass to nab the missing Harbortown branch PO on the Sea Pines Plantation.

Along the way we made several stops, ostensively to shop for the few remaining folks on our Christmas list, but I think Donna and I made out better than anyone. Our last stop was a used book store near the entrance to Sea Pines where we both got a couple of hardcovers to read. One of the ones I got was the latest Robert B. Parker Spenser novel which some one had just brought in today.

Right next door to the shopping center the bookstore was in was a Sticky Fingers restaurant. The one in Augusta had catered a lunch at ASCO when we had some visitors in and those who had the food said it was good. Being lunchtime Donna and I, let the car sit and walked the 100 feet over. It was 12:30 on a Saturday and there were two cars in the parking lot. Both in the back. One cook and one waitress? I was a little hesitant to eat at a place were we were the only customers, but it was a chain, so it couldn’t possibly be awful. It wasn’t. We split a lunch combo plate which consisted of 2 big ribs, a pulled pork sandwich, some beans and some slaw. Everything was tasty except for the slaw which was bland which means we would, if the opportunity strikes again, eat at a Sticky Fingers again.

Late afternoon found us at Donna Horsman’s house for some grilled chicken, roasted new potatoes, green beans and salad. We hadn’t seen Donna since attending Jerry’s memorial service back in May. She, with the help of her daughter, has continued to manage the 18 condos at the Beach & Tennis Resort and will for at least one more year. I think it helps keep her busy and mind off the loss of Jerry the Condo King. I guess I’ll have to start referring to Donna as the Condo Queen and Lisa can get the “title” of Condo Princess.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 481

69,000 Pieces of Aztec Gold

Last night we turned the clocks back and took advantage of that extra hour to sleep it away. But somehow, even though we got moving this morning at the “normal” time, it seemed like we were an hour behind all day.

Might have been the time we spent walking around at the Cowpens National Battlefield or it could have been time spent walking a block of downtown Gaffney looking for a Post Office or it could have been the time spent circling Newberry looking for a lunch place before ending up at Taco Bell or maybe it was…

Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate’s life for me.
We pillage, we plunder, we rifle, and loot,
Drink up, me ‘earties, yo ho.
We kidnap and ravage and don’t give a hoot,
Drink up me ‘earties, yo ho.

I told her not to do it, but she did it anyway, Donna switched the channel over to USA at 8:00PM tonight and another 20 minutes were lost — watching the beginning of TDPM.

Somewhere between Carlisle and Union the Emperor kicked over 69,000 miles. With 3 weeks to go until HRH’s 4th birthday he may even reach the 70k mark before then.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 468

290 + 9 = 68,000

Caesar's Head LookoutWe set out to get the remaining eight Post Offices in the northwest part of the state and ended up with 9. Midway between Travelers Rest and Liberty we passed right by a mystery CPU. I did a u-turn and went back to get a photo. The closest town to us then was Dacusville, but it didn’t have a Post Office. Donna wrote down the address and this evening when we got home I looked for a Post Office in that town, none was listed. There was a new CPU for Easley that wasn’t on my original spreadsheet, the addresses matched. We have 299 PO photos taken, but we now have 162 to go as the state total just got kicked up a notch. About halfway through our loop we detoured up to Caesar’s Head State Park to see if any of the leaves were changing, they weren’t. The photo above is the view from the lookout near the ranger station, that granite faced mountain off in the distance is Table Rock Mountain with Pinnacle Lake in front of it.

Somewhere south of Calhoun Falls on SC81 the Emperor passed through the 68,000 mile mark.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 444

67,000 Kajillion Watts

Gnuclear GnormThe Emperor passed through the 67,000 mile mark not too far from the Oconee Nuclear Station. We stopped in and photographed Gnorm sitting on a concrete block just outside the plant. He really liked the looks of the round water tower that had rings around it so it took on the appearance of an atom. In case you can’t read the words on the yellow tag, it says, Radioactive Material, RWP Required for Entry, Notify RP Prior to Entry, Authorized Entry Only.

We finished up taking pictures of all the fish we could find and ended up missing only two (well, three because we just have a picture of the empty base of one.) All 46 photos can be seen in my Flickr photo set: Fish Out of Water 2.

On the Post Office front, we did 13 this morning and 7 more tonight. May do some more on Sunday morning before heading home (may not either.) So it will take me a while to sort through and post them.

We also brought along my Godson Gnorm and snapped about 10 travel log photos of him that will need to be tweaked and uploaded to Flickr! as well.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 413

66,000 Spokes

66,000 SpokesAt least that is how many it seemed like as the peleton streaked by us yesterday afternoon in Greenville. It is also the mileage milestone that the Miata moved past this afternoon somewhere south of Laurens, SC.

We took the “long” way home today by circling north of Duncan before heading south to visit 9 more Post Offices for photographing. That made a total of 33 POs for our three day trip. Going to take a while to get all of those photos edited and online. I know I’m going to have a heck of a time remembering anything unique about every one of them for captioning. Good thing we are not going anywhere next weekend.

Even with all driving, picture taking and bike race watching I still had time to finish one Spenser book and start another. This one won’t make the Spenser’s Crime Buster Rules page, so I’ll post it here:

There was no answer when we rang the bell. The house had that stillness that had Paul had mentioned. In the interests of not looking like a jerk, I tried the doorknob. It was locked.

“I already tried that,” Paul said.

“It’s a Dick Tracy crime stopper,” I said. “Always try the door before jimmying it.”

“Great working with a pro,” Paul said.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 376