Miata Washings

Bath Day

It is Pine Pollen Season(tm) here in my Fair City and the poor Emperor was literally freckled with yellow dots. Dots form because it rained yesterday on the evenly dusted surfaces of the car and that makes the water bead up. I used the California Duster(r) this morning in the garage this morning, the lose pollen came off, but the dots remained. Along with both our finger prints on the doors and trunk.1 At the end of the day there was another fine layer of pollen all over the car. Seeing as tomorrow is supposed to be a rainy day and we’ll take the Sonata to work, with the Miata staying in the garage, when we got home tonight, I decided to wash it.

Because I wash the cars under the metal carport the Sonata normally lives under, to wash the Miata, the Sonata has to be backed to the end of the driveway. Even thought I can count the pine trees in our neighborhood on one hand2 the blueish hued Purple Whale was nearly green from its thick coating of pollen too making it hard to see where the end of the driveway is.

So after washing the Emperor, I went ahead and washed the Purple Whale even though I know it is kind of a waste of time.3 Sure it needed it, but right now as I sit inside typing this, the car is slowing being re-covered with a dusting of yellow pollen. Plus with tomorrow’s rain by the end of the work day the Sonata will be covered in yellow freckles just like I removed from the Miata.

Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1471

Cars & Coffee

Daily DriverA little thing called Cars & Coffee, an informal car guy gathering, started out in California 7 or 8 years ago and has been spreading around the country. Mostly in big towns, but now some of the smaller places are picking up on it.

Turns out there has been one in Augusta, GA on the first Saturday morning of the month for a year now, but I never knew about it. Someone in the Miata Club brought it up at the yearly planning meeting and requested I put it on the MMC’s event calendar.

Shoot, I like cars and I like coffee, so Donna and I are going to go over there tomorrow to check it out. We also have an ulterior motive, it will count as a car show point in the Moss Motoring Challenge…

The 11-1/2 year-old, 149,000 mile Miata got a bath tonight. I even used a bit of some spray-on wax to gussy it up more gooder. When you get that close to the Emperor you can see it is starting to show its age in paint chips, scratches small dents, so I made up the little sign you see above to place on the dash.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1467

The Emperor Returns

I finally had a chance to go get the Miata back from Panic Motorsports yesterday. About a month ago when coming back from some around town errands in the Miata it started making some ugly groaning/growling noises under the hood. A fellow MMC member came over and listened (thanks Kurt) and figured it was the water pump. Kurt was right. The water pump that I had prophylactically changed at 120,000 miles when the timing belt was changed, failed after 20,000.

Not only did it fail extremely prematurely, but it did so in a weird manner. Steve emailed me a photo of what it looked like inside the pump housing and asked what I was putting in the cooling system because it looked like there was green baby poop in there. He’d never seen anything like that before. And when I told him I put nothing but 50/50 antifreeze in there he had no explanation for the sludge.

Both cars in the livery needed washing. The Purple Whale from the trip to Florida and back and the Emperor from sitting outside for the last 10 days or so. Because of someone’s idea of saving time and the tilt of the planet’s axis, the sun sets pretty early this time of year leaving little time after work, so the Miata by virtue of being smaller, got the bath tonight. The Sonata might just get run through a car wash because by the weekend, when there is more time, it will be too cold for doing it by hand.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1429

New Look & On Again, Off Again Rain

With what should be self evident, I am pleased to announce that there is a new look here at mr-miata.net. It is the same theme, Atahualpa, just with a new shirt. And because of what the topics have been during this past week’s posts you would have thought I would have gone with a Hawaiian theme, but to tell you the truth, I just thought of that right this minute, or I might have.

Last night I gave the Emperor a sponge bath in the garage and I put the top boot on in preparation for today’s MMC Breakfast run. Got up this morning and it was raining! On Friday when I checked the weather they were calling for 30% chance of afternoon showers. This morning the 30% had changed from afternoon to all day and we were apparently in the middle of that percentage. So, off came the boot and the top went up.

By the time we got to the meeting place the cloud cover was still there, but the light rain had stopped, so we put the top back down. The rest of the cars either arrived with their tops down or put them down once they arrived. We were at a gas station off Exit 1 of I-20 and we were going to a small cafe off Exit 22. Most folks would get on the Interstate, go 21 miles and get off, but we drive Miatas. I mapped out a convoluted 30 mile trip with 12 turns and crossed over or under I-20 five times.

The rain held out for the whole drive and the whole time we were in eating breakfast. It didn’t start raining again here in Aiken again until the late afternoon.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1396

Workplace Restroom Etiquette Question

You enter the restroom and a coworker is washing their hands. They have obviously finished their business. You enter your favorite stall to do yours. When you sit down you realize that this was the stall your coworker has just finish using. Is it OK to call over the door, “Thanks for warming the seat for me.” What about if it is winter?

The Emperor got a bath last night in preparation for tomorrow’s Ridge Peach Festival Parade. The Purple Whale got his bath the day before. I’ll be taking my weekly bath tonight.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1381

Just Can’t Stop

In a Barn

After racking up about 560 miles on Saturday and Sunday chasing Motoring Challenges today we promised to just take it easy and not drive too far. And we didn’t. Our neighbor across the street is the wife of a local horse trainer, so when I saw her outside this afternoon I asked if she could find me a barn. When I explained what for for, she had just what I needed right up the street.

Because the Miata is only a two-seater I could only take her and not my usual photographer, so Vicky agreed to take the pictures. While we were messing around in the horse district I mentioned I also needed a horse track photo, so we went over to the Aiken Training Track. She suggested maybe parking on the track right in front of the gates and I thought that was an awesome idea. But as we got on some of the dirt approaching the track we could feel how soft and deep it was, so opted out on trying to drive on the track. It would have been extremely embarrassing to have to have some horses pull the Miata out of getting stuck. So I pulled up next to the rail on the grass. As it turns out the Horse Track photo required a sign, so good thing we didn’t get stuck for nothing. Maybe I will use the picture for a Sneak Peek entry.

The Purple Whale got a nice wash this afternoon and I gave The Emperor a sponge bath (AKA Mequier’s Quick Detailer) too. I also changed the Miata’s oil, after all with all this Motoring Challenge stuff we have traveled nearly 4,000 miles in the last couple weeks.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1362

140,000 Black Eyed Susans

Black Eyed Susans

Day 6: Fort Worth, TX – 33.3 miles*

We got up this morning and drove about 10 miles east to a park in a subdivision that turned into town, Trophy Place. There were about 3 dozen caches spread over 4 different trail areas. Trouble was finding a trail head. All the roads were twisty and littered with cul de sacs, there were no signs to trail heads that we could see and none of the caches had a secondary waypoint that was trail head parking. With the busy traffic of the big city and the trouble locating a starting point we almost gave up, but Donna wouldn’t say quit. We finally found a spot that got us going. We ended up finding all nine caches that we searched for. We missed out on a couple on the loop we started on because there was a creek crossing and neither of us felt like getting our feet wet.

This evening Jim, Donna’s oldest brother who works in Ft. Worth, picked us up and we drove to the Grapevine Mills Mall to eat at a place called Love & War in Texas to met up with a co-worker of ours who is dropping off a daughter to go to school in Dallas. Jim can now become a local contact if she gets stuck with car trouble or needs someone to bail her out of the hoosegow.

We did get one Motoring Challenge photo this morning. When we opened up the curtains in the hotel this morning we could see the full moon slowly dropping towards the horizon. We quick like bunnies went downstairs and lined up the Miata for a picture.

Oh, and yesterday, somewhere just before Gunter, TX on Farm to Market Road 121, the Emperor passed the 140,000 mile mark.

Today he got a bath at a coin operated hand wash place in downtown Roanoke, TX.

*Pre-drive Google Maps estimate: 0 (-33.3) – Total miles so far: 1499.6

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1345