Motoring Challenge

157,000 Walmarts

Moss Motors Distributors - Swope Automotive, Springfield, MO

One of this year’s category of Challenges is getting 5 Moss Motors Distributors. I combed through the 273 addresses of them in the 20 states we are visiting on the trip to see if we were driving anywhere near them. The big winners were 2 cities in VA and one in MO. We took pictures of all 4 in Virginia and used 3, the other one was just a couple of garage doors and a regular front door with the three digit address.

Because we already had one in the bag from the June trip to Moss Motors, we only needed to get one of the two that were located in Springfield, Missouri. We followed our GPS and it zigged and zagged us through north Springfield’s industrial area before leading us right to the first one. We took the picture just in case for some reason we couldn’t locate number two, the one we really wanted. Swope Automotive is owned by a fellow named Tom Swope who was the 2nd place finisher in last year’s Motoring Challenge. We were kind of hoping he would be open and not off chasing Challenge points like us. We pulled in and the OPEN sign was flashing – cool. The door was locked and the little sign with hours had Closed next to Saturday and Sunday. Oh, well, at least we did get the picture we wanted.

We are spending the night in Bentonville, Arkansas which is the home of Walmart. This means there is a Walmart or Sam’s Club on every street corner in town for a total of 157,000 locations in a place with only 40,000 residents. Sometime just before crossing into Kansas from Missouri the Emperor passed the 157K mile mark.

After a week of averaging 282 miles a day we are taking a break by spending 2 nights here in Bentonville. So we don’t lose our edge, we are treating tomorrow like the cyclists do on a rest day during the Tour de France, we will go for a shorter drive. Probably drive a 100 mile loop and visit Eureka Springs.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 74

Motoring Challenge Points 7, Approx Miles Driven 280
Totals So Far: 123 points & 5880 miles

Replacements

Destination - Worlds Largest, Rocking Chair

Even though we took seven photos today towards the Motoring Challenge, we only picked up 5 points. This is because nothing is final until I mail off the CD of photos to Moss, any photo taken or posted here is subject to being replaced.

A chance read in the Missouri Travel Guide led us to the photo above of the World’s Largest Rocking Chair on Old Route 66 which is replacing (possibly for now) the World’s Largest Peanut from Georgia. The Popeye’s Picnic one below replaces the lame one we took the other day.

Sometimes the changes happen before we even finish driving for the day. Today’s state of Missouri is one such case. Right after we crossed the Mississippi River there was a nice, but typical, Welcome To The State sign, so we took the photo just to check that objective off. Later in the day as we drove the last stretch of road, which just happened to be Old Route 66, I noticed that the nice little Historic Byway signs had the state’s name in it. We both liked this idea better.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 72

Motoring Challenge Points 5, Approx Miles Driven 315
Totals So Far: 116 points & 5600 miles

Tiny Washington Monument

Tiny Washngton MonumentStarted in Kentucky in the rain, crossed the Ohio River into Indiana and the sun came out, so the top went down. It stayed down until after lunch in French Lick. It stayed up for the rest of the way to tonight’s destination, Mt. Vernon, IL.

French Lick was not at all like we pictured in our heads. We thought small town USA, but what we found was Disney-esque mixed with historic, mixed with wanting to be a real tourist destination. We ate lunch at a newish place called 33 Brick Street which is trying to play on Larry Bird’s jersey number to bring in the clientele. I don’t know how it’s doing, but judging by the lunch crowd at 12 noon today, not so good as Donna and I were the only customers in the joint and I’m betting our $13 lunch check didn’t even cover the cost of serving it to us.

When I was standing in the lobby of the hotel I noticed what looked like a small replica of the Washington Monument through the door next to I-57/64. I asked the desk clerk what the deal was with the tiny monument and she explained the Washington connection to me, we are in a town that has the same name as the plantation owned by the Father of Our Country, Mt. Vernon. Duh! She said it gets even better, the Ford dealership in town is run from a replica of that plantation home.

After dinner we drove over and took a photo and tried to sort of recreate our real Washington Monument photo from 3 days ago, I’m going to use it as one of my two Sneak Peek Bonus photos for July-Oct.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 68

Motoring Challenge Points 6, Approx Miles Driven 335
Totals So Far: 111 points & 5285 miles

Second-Largest Living Bird?…Score 156,000 Points!

Bonus 3 - One or More Farm Animals (Emus Score Three)

We had a good day today, 7 photos with a total worth of 10 points. Unlike what I implied in the title, the Bonus 3 – One or More Farm Animals (Emus Score More) photo above is only worth 3 points, but the Emperor did pass the 156,000 mile mark somewhere in Ohio. I don’t have time to tell the finding emu story, but I hopefully will soon (well I did a couple weeks later – Part 1 & Part 2.) Here are the other six pictures:

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 64

Motoring Challenge Points 10, Approx Miles Driven 350
Totals So Far: 105 points & 4950 miles

Wild Emu Chase Afresh

FallingwatersOn our way to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Fallingwaters we stopped in for our second breakfast1 at a small cafe in Confluence, PA. After we finished splitting a delicious breakfast sandwich on potato bread Donna asked the woman who waited on us if she knew of any emu2 farms around.

She thought for a minute and said, “Yeah, there’s one between Somerset and Berlin.” We showed her the state map and she pointed out about where she remembers it being. We were about an hour too early for the 10:00 AM opening at Fallingwaters anyway, so we thought what the heck, it’s only 25 miles in the wrong direction. Let’s go.

We used a combination of GPS and state map to find our way to Berlin, PA via the road the woman mentioned. We saw no emus on our drive, so when we hit the main road outside Berlin I turned right towards “town” to see if we could find a shop with someone else to ask about the elusive emus. The first thing we came to was a NAPA garage which would work out perfect because the Emperor was blind in one eye.3

This garage was kind of a small shop so I wasn’t sure they could help with the headlight portion of our quest, but was hopeful on the emu front. Turned out it was the other way around. The 9006 bulb they had and it cost just nine bucks, about what Advanced Auto would have charged, but these guys installed it for me. It wasn’t for the lack of trying that the emu hunt came up empty though. One of the fellows called someone he knew and they gave him the name of the place, so he looked it up on the interwebs. He gave me the phone number, which I called and got the generic answering machine leave-a-message recording. He then called his wife who told him they sold all the emus a year or so ago and actually the farm was sold off too.

As a bonus, while we were standing around waiting on them to find the headlight bulb Donna noticed the Official Pennsylvania Inspection Station sign and thought it would make a nice proof of the State of PA for the Motoring Challenge.

Started up, went down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 62

Motoring Challenge Points 3, Approx Miles Driven 295
Totals So Far: 95 points & 4600 miles

 

Turnabout Is Fair Play

Yesterday’s route was scheduled to include about 30 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway from east of Lexington, VA to end up in Waynesboro, VA. The parkway is a great little drive if you are not in a hurry, at least that is how I remembered it, but the road surface has deteriorated since our last forays onto it and this time it seemed kind of boring.

After about 10 miles into the drive I mentioned that I thought this wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be. My always on the ready Navigator started looking for options. She spotted one. We needed to get off at VA-56 and head south and east until we found VA-814 where we would start heading north where we would pass under the parkway until we found County-644 that would take us directly into Waynesboro. So a few miles later I got off.

The beginning of VA-814 was a lot further than expected, especially following the slow moving traffic on the windy 2-lane road. When we got there, fortunately, none of the 3 or 4 vehicles ahead of turned let onto it. As soon as I turned left we found out why, there was a yellow diamond shaped sign that read “Pavement Ends 2 Miles Ahead.”

Using our calibrated eyeballs we figured it was only 3 miles total ’til the road crossed over or under the parkway, so I said, “What the heck, how bad can it be?” We headed back up the hill. Sure enough two miles later it turned to gravel. As we rose into the woods, the road narrowed some and there were some pretty decent washboard sections on the switch backs, about 2 miles later we popped out right back at the parkway. Across the road was a sign for VA-814 and we said if it was paved we’d go. It was and we did. It was a nicely maintained road on this side of the ridge and it took us close to where we wanted to be to find a Moss Motors Distributor.

Today after ducking into DC and finally figuring out how to escape the clutches of suburban sprawl that surrounds our nation’s capitol city we found some great rural roads paralleling the Potomac River that took us to the western panhandle of Maryland. We got to I-70 and Donna volunteered to take the helm for a while. Well, she lasted about 10 miles of that before wishing she was not involved with the amount of and the varied driving speeds and skills of drivers around her.

I checked the state map in my lap and suggested she try a bit of Historic US-40 that runs closely parallel to I-70. It worked out great the day before with the same configuration of US-11 and I-81 in Virginia. She got off the Interstate and turned onto 40 and was instantly met with the crappiest pavement we had driven over so far the whole trip. Matter of fact there were a couple of places that felt worse than yesterday’s trip up the unpaved VA-814. At least, for both our sakes, a few miles later the surface of the road returned to a more normal condition.

Today’s Motoring Challenge Photos:

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 60

Motoring Challenge Points 5, Approx Miles Driven 260
Totals So Far: 92 points & 4305 miles

155,000 Restaurants Rejected

There were two restaurants within walking distance of tonight’s hotel in Culpeper, VA, one Mexican and one American attached to the hotel next door.

We walked into the Mexican place and could not hear ourselves think over the noise of the blender making margaritas. One woman noticed and made no move towards us. She did nod to a man, who looked at us and made no move towards us. We left.

We entered the outside door to “Pepper’s” and was the wrong one, because it was attached to the hotel they expected you to come in through the lobby. The hostess nodded to us and picked up some menus, but seated another couple who had came in the same door as us, but after us. The place only had a few other folks in it, but it was loud, mostly due to all the hard surfaces, but it also came from the patrons who all seemed to know each other. Not the atmosphere we needed or wanted. We left.

This brings us up to about 155,000 restaurants rejected due to various reasons in our lifetimes. Earlier this morning somewhere along I-81 the Emperor passed through the 155,000 mile mark.

Back at the hotel I consulted the GPS and Donna looked in the hotel info book and we settled on a place in downtown Culpeper just a couple miles away. As it had done almost all day when zeroing in on a destination, the GPS tried to drive us in a circle, but I refused to drive around the block again to go 100 yards backward. I pulled over and parked. Well, the restaurant we wanted wasn’t anywhere on the block where the GPS said it should be, so we headed in the other direction towards Main Street where it seemed there was more action.

We crossed the street and came to the Frost Cafe. Looked inside and started to walk by, when we decided not to press our luck, and went in. The place was nearly empty, but we were greeted, told to sit where we wanted and within a minute a waitress appeared. I got the Patty Melt (great) with fries (eh) and Donna ordered a cup of Cream of Crab soup (good) and a Tuna Melt (lacked the melt part.)

We walked around Lexington, VA like we always do when we get this way, so instead of Moss Motors Distributor photos, here a couple pictures from our walk.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 06/25/15: 56

Motoring Challenge Points 4, Approx Miles Driven 330
Totals So Far: 87 points & 4045 miles