Road Trip

History Deficiency

History DeficiencyShows how much we don’t know about American Revolutionary history, when an extremely critical battle that turned the tide the colonist’s way was fought right here in SC at Kings Mountain. Donna and I stumbled on it while searching for a place to turn off the Interstate in our quest for a newer North Carolina state map. This monument was erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution, a larger one is just a couple hundred feet away and was constructed by the US Government in 1930 when the site became a National Park.

Over these last two days we have driven around 500 miles and at least half of that was with the top down. Good thing it isn’t later in the year or Donna and I would be a lot more sunburned than we are right now. We are also a little wind burned too, plus my lips are way chapped. But we had a great time.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 68

You Lookin’ At Me?

You Lookin' At Me?We planned this impromptu getaway a couple weeks ago, but nearly backed out a couple days ago because it wasn’t going to be as warm as we wanted. This morning we got up Packed an overnight bag and hit the road. The trip had two real objectives, the North Carolina Zoological Park and Razzoo’s. Either one was expendable, but we had to make at least one.

We ended up doing both and we are pretty beat. The zoo is awesome and will require at least one more (we are thinking fall as the park is covered in hardwoods) and possibly several visits. We spent from around 1 o’clock until 3:30 meandering most of the exhibits along it’s 5 mile length.

From there we headed southwest to Razzoo’s in Concord for dinner. We almost didn’t get there, I think everyone in the central part of NC was visiting the area, so traffic was bumper to bumper for the last 3/4 mile to get into the Concord Mills Mall. Mark, remember how empty the mall parking lot was when we visited? It was virtually full this afternoon! Donna and I have notoriously short fuses when it comes to creeping in a line of traffic for a luxury item, but we persisted because the Cajun call of spicy hot food was siren-like in it’s pull. As expected, Razzoo’s did not disappoint.

We briefly considered driving home, it is a 3-1/2 hour trip and it was only 6:30, but decided to treat ourselves to a hotel room for the night. There is some sort of basketball tournament in town and rooms are scarce, but we managed to get the 3rd to last one available at the Wingate Inn just the other side of I-85 from the mall. We’ll get up tomorrow at our leisure and take the back roads home.

Started up, went down, back up, down again, back up for the night.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 67

Bird Flew

You will never never see a dead crow on the side of the road. — Mark Turner

Last night Donna and I were wined and dined by Jerry and his wife (also a Donna.) We went out to a place called Catch 22, a small seafood restaurant on New Orleans Road. Jerry was feeling expansive so he insisted we have all have an a glass of wine, appetizers, entree and dessert. The pinot noir was the best I have ever had, the crab cake for a starter that was terrific and the Veal Saltimbocca was so good that if they kept bringing to the table I would have eaten it until I lost consciousness. The chocolate brownie with ice cream for dessert while good, but was actually the low point of the meal. Catch 22 is listed as a seafood restaurant only the women had a seafood entree, unless Jerry’s duck was an eider. Everyone of us raved about our meals as the best we had eaten in memory, so while I’m sure Hilton Head Island has many terrific places to eat, you definitely can’t go bad in your hunt to find your personal favorite by starting out at Catch 22.

This morning dawned cold and overcast for our drive back. There are only so many ways to get back to Aiken from HHI and I’m thinking unless we start taking dirt roads, we’ve been on all of them. Donna did manage to map out one we hadn’t done in a while, which had about a third of it on US321 (a nice bit of symmetry seeing as we were in condo A321.) Even though it was quite chilly the birds know spring is right around the corner as there were quite a bunch active along the roadside. Quite a few cardinals were spotted along with a couple of our state birds, the Carolina Wren. As usual on the these rural two-lane roads many a turkey vulture was spooked by our approach only to hop back to feeding once we were past. There was cauldron of them feasting on a deer that I bet numbered a couple dozen. The most unusual sighting was when we crested a small rise and there were several crows and a large brown and white bird around something on the left of the road. As we got within 50 yards the crows scurried off leaving behind a slower to take off bigger bird, which turned out to be, no shit, a bald eagle. It probably had a 4 1/2 – 5 foot wing span. It was the last thing we expected to see feeding along the road.

Started up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 51

Nice Day in Someone Else’s Paradise

Nice Day in Someone Else's ParadiseStated out doing a little shopping in a used book store/gift shop. We did a little driving around enjoying the sunshine and warm temps on some of the very few roads on Hilton Head that aren’t part of some “plantation.” We then took a breif respite by walking through the Newhall Audubon Nature Preserve. We then stopped at Gruby’s New York Deli to pick up a couple of sandwiches so we could have a picnic on the condo’s balcony. Plus a couple of bagels for tomorrow’s brekfast

The afternoon consisted of a brief nap on the couch, followed by a couple episodes of the X-Files in a mini SciFi Channel marathon (including one of my all time favorites Post Modern Prometheus Man.) Before dinner we took a big ol’ long walk on the great beach just outside the door of the condo. It was low tide so the beach was about 50 yards wide and was scattered with families and joggers and cyclists and dogs and a kite flyer or fisherman or two.

While Hilton Head Island is not our idea of paradise it sure is a damn fine place to spend a weekend in the off season.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, up again, down again, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 47

The 3 B’s

Tonight we (Donna) decided on a whim to head on down to HHI early, so we quick like a bunny packed the car and heaed southeast. We were already going to go down for the weekend anyway, but plan was to eat a breakfast of oversized muffins at the New Moon before driving down. With the tempuratures in the low 70’s at quiting time it seemed a waste to not start the trip with the top down, besides traveling two lane blacktop under a clear sky and moss draped trees is awesome.

A quick trip downtown to get cash from the magic wall and a loop around the busy part of town lead us to New Ellenton for dinner. Pickings are slim in this small bump in the road between Aiken and the bomb plant, heck even the Huddle House closed due to lack of business, which meant the only choices we had were hot dogs at a quick stop or Popeyes. We chose Popeyes hoping that the service here would be better than the one we have in Aiken. Nope.

I had a Catfish Deluxe sandwhich which was not realy as deluxe as the picture on the menu board would have you beleive and Donna had the Butterfly Shrimp Dinner. We split her french fries, bicuit and drink. After we finished she proclaimed, that was too much fried food. So told her for the rest of the weekend we wouldn’t have any more fried food, we would be sticking to the 3 B’s. Baked, broiled and….I didn’t have three. We both paused trying to come up with the third B but couldn’t do it. So I restated my position, “The 3 B’s, baked and broiled!”

A couple miles down the road I thought of the third, boiled.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 41

Transplant A Success

Transplant A SuccessThe power supply swap went smooth as silk. No more brrraaattttttttttttt. While I had the patient open on the table I went ahead and put the original CPU cooling fan back in. I’d swear that the replacement one Dell sent me was noisier than the 2-1/2 year old original one.

On our way over to the Concord Mills mall on Tuesday afternoon we stopped at the drive-thru convenience store in Albemarle so I could snap a couple of pictures of the Miata on the checkerboard pattern they had painted on the driving lane. I’m guessing this store is no longer in operation because it wasn’t open last Tuesday nor was it open last October when Mark and I visited the parking area next door so I could snap a picture of the giant Rat Fink replica there.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 20