05/20/2007: "A tough weekend - continued"

We just picked up my new (to me) Miata in northern Minnesota on Saturday. We drove back to Duluth where my Mother turned right to go back home and we turned left to make a stop in Bayfield WI on our way home. But first it was noon and time for a stop at McDonalds. We made the detour to Bayfield to see friends at our old marina. This time of year we would be with them working on the boat and getting ready to go back into the water. As usual the regular group were there working on projects. After a short visit it was time to hit the road. It was 4:00 PM and we were in Ashland WI getting our first tank of gas and starting south. Everything went well until Madison WI where we gassed up again and had problems getting back on the freeway. After several side trips and circling around we were back on the interstate and heading to Chicago. I didn’t mention that the only map we had was a ten year old map of Wisconsin. I left the maquest directions at home. We circled around Chicago at midnight and headed south on I65. Morning found us in Indianapolis where there is major road construction going on. After several detours we ended up on I70 going towards Dayton OH, not the right direction. It was a combination of a lot of coffee while Cori slept and poor signage by the highway department. At this point we stopped for more coffee, bought an atlas and Cori took over driving after sleeping all night. At Louisville KY we turned on to I64 and headed east.

The trip through the West Virginia Mountains was the best part with speeding up and down the hills and around the curves, just what this little car was made for. Once into Virginia we stopped for more caffeine and decided to take the top down and enjoy the ride. We had to stop at the Raleigh airport to pick up Cori’s car that we had left on Friday. From there we circled around Raleigh and headed home. We got back to the marina around 9:00 PM Sunday. We had been driving for about 32 hours and had put on over 1600 miles. Of course, Monday I had to get out the bucket and hose to clean the bugs off after the trip.

My biggest concern was having a breakdown, but that never happened. The little car did an outstanding job and got around 30 miles to the gallon for the trip running 70 to 80 mph most of the way. My next concern was how comfortable it would be for a long trip. I didn’t realize how comfortable the seats were. I half expected to feel like my butt was dead or being dragged down the road after several hours. The engineers did an outstanding job of designing a comfortable seat. Unfortunately with the design of the car it is not possible to recline the seat so sleeping is not very comfortable, but that is not what it was designed for.

Now it is fun to go to work in the morning and I look forward to dropping the top and heading home in the afternoon and even making up some errands I just “have” to run. Watch for photos coming to the gallery pages.

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05/20/2007: "A tough weekend - continued"