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I'm about to do the annual parental pilgrimage, possibly taking
off Wednesdayish, and targeting arrival in Columbia SC to hang
out with Kacey G. for a day or so. I realize y'all just had a
gathering at Midlands and the 48-state tour went through there
so my wandering by isn't nearly as momentous, but if anyone wants
to get together in that area, say on Friday the 12th or thereabouts,
I'm game. It doesn't have to be at Kacey's workplace, either,
if the powers that be there would start to wonder what the heck's
with all these random visitors who *aren't* driving Hondas.
.
I'm not yet sure if I'm taking the eastward route or the westward
one down I-81; depends on what I come up with that I might want
to visit. I'm tentatively looking into another run through Delaware
and eastern MD and through the Chesapeake tunnel complex again,
passing through VA Beach and such.
.
_H*

I could very possibly meet on the 13th.

I'm off Friday and that weekend, so it depends on where, when, and what.

They did enjoy having the AreoCivic and it is a Honda, we also have so many random Prius roll through it isn't even funny when I joke about it anymore (unless they pull in to the express oil change lane then its good for a chuckle now that I'm not doing it every 5k miles)

Everyone there can attest to how much we like having guests and they don't try to pressure any sales, Wayne was the only one who mentioned buying a Honda that I heard directed at the gathering.

They also didn't know the Metro came in a convertible. :)




Please someone show me how to P&G proper.

Kacey, P&G isn't easy in an HCH... it wants to tank the battery and that is behavior you don't want. I can do it in the Insight at certain speeds without impact to the battery but I have to be way gentler than I am with the Elantra.

Hobbit> What route do you plan to traverse through NC? It's too close to christmas to head down to SC at this point (for me), but if you're going to be anywhere near Raleigh/Durham, I could meet you somewhere off your chosen path for a small driving break.

I'm free all day saturday, and I do have one last half day to burn that I could take on Friday afternoon.

Hmm, should I push for my hang-out day around SC to be Saturday
instead? I'm not really under any time constraints here...
.
_H*

Okay, as far as I see it the plans *have* shifted a little. I'll
be passing through Richmond over Thurs. night and should make
Columbia SC by sometime Friday afternoon. This gives Friday
night and/or Saturday to hang out, if anyone's so inclined! Then
if it looks like nothing will happen on Saturday after all, I
can just take off and continue south, or sit around and work on
my trip log, or whatever. No hurry on any of it.
.
My first leg tomorrow evening will probably be wettish, but should
have better weather later in the week.
.
_H*

I'll be around. Are we still thinking Midlands Honda is a good place to meet? New car lots are always fun places to poke around, anyway.

Good luck with the rain. It just started coming down here an hour or so ago.

**EDIT**
Forecast for Saturday: 52F and sunny.

Hobbit's here in Richmond, shacking up with me overnight. He's a little waterlogged and his fuel economy tanked during the deluge, but he's warm and dry now. He'll be trying to get his wireless fired up later this evening to get online.

Meanwhile, Skwyre7 and a co-worker (a Prius owner, incidentally) joined us for barbecue at Famous Dave's. Good eatin'!

I won't be able to make it. I had several trees go down during yesterday's deluge and also have other storm related damage to clean up around the house and farm.

I did *not* actually manage to get on the net from JimboK's last night,
as it turned out that only one neighbor had wireless and it was one of the
new provider-supplied routers that WEPs by default. Also, after we ate I
actually realized I was pretty bushed, and I suppose with good reason.
.
Yesterday I had to swim upstream, both ways, barefoot. This has to be
*the* most astoundingly heavy and later in the day, constant rain I've
ever seen on a drive. We're talking down to 35 with flashers on and
max wipers sometimes. As someone else put it, this totally makes up for
having dragged a little cell of nice weather around with me over the
summer roadtrip, or something.
.
However, it was intermittent enough during the day that when I got to
Ocean City MD, I found what I was looking for:
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL08/d/57hobbitr.jpg
.
A little later, this guy was chewing my butt down a piece of Rt. 13 and
*would* not get off until our side opened up to two lanes and he roared
past. T&B Transport, based out of Temperanceville VA, that little piece
that's out across the Chesapeake. But from what I can gather it's some
smalltime O/O so there's nobody to complain to.
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL08/d/63tbclose.jpg
.
Found another good one for the "dead rural structures" collection off a
side road:
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL08/d/68deadhse.jpg
.
We all know rail travel is efficient. However, this is probably not
the right way to go about it:
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL08/d/69rrride.jpg
.
This is the back of a chrysler 300 I happened to come up behind at a
light. Jimbo and the others wondered how they managed to get it through
the VA DMV. All I could think here was "only one? Guess it wasn't
very good, either, or maybe he would have bought you the HEMI model!"
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL08/d/81bj.jpg
.
============================
.
Today was quite different -- it quickly cleared up into a nice warm
gorgeous day. The theme soon became something like "when Hobbit hits
the road, truckers lose their jobs." The first one of the morning came
up from behind *very* fast, no response to early 4-way warning or just
turning the 4-ways on for real, YB, or anything, and just copped an
attitude and pushed me at half a car length for about half a mile before
roaring past and doing it all over again with several more people down
the road. Noted "Mid-Atlantic Transport" on the side of the cab, got a
pic of the back of the flatbed, and a while later stopped at a motel and
used the computer in their lobby to google it up. The 800 number got
*right* to the dispatcher, who as I started describing the trailer said
"yup, that's ours, I know exactly who that is and I want you to just hold
right here on the phone" ... and then I heard him call the driver on the
other phone and really lay into the guy. "Where you at? Huh? Whatcha
doin' with this? We can't have you scarin' the customers! No, listen,
I need you to come straight into mah office and see me when yo' get here!"
It sounded like the dispatcher was getting some degree of backtalk from
the guy at first, and laid down the law with him.
.
I have *never* heard a dispatcher take a driver to task in realtime while
I was listening, but here was the sound of justice being done. He also
told me "yeah, I had another problem with this guy a couple of days ago...
I laid off eight drivers last week, and you just gave me the ninth."
.
Later today came another one, similar behavior, responding to my attempts
to be nice and slowly escalate my request by coming up really close and
staying:
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL08/d/04sander.jpg
.
Kacey helped me with this one, after I finished with my *second* call to
911 for the day hoping the staties could wander around rest stops at the
exit that the bogey dove off and find it. He googled up a number for
Wiley Sanders, and my pic not only shows the proximity but also has just
enough of the trailer number to give them enough to track. They said
they'd look into it. Hmmph.
.
I still really want to know what the hell is wrong with these truckers,
where they face *so* much liability if they cause a crash.
.
The other fun bit from today was some more steady-state test running,
which I'll write up in a different thread.
.
Anyway, I reached Midlands Honda just around dark [yes, you need sunglasses
to wander around under how that place is lit up] and then Kacey and I headed
to the no-ethanol truckstop and got some food and I'm back on the net from
his place. Tomorrow we'll hopefully be able to pull together a gathering,
however small...
.
_H*

Very humorous write up Hobbit. I wanted to come, but not feeling well w/ larangitis(sp) is keeping me home. Maybe next time.

Welcome to the south...

Jess

aiiiieee!!
http://www.boston.com/news/local/gallery/121208_readersweatherphotos?pg=18
.
More on what happened up north at boston.com (http://www.boston.com/news/weather/articles/2008/12/13/ice_storm_paralyzes_parts_of_new_england/)
.
_H*

good thing you were on the road :)

Yeah, that was near the top of the stack for the Today Show news crew this morning. I hope your neighborhood was spared.

welcome to south cackalacky

I made the final leg today.
.
Do any of y'all southern types have any idea what makes long gouges
and scrapes in highway surfaces like this?
http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/pix/FL08/d/620scrapes.jpg
They go on for *miles* sometimes, so it doesn't seem likely the
cause was someone riding on a rim all that way, and some of
the lines are "dashed" like something with teeth and a lot
of weight on top of it kept rolling along for a long way.
.
Thanks again to all who provided accomodation, it was great to
have waypoints!
.
_H*

Sorry I missed your PMs on Saturday. :( I got sidetracked around mid-day and wound up running errands with the Mrs.

I'm pretty sure the gouges are from trailers with blown tires. My first apartment in Columbia were within a few hundred yards of I-20, and it was not uncommon to hear the almighty **BANG** of one of those tires going out followed by the sound of the rim dragging on pavement. Especially in hot weather! My guess is that the gouges are more common in these parts due to the summer heat softening the road surface.