I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

The case this weekend was the opposite, but the same. I took the one more traveled by road, and that made all the difference. Gawd how I hate the interstates.

April 15

I had about an hour of nice back roads for the start of the drive, but after that, it was one interstate after another: I-75, I-24, I-57, I-64, and finally I-70. And there was a detour for construction on I-24, so I also collected I-440.

I-75 is three lanes all the way to Tennessee. I had the aforesaid detour in addition to a couple of dozen active projects. Not active today, they don’t work on Saturdays, but they all have lane diversions and concrete barriers.

Toward the end of the day, the road surface was pretty good in Missouri. I spent most of the day trying to minimize the number of patches I drove over. The occupants of the giant land yachts passing me surely were in the comfort of their living rooms, but with my low-profile tires, stiff springs, and wafer-thin upholstery, I’m certainly more sensitive to bad roads than most travelers. I’m not saying the back roads are all well-paved, but it’s clear that the heavy truck traffic on the interstates takes a toll on the road surfaces.

Another difference between the interstates and the back roads is the detritus. In a mile or two of interstates, I see more tire carcasses than all day on the back roads. I saw half a dozen torn-off car fascias. There are at least ten times as many dead animals on the interstate. The vast majority on the back roads are raccoons or smaller. Along the super slab, there’s no shortage of road-kill venison.

That section of I-70 in western Missouri I mentioned above didn’t only feature a nice driving surface, it also was laser-straight for what seemed like an hour. The bone-jarring patches and holes were gone, only to be replaced by mind-numbing monotony.

Every now and then a nice Mustang or Challenger comes up next to me. This is almost always on 3-lane sections, where there’s a fair amount of traffic. They’ll get their door next to my nose, then back off so my door is at theirs. Then they’ll put the pedal down, making a big display of noise. I have no idea what they’re expecting me to do. We’re invariably in traffic. I’m guessing they want me to know what I already know: because they have two or three times the horsepower, they’re faster in a straight line. I find straight-line speed uninteresting.

I spotted two cars worth mentioning. One was a right-hand drive Jeep with no doors. I had to look twice when he passed me and even then I had to make sure when I passed him back a few minutes later. The other one was either a Skyline R32 or R33. I don’t really know the difference. I was surprised the car was left-hand drive. When I first spotted him, he was catching me at a good clip, and when finally saw me he maneuvered to pass me on the right (we were still in Georgia). He passed me with a GoPro in his hand. I gave him a peace sign.

When I’m passing trucks, I don’t stay next to them for very long. Before I get my nose in there, I see what’s in front of them. If they’re catching somebody, I don’t want them squishing me by changing lanes. I want some open space ahead of me in my lane so I can throw a little throttle in there and get around them with dispatch. When I’m in a long line in the left lane, which happens all too often, sometimes it irritates an impatient fellow behind me while I’m creating that gap. I refuse to drive side-by-side with a tractor-trailer rig.

By noon I decided to skip the Eisenhower Museum tomorrow and take US 36 back.

I didn’t blow any fuses today. First, there was no reason for it to happen, as I had already canceled my track day and I’m headed home. I don’t doubt that had I gone to Barber, I’d have had problems. The other reason none blew is that I bought that box of spares yesterday. The angry godz have had their fun with me.

I got to the hotel at 6:20 or so. I had plenty of daylight left. I didn’t make a reservation for tonight. Plan A was in Concordia, Plan B thirty miles farther; I’d stop at Concordia and see if the further one had a room. As it happened, they were full up, so Plan A it was.

When I showed up at Jayne and Dan’s, Dan remarked that I didn’t look like I’d been driving all day. No doubt about it today: I’m beat. Four hours later, I felt like I was still vibrating. I was on the road for ten and a half or eleven hours, with all but the first hour keeping the tach pinned at 4k or a bit under, depending on the speed limit. The interstate really gets me buzzed, you might say. Good Vibrations.

April 16

I woke up at about 5 am and lay there a few minutes before deciding to hit the road early.

Google Maps suggests two routes: I-70 and US 36. This is a no-brainer. There’s no way I’m going to subject myself to another full day of the super slab. The route starts on the interstate: I-70 to Kansas City, then I-29 north (my 7th interstate of the weekend) until it reaches US 36. At least four times, I got the message that there’s a quicker route I should take. Silly me. If you present me with two choices and I take one, why ask repeatedly if I would rather go the other way? Is my phone doing my bidding, or the other way around?

I stopped for breakfast at the first convenient restaurant on US 36. I was expecting a warm day, so I wore shorts. At 8 o’clock this seemed like a bad choice. It was quite cold, and the wind was fierce. I might have changed clothes if my jeans were readily accessible.

I quickly settled into the rhythm of the drive. Motoring at a reasonable 65 or 70, slowing down when the highway became the main street of the various farming and ranching towns of Kansas, then getting back up to speed on the other side. The open road was nearly empty. There are at least a hundred times more cars on the interstate. I kept within 5 mph of the speed limit, was passed by faster traffic only three times, and passed not many more cars who were slower.

I was home by 4:15 and felt like a normal, non-vibrating human. Not stressed out, not fatigued.

Again, I didn’t blow a fuse. I can’t help but wonder what might have happened had I tried to do the Barber track days. I surely didn’t want to blow a fuse again at the start of a lap. I know I made the correct choice in cutting the trip short (missing not only the Barber days and Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage, but planned visits to Andersonville National Historic Site, Shiloh National Military Park, and the Clinton Museum and Library).

I’ve already decided I’m going to go to Barber next year. Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment.

April 11

I need to find a way to get the car fixed. I’m not going to get out on the track at Barber unless I get it fixed. Without a fix, the rest of the trip is done. No Andersonville, no Shiloh. No Carter Museum or Clinton Museum. Can I even drive the car home like this?

Lotus of Atlanta

First thing in the morning I got online and looked up Lotus of Atlanta. They open at 8, so I waited until about 5 after and gave them a call. I got the message that their voicemail box was full and I couldn’t leave a message. Perhaps they’re busy and couldn’t pick up the phone. I waited a while and tried again. Same result. I did a Google search and found a different phone number, where only the last digit was different. I called that number and got through. How long have they had the wrong number on their website, and what does it say about their general competence? Just wondering.

I talked to a service writer and explained my dilemma: I’m 1300 miles from home with a car that keeps blowing a fuse. Is there any way you can take care of me? The short answer was “Tough shit”. To be fair, he explained that their tech was going on vacation starting Thursday (or perhaps it was “after Thursday”) and he already had a line of cars to work on. There’s just no way they can get me in.

So I asked if he could suggest a Plan B. “Well, you could drop the car off and leave it here until Thursday and maybe we could get it done.” As I said, I’m 1300 miles from home, and being here without a car is not a good option. Can he suggest another shop that might be able to help? “No, I don’t know of anybody anywhere near here that can work on your car.” I get that it would be bad business for him to recommend a competitor under normal circumstances when the customer can just wait a while. But I’m not in normal circumstances. Their lack of compassion was striking. Not even a platitude.

The Odyssey

It’s a Toyota engine, so I headed to the nearest Toyota dealer. I drew a big crowd when I pulled into line. This dealer is quite busy. The advisor I talked to said they average more than 250 cars a day in their service department. He told me it was a slow day and they could get right to me.

Only one or two of their advisors knew the Elise had a Toyota motor.

I explained what was going on and they said they’d take a look at it, with the usual diagnostic charge that would be waived if I did whatever work they recommended. To take it from the service desk to the shop, a young gal got behind the wheel. One of the advisors asked if she knew how to drive a stick. She said she did. She stalled it three times before she got it going. After the third try, I hollered out, “No pressure! Nobody is watching!” Of course, everyone was watching. When she did manage to go without stalling, she went like a rocket.

A couple of hours later, they came to give me the bad news. They had no idea what the issue was. The harness isn’t Toyota, the ECM isn’t Toyota, and they can’t do much without a wiring diagram, and anything they suggest would just be a guess. They did provide a guess, though: the oil control valves. There are two, each goes for about $200 and the labor would put me in the thousand-dollar range. That’s pretty ballsy. “We just admitted we don’t know anything about your problem, but we’re willing to charge you a grand on something anyway!”

One of the advisors asked the other if he remembered the name of some British guy that worked on Lotus and used to come in for parts. He might be able to help. They never did come up with his name, but one said I should go to Robinson Racing, which is not far away. The guy there, Barry, would know the British guy. So off I went.

The address he gave me turned out to be a building housing a Jeep shop. I would say “bustling” Jeep shop but even though there were a couple of dozen Jeeps there, the place seemed deserted. I went in anyway. I spotted the race car that the Toyota advisor showed me on his phone, so I figured I was in the right spot. I called out “Hello” and Barry came out from behind a car and greeted me. Yes, this was Robinson Racing, but he sold the building a while back and he’s down to being a one-man shop, mostly doing fabrication. He couldn’t help me, he had no clue about any British guy and suggested I go to the building next door and talk to the vintage Porsche guys. So off I went.

They have a big semi out front with the name Vintage Racing Company. I “Hello”ed again and this time was greeted by a chap formerly from South Africa. He was busy with something but was quickly on the phone with someone who I assume was his boss. He put him on speaker and I answered some questions: What kind of car? What year? and a couple more. He didn’t know anybody but told the South African to have Matt call around for me. We went inside and found Matt. I let him make his calls while I ogled all the old and not-so-old Porsche race cars.

A few minutes later, he told me he tried to get hold of two guys. One was on an airplane and the other was in a business meeting. He said I should wait a while for one of them to call back.

Next, I met a guy who was just visiting the shop. He used to work there and the other guys kept giving him grief for one thing or another. He was curious about my problem. I showed him the list of fault codes and he poked around here and there and looked up the codes he didn’t already know. His suspicion is that it’s a bad solenoid.

Matt came back outside with a Google maps printout. He said I should reach out to Hyper Sport Engineering-Lotus and talk to a guy named Kirt. I had him spell that. It’s the same Kirt I talked to at the track. He wasn’t much help at the track, but he was busy with his own work. What harm is there in reaching out to him again? Perhaps in his shop he could work some magic. I dialed the number. “We’re sorry. The number you dialed is no longer in service.” I found another number after a little googling, but that number turned out to be the firehouse for engine number 10. Sorry, wrong number.

Further searches led me to believe Hyper Sport Engineering-Lotus is no more. When I first talked to him, he did say he used to build Exige race cars. Past tense.

I also reached out to Ryan at Blue Chip to see if he knew anybody in this neighborhood. He asked a bunch of questions. He had a list of possibilities. An oil control solenoid could be drawing too much amperage. Later he said he had a hunch that there is a chafed wire somewhere or an issue with the alternator. He, too, reached out to Dave Simkins. I bet Dave is getting tired of people telling him about my car. (His suggestion: visit the local Lotus dealer.)

Michael’s first suggestion when the first one blew was that there is a wire shorting out. I’m generally clueless about these things, but it seems to me a short would fit with the fact that it doesn’t matter whether I’m on the second cam or not and that it has failed upon startup and also when cruising. In any event, it doesn’t look like I’m going to find an answer in time to salvage the rest of the trip.

I went back to Jayne and Dan’s and did a load of laundry. For dinner, I met a colleague I’ve worked with over the last year and a half. We ate at a place called Butcher & Brew. I had the roasted beef birria sandwich and a couple of pints of lime gose. Very tasty.

I probably spent two hours driving from place to place on today’s odyssey and with the hour’s drive after the track, it’s been about three hours of operation since the last fuse went. Nobody is going to be able to troubleshoot it without the wiring diagram. The car isn’t going to get fixed.

What are my options?

April 9

Today’s plan is to visit Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s residence. It’s 110 or 120 miles from the hotel. Using back roads, it would be nearly 3 hours or less than 2 hours via the interstate. I elected to violate Rule #1 and take the most direct route. The scenic route would make for a long day and a late arrival in Atlanta.

About an hour into the trip, I was cruising along in the right lane, taking it easy, when the fuse blew again. When it blew the first time, in Dexter, I was pulling out of the gas station. I didn’t have any momentum and I was worried I’d get stuck in the middle of the intersection. On the highway, it’s manageable. The RPMs modulate between about 4k and about 0. If you have momentum, you can get the car out of hazard.

I wanted to stop at an exit. If I needed somebody to help me, I wanted to be at an exit to make things as easy as possible. It wouldn’t matter which way they were coming. If you don’t get off the highway, it can be a real hassle. Luckily, there was an exit sign just ahead and I only had to go a mile. I limped along the shoulder of the road with the 4-way blinkers on and made my way down nearly to the stop sign at the bottom of the ramp.

There were no services available here – it’s just a country road. The road goes under the interstate, so I’m below grade. Nobody on the highway can see me. There’s no gas station, no McDonald’s, no nothing. Truly the middle of nowhere Tennessee.

I popped the boot lid to pull the bad fuse. I didn’t have another 7.5 amp fuse, but Michael said I could use a 10 amp (but no bigger!). I did have a spare 10 in the fuse compartment up front. I had not yet even gotten my Allen wrench out to open the panel when a car hauler pulled up next to me. He rolled down his window and asked if I was having problems.

I told him about my fuse situation. “Let me back my truck up behind you and see if I can help.” Once he got out of his truck, he dug through his tool kit and produced a small box with 5 or 6 7.5 amp fuses. We popped one in and started the car. The fuse blew immediately. He went back to his truck and came back with a box of 5 or 6 10-amp fuses. He opened that box, took one fuse out, and gave me the rest. I started the car and all was good.

He asked where I was headed. I told him I was going to Atlanta. He said, if I needed, he could give me a lift to either Nashville or Knoxville, but not Atlanta. It didn’t click with me right away, but what he was saying was that he could take me and my car to Nashville or Knoxville.

I asked him what I could do for him. “Nothing. That’s the road!” Before we departed, he told me he’d be behind me for a while and if anything else happened he’d stop again.

Thanks, Reuben, you’re my hero.

It wasn’t until I was a few miles down the road that something else occurred to me. Parked at the bottom of the ramp, I couldn’t be seen from the highway. And Reuben didn’t go down that exit ramp because he was exiting the highway. He knew to come looking for me. No doubt, one or more truckers saw me crawling down the shoulder with blinkers on and did a breaker one nine. In Reuben’s world, “That’s the road!”

So: a change of plans. As von Moltke said, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” I would no longer be touring Hermitage. I’d stay on the interstate for all but the last hour of the drive and get to Jayne’s place as soon as possible. I arrived at Jayne’s without further incident, although, between the fuse issue and having to deal with truck traffic on the interstate I was fairly stressed out.

As it was Easter Sunday, Jayne and Dan were entertaining guests. I had a nice ravioli dinner and a couple of tasty beers and made some new friends.

The day could have been much worse. But I best not let the godz hear me thinking like that…

The rest of the plans are now in jeopardy. Can I do Road Atlanta tomorrow? Am I doing any damage to the car by blowing fuses? I can’t troubleshoot it, so I have to find somebody that might be able to. The fuse lasted about five hours of operation. What will it do at the track?

I’ll go to Road Atlanta and see what happens. It’s paid for, may as well go.

April 8

From the hotel in Bentonville (on Walton Blvd, no less), it’s a short drive to today’s side trip. The hotel supposedly makes breakfast available for their guests. Keep in mind I’m being a bit frugal when it comes to places to spend the night. I want a clean room and a well-lighted parking lot. Free breakfast is nice, but not required. Today’s free breakfast lacked certain typical choices as fresh fruit and yogurt. If you were looking for Raisin Bran or Cheerios, you’re in luck. Let’s just say the free breakfast was worth what I paid for it.

Pea Ridge National Military Park

I got to the park at about 8. Google says it doesn’t open until 9. That’s the visitor center – you can drive the 7-mile one-way road and visit the ten pullouts any time you want. They had a brochure on display behind glass but I didn’t see any to take. So instead of taking the drive, I’d walk through the fields a bit and come back at 9. (When I got back I saw that there were indeed brochures available had I paid more attention. No matter, though.)

The visitor center has some very nice exhibits and the obligatory gift section. There’s a theater as well. Nothing was showing yet and I didn’t bother to find out what the show was and when. I just wanted to tour the park.

Almost nobody was there. There were a few runners and cyclists and a couple of walkers. I saw one other car the whole time I was on the loop, and that one only briefly.

The park is well maintained, and the paragraph or so in the guide that explains each location does a fairly decent job of telling what happened. It should be noted that the Park is only a fraction of the battlefield.

It was the largest Civil War battle west of the Mississippi River. The only other “battlefield” I’ve visited was Glorietta Pass in New Mexico. All that’s there is a roadside monument. It could probably be argued that the monument is too much. The battle was won when the Union soldiers ambushed the Confederate supply train, stealing some supplies, destroying the rest, and killing the horses and mules. The Texans had no choice but to return home.

Pea Ridge was much bigger, but not yet on the scale of the big eastern battles such as Gettysburg, Chancellorsville, or The Wilderness. Missouri was a border state and there were Missouri regiments fighting on both sides. The Confederates ultimately hoped to capture St. Louis and make Missouri a Confederate state.

At Pea Ridge, 16,500 Rebels attacked 10,500 Union soldiers. The Union general was expecting an attack from the south, so he arranged his front accordingly, with his field hospital, supplies, and so forth to the north. But the rebels made an audacious maneuver and attacked from the north. General Curtis had just enough time to completely rearrange his troops – no small task.

The rebels were able to attach from an unexpected direction due to a forced march of 42 miles in 16 hours. It was a daring maneuver but left the men well ahead of their supplies and quite fatigued. That’s not the best way to enter combat.

The battle raged for two days, with much close-in combat. Howitzers fired canister, case shot, and solid shot into formations of soldiers at close range; sometimes in the woods, sometimes in the open. Each canister shot throws out a spray of 27 iron balls each a bit bigger than a pinball. In extreme cases, the canister can be double-shotted (i.e. firing two canisters at once). Case shot projectiles have hollow centers packed with gunpowder and explode above the enemy, showering them with shrapnel. Solid shot (a solid 6- or 12-pound solid iron ball) is typically used at longer range to knock down walls or against enemy artillery.

The Park’s grounds cover most of the battlefield of the last day. The battle is sometimes also called the Battle of Elkhorn Tavern. The tavern was burned down by bushwhackers and the currently standing replica was built in 1865. The tavern sits on forested high ground while much of the combat occurred in the cleared fields to the south and west.

The Union won. Confederate casualties were about double that of the Union. Missouri was never again threatened.

A short time after Pea Ridge was Shiloh. We’ll get to that later.

The Drive

After leaving the Park, I enjoyed the scenery. The weather was fine, I drove many miles of worthy Lotus roads: twisting and turning, up and down, and left and right.

Not far from Pea Ridge, I came to a stop sign at a fairly busy intersection. I was third in line. The guy at the stop sign seemed to be waiting for an engraved invitation. Then I realized why. He wanted to wait for a big car club to pass by. They had a large number of cars. I didn’t think to count them. But we sat there for more than two minutes, so the line was at least two miles long. There were muscle cars, hot rods, and I don’t recall seeing anything imported.

Maybe twenty minutes later, I saw them again as oncoming traffic. They were making a loop and would return to the intersection where I first saw them. I must not have seen all of them the first time. It was a really long line of cars. There were a fair number of interlopers, to be sure, but it was a couple of minutes between seeing the first and the last of them. There had to have been sixty cars, at least.

So, the terrain was different than yesterday: twisty rolling roads and almost no straight-and-flat. And the forest changed throughout the day. Yesterday and this morning, almost all deciduous, and by late afternoon, sometimes evergreens were the majority.

And the vibe changed slightly. No billboards for Jesus, only a few about abortion. And perhaps I’m starting to tune them out but I don’t recall too many Trump flags. Today, it was guns. Lots and lots of gun shops. I’m guessing there is more hunting in Missouri than in Kansas, so that’s no doubt a factor. Guns and this, guns and that. I had a little mental list going but once I saw “Guns and Honey” the others just got forgotten.

Over the course of the day, the terrain changed from one with mile after mile of Lotus road to something more like what you’d find in Illinois: billiard table flat made up of cropland separated by narrow bands of trees.

By about 4 o’clock, I said to myself, “What a fine day! No new rock chips on the windshield and the phone is working fine. Nothing has gone wrong today!” Clearly, expressing this sentiment, even to myself, made the godz angry.

The Fuse

I stopped for gas in Dexter, MO. When I exited the station, the car ran very rough and I nearly stalled it in the intersection. I managed to get off the road and into an empty parking lot. The check engine light was on, along with most of the other bad lights. I could restart it, but it wouldn’t run. This is not good. Broken down a thousand miles from home, ignorant and incompetent when it comes to repairing cars, my anxiety went into overdrive. At least I wasn’t stuck on the side of the highway.

After three tries, I was able to use my phone app to read the engine’s fault codes. I got just about every code in the book: P0076, P0077, P0445, P0444, P0447, P0448, P2648, and P2649. I sent a screenshot to Michael just to share the misery.

It was just after 4:30 on a Saturday afternoon, on Easter weekend. I suppose it could have been worse: it could have been Easter Sunday. Thinking there wasn’t much Michael could do for me remotely, I searched the area for repair shops that were open. The first one I called, only half a mile distant, didn’t answer and his voicemail box was full. The second number answered. They were 16 miles away.

I explained what was going on, and read him the codes. I told him it was a Toyota engine. He was talking to somebody else in the background. Between the two of them, they figured out what they could bring to diagnose the problem. They suspected it might be a fuel pump. Even though I’m not a mechanic, I dismissed this solution. Worst case, they could tow me to their place and we’d go from there. They said it would take about 45 minutes for them to get to me.

In the meantime, Michael had texted me a suggestion. After a search of the web, he said that it could just be a fuse. So I took the cover off the fuse box on the front of the car and checked all of them. They all looked okay to me. I really hadn’t looked at this fuse box too closely up to now. I was pleased to see that it includes a spare fuse of each kind I might need.

I knew there were also fuses in the engine compartment, but I didn’t know where they were. Nothing looked like the fuse box in the front. I didn’t know whether Michael was at home or not. Luckily for me, he was. I had him go to the garage, find the Lotus manual, and take a picture of the page that shows where the engine fuses are. He also kindly told me which fuse it would be if this was the problem. I wasn’t exactly sure from his description, so it took me a couple of tries to find the right one. And, typically, even then it wasn’t easy. All the other fuses I checked were translucent and you could see whether it was bad or not. This one wasn’t translucent.

Just as I was inspecting this non-translucent fuse, my mechanics rolled up. One guy hooked up his computer to my OBD port while the other used a bright flashlight to inspect the suspicious fuse. He said it didn’t look good, so I grabbed the spare 7.5 amp fuse and installed it. The car fired up just fine. Woo hoo!

Even though they didn’t do anything to help me, I knew I’d have to pay them just for showing up. Silly me, I was expecting something like $40 or $50. The one in charge asked for $100. I told him I had $80 cash and no checkbook. He took the $80 and wrote me a receipt that showed a $100 charge and $80 payment.

That set me back a bit more than an hour. To add insult to injury, my phone gave me a different route than is in my itinerary. There are multiple road closures and this new route avoids them. It’s an hour longer. And with more traffic. Ending, ultimately, with me violating both Rule #1 and Rule #2 with the final half hour of the day’s drive on I-24 in the dark. So it goes.

I felt happy to dodge a bullet. Even if I didn’t know where the bullet was fired from, so to speak.

Saga

1. a long story of heroic achievement, especially a medieval prose narrative in Old Norse or Old Icelandic.

2. a long, involved story, account, or series of incidents.

The story of this trip is neither heroic, nor medieval, nor Old Norse. But it is long, and includes a series of incidents. So, “saga” it is!

What’s All This, Then?

Back in 2017, Lotus Ltd held their annual Lotus Owners Gathering (LOG) in Birmingham, Alabama. It seemed like a long way to drive, across a bunch of not-very-interesting roads, so I decided not to go. I’ve regretted that decision almost ever since. There’s not always a track day at the LOG, but for this one there was, and it was at Barber Motorsports Park. Which is on the same property as the Barber Motorsports Museum, which houses the world’s largest collection of Lotus race cars.

With this trip, I aim to rid myself of the ghost of LOG 37 and finally run some laps at a fabulous track and gander at an impressive number of interesting cars and motorcycles. So when the various track day operations started publishing their calendars back in January, I searched for events that I could combine into a nice trip.

I settled on a single-day event at Road Atlanta on a Monday with a two-day event at Barber the next weekend. Once I had that nailed down, I went about finding places to see on the way to Atlanta, things to do while staying in Atlanta, and more places to see on the way home from Birmingham. I came up with a trip that had me pretty excited.

Preparation and Packing

My track days on this trip are with Chin Track Days. I ran with them at Mid-Ohio a few years ago.

I changed the oil the Friday before I left. I upgraded the undertray several years ago so that I don’t have to take it off to change the oil, I just open a little door. This time, though, I took the undertray off. That gives us access to a bunch of bolts. I have solid motor mounts. Solid mounts make the whole car vibrate. So much so that, unless precautions are taken, some of the bolts work their way out.

When we did some work a few months ago, we found that a number of bolts were missing. We replaced them all and used blue locktite on them. Everything we secured with locktite was still there and in good condition. However, a few bolts on the diffuser had gone missing. I made a trip to the hardware store to get new ones, and when we put the car back together, we used locktite on all these as well.

Before we put it all back together, though, Michael checked that everything we could reach was properly torqued. I’d like to think that this will make for a few fewer rattles but I know better.

I had the car packed the night before I left. On previous trips, it was a bit like a three-dimensional puzzle: how can I fit all this stuff in the car?

This trip, though, I have quite a bit less stuff to carry than in the past. I’m not doing any camping or hiking this time, so I don’t have a pair of hiking boots, my day pack, or a tent. I’m taking both helmets in case I have a passenger one day, but I still have plenty of free space. Note that “plenty of free space” in an Elise bears no similarity to the same idea in any other car. I’m bringing a cooler with me so I can save a few bucks on the road. I packed it with four sodas, which will last a couple of days. This allows me to buy a 12-pack at some point. Not all 12 will fit in the cooler, but I’ll still have plenty of room for those that don’t fit in the cooler. At least, I’m pretty sure I have that much extra room!

April 6

I hit the road at about 8 am after gassing up at Costco.

The drive through Colorado was uneventful. I stopped at the sign at the Kansas border for a photo. About ten minutes later, a pickup truck headed in the opposite direction kicked up a stone that hit my windshield. It’s pretty nasty, the worst rock chip I’ve ever had. I hope it doesn’t crack – they won’t let me on the track if I have a big crack in the windshield.

It’s ironic that, as I left the house and headed directly into the morning sun, I lamented how badly pitted my windshield is. With the sun low on the horizon, it’s like looking through the Milky Way. Looks like I’ll be starting the search for a new windshield when I get home. I understand they can be difficult to source.

Near Lebanon, I made a short detour to the geographic center of the 48 states. The monument is in the process of getting a minor upgrade: a crew had just poured concrete for a length of new sidewalk. They were very interested in the car, so we had a nice chat. They directed me to a woman who was there. They said she was the local expert. I asked her if the monument was in the correct spot. She said the actual geographic center was a short distance across the field to the northwest. She said they have a marker buried there in the correct place and many folks have taken their metal detectors out searching for it, but nobody has had any success. One of the sidewalk crew suggested that it’s probably worked its way deeper in the ground.

There’s a little chapel there. It’s being worked on, so I didn’t step in. Is a pew still a pew if it seats only one person? Wide enough for one person on each side of the aisle. There is usually a visitor log there, but during the work, they have it at the visitor center in Lebanon.

Of course, Google directed me to the monument down a dirt road. On the way out, I went the easy way, on the nice, wide, smooth blacktop. I don’t know why Google keeps wanting to send me down dirt roads. I wish they’d add a “Avoid Dirt Roads” option.

Passing through the town of Marysville, I saw giant squirrels. About one on each block, or thereabouts. Three feet tall, maybe a bit more, black. The sculptures are the same. The squirrel has an acorn in its paws. They’re all customized to one degree or another. The one at the car wash had the acorn painted to look like a soap bubble. The one at the bank had a golden tail. I learned later that Marysville is called Black Squirrel City.

Between Lebanon and my hotel in Atchison, I saw quite a few pillars of smoke. At first, I thought I was imagining. But, sure enough, at any given spot I could see three or four of these smoke pillars. One looked quite big – was it a structural fire? In the end, I don’t think it was. I passed a couple of places where the ground was burnt. I think it’s just farmers clearing the undergrowth out of drainage ditches or something along those lines.

After I checked into my room, I went in search of fuel and food. My phone directed me across the river into Missouri for gas, and on the way back I grabbed a burger at the place next to the hotel.

Not a terribly long day and the only negative was the damaged windshield.