Keep Your Distance

Another day of Miata driving ... temps in the mid 60's! It's a great car to drive since its handling and steering are so responsive and, while the car isn't a horsepower tyrant, it's pretty peppy as long as you're in the right gear and the engine is not lugging or at the peak of its power band.

Put a Motown Soul Mix CD in the stereo, cranked up the sound and sang along to the Four Tops, the Temptations, Al Green and friends. Lots of fun.

While on 35W, I had an older Camry station wagon get behind me. It had obviously been in a couple (or more) accidents as the wheels were pigeon-toed and both fenders were crumpled. Apparently he wanted to check out the interior of my exhaust pipe as he hung on my tail pretty closely. So I ducked over into the next lane. He did too.

I then slowed down a bit more and went into the right lane. He did too.

So, I speeded up and went into the left lane. He did too.

By now I'm getting a bit nervous ... Miata are great cars but not well known for their rear crumple zone. I spotted a gap in the traffic and felt it was close enough to my exit so I eased back over to the middle and then the right again. He did too.

I exited and as I did so, he drove by and gave me a thumbs up. Apparently he just liked the car.

I still wanted to keep my distance.

COUNTDOWN: 32 days; 15 hours to storage.