The trip down to Asheville started thursday morning when my girlfriend (Helen) & I met up with some friends (Nadirsh & Natasha, another couple, in the blue 350Z) at our apt. The plan was to drive down to a hotel on the TN/NC border the first day, spend the night there, and then the next morning we'd set off early to drive on the Cherohala skyway, Tail of the Dragon, and a number of other nice roads in the area for 4ish hours, and then head east to Asheville for a meet-and-greet with the bride & groom's family and wedding party.
Anyhow, the first morning we had the car packed, dogs taken care of, and had just started up the cars and were pulling out of the parking lot when Helen exclaims that she's forgotten something. I don't remember what it was that she forgot, but we both pull off to the side of the lot & shut the cars off so that she can run back in and get it. Well, she gets back and I go to start the RX-7 (Savannah - yes, a very creative name, i know), but instead of turning over, all the lights go out, the radio & climate shut off, and nothing. Well crap then. I'd been driving Savannah to work (100 mile round trip) for the past month to make sure everything was working well, and to find & fix minor issues that would pop up, and she'd been great. Now we hadn't gone 20 ft, and she's acting up.
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Battery reads at 12.5V, megasquirt is connecting and appears to be working fine, we've got power, but as soon as I turn the key to start, everything's dead again. Well, it seems like there's suddenly a massive short on the starter wire, or the battery is acting up but still showing enough voltage. I'm able to draft my girlfriend and the other couple to give me a push, Savannah decides to play nice & start up, and we're on our way. Other than push-starting her after every gas stop, pit stop, and going to dinner & the hotel that night (7 or 8 times total), the first day is fun but uneventful.
The next morning, I get up a little early to bust out the multimeter & try to find the problem. It wasn't happening the first morning, but now, after sitting overnight the battery is at 12V, and drops to 11 when I turn the headlights on, and down to 10.5 when hitting the brakes, so it definitely seems like one of the cells in the battery is toast. A little calling around, and a Walmart has the right size battery, and it's on the way towards the Skyway. 20 minutes in Wallyworld parking lot, and Savannah's got a new battery, and now has no problem starting up!
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On our way then! It was about 10:30 am when the group of us headed off
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Login. The skyway was absolutely gorgeous, and definitely my favorite road of the trip. It was practically empty, had a huge climb & downhill with a great mix of higher (relative to the dragon anyway) speed corners and some tight stuff so you could really cruise along, and at one point we were literally driving through the clouds.
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Absolutely fantastic time! Then we got off the Skyway, and onto 129 north; the road that turns into ToTD in 15 miles. The Dragon was fantastic; we were running a little late because of the battery stop, so we only went up and down it once, but once was enough.
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It was pretty crowded, especially with cruisers, but still fantastic.
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The way out we took nice & easy, and when we turned around we got caught behind some pickup that would slow to 5 mph (no joke) for every corner, and refused to turn off. Eventually he did, and we had lots of empty road ahead of us, so we bombed down it for a couple miles (still keeping things at 7/10ths or below, and mostly just maintaining momentum through the corners, not punching it when the road straightened out - tires were barely making a sound).
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Then, around one corner...
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AAACK! We both get signaled to the side of the road, and are written up for 45 in a 30, but by someone's good graces, we both get off with written warning! We definitely weren't being especially unsafe (besides being over the limit in turns, but definitely on our side of the road & with a healthy margin of safety), and I suspect that the combo of that and that we were down visiting as part of a trip to our friends wedding (as opposed to being there specifically for the roads) may have saved our bacon. Either way, Thank you Officers! Also, I was very glad that we got the battery that morning... asking the officers to give us a push-start on the gravel shoulder there wouldn't have gone over too well I imagine. They both laughed a bit sternly when I mentioned that bit of the story to them.
The rest of the drive to Asheville was nice but uneventful; we had enough excitement for the day, thank you very much. The wedding itself was beautiful, and overall it was a fantastic long weekend. Overall, it was 1400 miles, and Savannah managed 21 mpg per tank, except for the one friday morning, which was about 15. Still, 15 is better than what I usually see around town here in A2, with lots of stop & go, and cold-starts.