[Hal Copple]

Practice makes perfect. When my Wife Lynne happens to mention that she has an upcoming out of town conference to attend, my first action is to wander nonchalantly over to the desk calendar, and when she isn't looking, glance down to see if I am working that weekend or not. So when the other day she mentioned that she was driving her new Jag down to Charleston Thursday about midday, coming back Sat, I began my planning phase of the operation. I was told to take a chair down for Becky, our Jr. at Clemson, meaning I had to take the minivan. Then, as usually happens, about four other mothers heard about my upcoming trip to Clemson, about 150 miles south, and dropped by things I was to deliver to their daughters on campus. The kitchen table began to fill with this and that, evening gowns, cases of soda pop, book bags, computer stuff, and so forth. I kept mentally tallying the sizes and weight of the bags and boxes, as I kept re-packing my SPF in my mind.

Lynne left about noon, and I stayed away from home to avoid meeting her, and having her give me some sort of final mission for the trip, and I kept my cell phone accidentally turned off, so I was unreachable. When the coast was clear, I drove home just after she left, stowed what I could in the SPF, fired the Great Stroker up, and headed south. The high white clouds appeared benign, but every afternoon, they become belligerent and hostile to open cars. I had to be prepared for rain. Ran cross country on the rural SC roads, then blasted down the on-ramp to I-85 south, and sure enough, about an hour away, faced a large, dark wall of wet clouds. With the new fabric top being so watertight, but taking about 4 times as long to put on my #672 car as my former "Munster" top, I decided to pull over onto the grass, and erect the new top. I finally put the three part bows on the grass, not being able to assemble the steel apparatus in the air. I was closely watched from behind the curtain of the nearby single wide home.

Eventually got it all put up, rejoined traffic, now on a side road, and then the sky dropped, but I was protected from rain. However, I was absolutely soaked with sweat from the heat and humidity anyway. Got to Sorority Row in the nick of time, and met my stunningly beautiful 21 year old blond Southern Lass coming down the steps. I was quickly surrounded by college kids, campus police, and even a few dogs, all interested in my handsome and by now dry SPF. Some of the college kids were actually pretty knowledgeable about Cobra Replicas. Gave out all the junk, I mean Female College stuff I had brought down, then Becky hopped in, and had me drive thru campus to take her to a 5 pm Rush party. The college was in gridlock! My engine kept boiling over, requiring me to constantly blip the Holley, raising ruckus among the buildings, which is largely why I wanted to drive it down anyway. Got out and put a towel over the passenger's sidepipes so she did not risk burning her Southern legs on the pipes, bid her goodbye, and headed home. I was promptly lost in the new parking lots. I went around and thru them all, just totally unable to find a way to the edge of campus. I went by one corner so many times, the students there sat down on the stone wall, and cheered me every time I came by again. Finally, met a campus police car, and asked how to get out, and he had me follow him to to a departure place. Truth be known, i actually have a college education myself.

Met son Chris about an hour closer to home, we had crab legs at a seafood place, then I jumped into his Boxster, and he belted himself into my car, and we went to join his buddies at a go-cart track. There, we got passes, and then about 6 of us staged in the carts, and took off. Chris and I used our extensive VIR track experience to deftly move thru the track traffic, hitting the apexes just right to carry our speed thru the turns, and just smoked every body. I was black flagged for a while for speeding in the pits. By about 10 pm, having about two hours to home, I left the guys there, and swung the proud nose of my car north, and sped under the dark and foreboding skies. Took the cut off thru the Kings Mountain National Battlefield park, where the patriots kicked English butt, it was a really important victory for the Colonials. But the winding two lane road thru the forest was like being lost in The Lord Of The Rings. So dark and woodsy, and so alone, I knew what Hansel and Gretel felt like when they were in the woods, lost. If I ran off the road, even the vultures would never find me. But eventually, not hitting any deer, come out the other side of the Park, and about an hour later rolled into the garage, tired, soaked from sweat, with blood-shot eyes. About 330 miles or so. The speedo cable came out of the Smiths, so drove by the tach, and one of the top hoop bars lost a bolt, leaving the passenger's side a bit droopy. Nothing a few minutes in the garage won't fix.

Hopefully, when Lynne finds out I did not get all the Girl Stuff down to Clemson, I can apologize, and lay low until she leaves again, leaving me to plan my next trip.

hal

By the way, i never did read the subsequent posts to my departure about a month ago, let by-gones be by-gones. We'll start over now.

all the best