Purple Frog's 10th mid-life crisis

Heavy rain in Central Mississippi... glad now for all season tires.

Heavy rain in Central Mississippi... glad now for all season tires.

After a bit of a navigation error I found my way to Alabama. 

USS Alabama 

Lots of cool stuff here.

Off to Florida 

The home stretch...

If you are old and you get one of these and make about 12 stops a day, you can drop your membership to yoga classes.

Loving it.

Home!  1605 miles in two fairly easy  days.

Happy with the GR86. Now, I need to read more of the owner's manual and figure out more of the features,  and how to turn a few off.

I can say for sure I had a much better time driving from Colorado than I did flying out there.  Touring can be fun.

When I looked out across Mobile Bay at the Gulf a few hours ago, I was thinking how many different parts of the country I got to see since I left the top of Pikes Peak.

Good night.

Another GR86(auto) thing I need to dig further into.  A few times today I would be cruising along at ~85 and I would mat it to get around something,  The car seemed to drop down a gear and then rapidly be up into the yellow zone on the tach (and still climbing).  I would have to do a brief let up on the pedal to get it to upshift.    That didn't happen if I just eased into the throttle.  I think it would go deep into the red if I didn't let up.

The whole 1605 miles I never messed with seat adjustments, or steering wheel adjustments, and was comfy the whole way.  Of course I was getting out every few hours to take pictures and post.  That may have helped.

If driving sporty, I find the cup holder in the door to be better placed than the on in the console.

By the looks of the front of the car tonight, I lowered the insect population in seven states.

A little more to the story.  I tend to give each car a name....

Pepper, Our 17 year old dog has been declining in health the last few months. We've basically had him On life support.

I got home last night and saw how much he had declined in the 3 days I had been gone.  I had to drive the work truck today (his favorite ride). I carried him out to his seat. As we were driving we had a talk. We agreed. So drove to the vet.

So now I've decided to name the GR86 ... Pepper.

Now I can tell Mrs Frog. "I'm going to take Pepper for a ride."

He was good dog. 17 great years.

I've owned this wonderful little car for 3 weeks now. I'm loving it.  In 3 weeks we driven 4,000 miles. Colorado to Florida to Lime Rock CT, and now back in North Carolina. Mrs Frog enjoys riding in it. The amount of luggage we can carry is pretty impressive. 

Condolences on your doggo. The GR already drives a strong emotional connection and your naming it in memorial will no doubt deepen that.

Enjoy the car and the memories!

Sorry for your loss and happy for the new ride.

Looks like the MG guy in the pic is reconsidering any number of his life choices =)

I never liked the black wheels.  Too much the gangster/mafia look for me.  Being an old skool boomer, I think the wheels should be part of the picture.

Yesterday's upgrade.   A coin toss between silver and gold.   I even considered the new baby blue style... for a few seconds.  Decided that with a Subie engine in the GR86 I would show respect to the Blue Subie rally cars of the past and go gold.  It certainly brightened things up a bit.   

Thinking of power-coating the original 18" wheels silver.

OBTW... over 30,000 miles on the odometer.

In reply to Purple Frog :

Nice choice. Those look great.

They really work with that shade of blue.

For me black wheels only work on light color cars, but even then I'd probably go for silver or gold/bronze.