And the outer walls begin to fall…
5 minute read
November 3, 2022, 8:09 AM
On October 26, Elyse and I took a one-day trip down to Augusta County in order to change to the “permanent temporary solution” for my car problem, i.e. Mom’s Scion xB, following the HR-V’s untimely demise in an accident two and a half weeks prior. I don’t necessarily like doing these sorts of trips in a single day because it’s a lot of driving and I’m not 25 anymore, but that’s all I had time for based on my schedule. I also couldn’t really postpone this trip, because things were going to get a bit more expensive for me if I didn’t do this trip when I did. For those not familiar, when you have Progressive for your insurance and your car is totaled, your rental coverage ends three days after you are notified of your car’s total loss. That notification occurred while Elyse and I were on a weeklong trip to Tennessee, and so Progressive, taking my length of time as a customer (18 years!) into consideration, they extended my coverage until the day after we got back from our trip. Then Enterprise Rent-A-Car would let me pay the insurance rate for my rental for another week beyond that, after which I would have to pay the (much higher) retail rate. My original plan was to switch cars on the way back home, returning the rental car in Staunton, and then doing the last leg of the return trip in Mom’s car. As the trip continued on, though, I soon realized that we would be cutting it far too close with that plan, considering that it was also our Roanoke day, so I opted to postpone the car swap by a week and do the visit with my parents on the way home as we had planned to do it prior to the accident, i.e. it would just be a visit. So the primary focus of this trip was just to swap cars, on the day that the retail rate would have gone into effect, i.e. if you don’t return this car right now, you will be paying a lot more for it going forward. The addition of this new trip down also changed the plans for the last day of the Tennessee trip. Since there would now be an extra trip down to Staunton, I skipped a Staunton Mall update that I had planned for the return trip to save time, since I would be going right there the following week.
For this particular Staunton Mall visit, noting the pace of the progress that I had observed in June, August, and September, I already had a decent idea about what to expect. I figured that by my next visit, the remainder of the mall’s interior would be gone, and they would probably then start working on demolishing the exterior walls, which had remained mostly intact up to this point, which meant that Staunton Mall still largely looked like Staunton Mall from the road during most of the demolition up to that point. I also knew that I didn’t have much time on site this time around, and that the demolition crew would more than likely be on the property. Therefore, this was to be a high-level visit solely by drone, flown from well above the property where I could see my vehicle around the entire mall without having to reposition myself, and staying well clear of the demolition crew, since I didn’t want to get in their way at all, and I also didn’t have any time to discuss any special access with them, as I did in September to photograph what remained of the mall’s interior. All of that said, I made a quick ten-minute flight where I flew from the Orchard Hill Square shopping center across the street, and made a pass across the front of the mall, looped around the entire property, and then dipped down near the Belk entrance where there were no workers present for a momentary peek at that area before returning to the launch site.
Continue reading…
Categories: Augusta County, Scion xB, Staunton, Staunton Mall
May the HR-V rest in peace…
13 minute read
October 20, 2022, 8:32 AM
In the early morning on October 9, I was involved in a car accident on the way home from work. At the intersection of Montgomery Village Avenue and Christopher Avenue/Lost Knife Road in Gaithersburg, the driver of a red Nissan Pathfinder on Christopher Avenue ran a red light at what appeared to be full speed as I was going through the intersection, and despite my slamming on the brakes, there just wasn’t enough space to stop in order to avoid a collision. As a result, my car got T-boned on the left side on the front fender and the driver’s door, with enough force to deploy the side curtain airbags and knock my car about 150 feet before it came to rest next to a curb.
After the impact, I remember that I was sitting in the car and noticed that the airbags had gone off, and also noticed that the windshield was shatered at the bottom left. Then I remember hearing a male voice telling me that I needed to get out of the car. I quickly realized that would probably be a good idea, because considering that the car had just gone through a pretty hard collision, for all I knew, it might be on fire. I tried to open my door, but I couldn’t get it open, so I ended up climbing out through the passenger side door. I was quite shaken, I was bleeding above my left eye, my left knee felt sore like it had been scraped, and I wasn’t wearing my glasses anymore for some reason, but nonetheless, I had managed to walk away from it. Then I saw the person who had been telling me that I needed to get out of the car. It was a gentleman wearing black eye makeup (kind of like what the band Kiss does) from an event that he had been at earlier who was also an EMT, and who had witnessed the entire thing. He also quickly told me that the accident was absolutely not my fault, which I appreciated hearing. There was also a woman present who had witnessed the accident, who also agreed that I was not at fault. One of them must have also called 911, because I certainly didn’t, but the police and EMS were there pretty quickly.
When EMS arrived, they quickly took care of me, wrapping some gauze around my head for the bleeding, and taking my blood pressure. Yes, they took my blood pressure. I’m standing on the side of the road next to my now-wrecked car, visibly shaking from the accident, and then the guy tells me that my blood pressure is “kind of high”, coming in at 172/116. I did not need to be told that. I’m usually pretty nice, but I just shot back, in a pretty sarcastic tone, “Gee, I wonder why.” He removed the blood pressure cuff from my arm and went away. Yeah, I just survived a pretty major car accident, got hit by an airbag, had to crawl out the other side of my car, was bleeding from my head, had no glasses, and was shaking. My blood pressure is high? No kidding. I would have been more surprised if it was 120/80 right then rather than some astronomical amount. I refused transport, feeling that it was unnecessary. Then the cops got my information, and took my statement. I also let Elyse know what had happened, and she quickly got an Uber to take her to the scene.
Categories: Driving, Gaithersburg, Honda HR-V (2018), Montgomery Village, Scion xB
Trying out electric cars in space tights…
16 minute read
May 25, 2022, 2:31 PM
This past Thursday, Elyse and I went out to take some electric cars out for a test drive. I started seriously considering purchasing an electric car after filling up the HR-V a few weeks ago and being blown away by how expensive it was to fill it up. The idea was to use whatever electric car for commuting, and then keep the HR-V for road trips and other adventures where it might not be practical to use an electric car.
In going out, it was warm enough to finally take this pair of men’s space leggings that I had bought for myself a while back for a spin. I had wanted a pair of space tights for a while, and I was delighted to have found a pair of these things for men. After all, why should women get to keep the joy of fun prints all to themselves? Plus, after having lost so much weight, I can now fit into a pair of these and not look ridiculous. You be the judge:
Apparently, this happens to me once a decade…
6 minute read
September 20, 2020, 2:32 PM
Saturday night’s drive home was definitely a more eventful one than I would have preferred. Driving home from work (I currently work out of a division in Virginia), I tend to take Route 267 to the Beltway to I-270 and then to Route 355 (i.e. Rockville Pike) on my way north to Montgomery Village. The details in MoCo tend to vary depending on my mood. Sometimes I take 270 all the way to Shady Grove and cut over there, and sometimes I get off lower down and do more travel on Rockville Pike. Saturday night was the latter, where I got off on Democracy Boulevard and took Rockville Pike all the way from North Bethesda to Gaithersburg.
At the intersection with First Street (the one with the CVS and the Wendy’s with the glass sign), I was sitting at a red light in the middle lane, and I saw a car run the red light at a high rate of speed in the right lane. They were going quickly enough that I could feel their wake as they went by (and I felt them before I saw them). Then a few seconds later, just as the light turned green, a Maryland state trooper went past me, again at a high rate of speed, with lights off, to my left. I kind of assumed that they were related, and that I would see the trooper pull the other vehicle over at some point on my way home. So I had my eyes peeled, as I expected to see blue lights at some point.
Then, just before the intersection with Mannakee Street, a deer darted out in front of me, and with not enough space to swerve to avoid and not enough distance to stop, we made contact. I remember screaming as we hit, and I saw the deer sort of stagger away. I stopped the car immediately, right there in the center lane. I got out, looked at the front of the car, and saw a brand new hole where the grille used to be, pieces of the front of the car sticking out of the front, as well as bits and pieces of the Honda logo on the road. Then, realizing that the engine was still running, and seeing nothing dripping out from underneath, I moved the car to the parking lot of Cameron’s Seafood, and after letting Elyse know that I would be delayed, called 911 to report the accident. Surprisingly, 911 told me that for a deer strike, they weren’t going to send an officer to take a report, and just to follow up with the insurance.
Categories: Driving, Honda HR-V (2018), Rockville
It’s been a year since the car fire…
5 minute read
February 7, 2019, 1:18 PM
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the day that I lost my Kia Soul in a massive fire. I’ve chosen to commemorate the occasion with a photo set called “Remembering the Soul“, which looks back over the entire life of the Soul, from test drives to the end. I made the set in part for Elyse, because she had a harder time getting over the fire than I did, and I also wanted to put the fire in perspective with the rest of the Soul’s life in an attempt to somewhat curate the way that she is remembered. In the past year, it’s been very easy to think of the Soul only for the fire, because the last memories with her involved standing on the roadside and watching her burn to death. But there were quite a few happy years and wonderful memories made prior to that, and the photo set is a reminder of that, even if she never made it to 100,000 miles.
Meanwhile, in the intervening year, I’ve watched as Hyundai and Kia have gotten some major criticism for other fires in their vehicles, including another 2012 model Soul in Virginia. From what I can tell, it’s involved the Hyundai Sonata and Santa Fe, and the Kia Optima, Sorento, Sportage, and Soul. Most recently, I’ve seen a recall that focuses on the above named models, minus the Soul, and it seems to explain everything adequately as far as my fire goes. According to an article on the subject:
Hyundai and Kia started recalling 1.7 million vehicles in 2015 – about 618,000 of which are Kias – because manufacturing debris can restrict oil flow to connecting rod bearings. That can cause bearings in 2-liter and 2.4-liter four-cylinder engines to wear and fail. The problem can also cause fires. The repair in many cases is an expensive engine block replacement.
Categories: Honda HR-V (2018), Kia Soul
Adventures up north…
19 minute read
November 21, 2018, 1:48 PM
Back in the middle of October, as part of a weeklong vacation from work, Elyse and I took a trip to upstate New York and northeastern Pennsylvania. The first day took us up to Cortland, New York. The second day, we explored Scranton, Pennsylvania. The third day, we briefly explored Wilkes-Barre, and then went down to Centralia before heading home.
Our route on the first day took us from home up I-270 to Frederick, and then US 15 to Harrisburg. We had planned a stop around Harrisburg in order to photograph Three Mile Island from across the river, but scrapped it due to bad weather (clouds). We can day-trip it to Harrisburg any time, and traveling to the spot for Three Mile Island would have been a significant detour. We both agreed that we weren’t going to make a long detour for bad photos. Once we got to Harrisburg, we joined Interstate 81 for our travels north.
I definitely got to know I-81 a whole lot better than I did before taking this trip. Previously, I had traveled on I-81 from its southern terminus near Knoxville as far as exit 116 in Pennsylvania, from my Centralia trip in May (prior to that, I had only traveled as far as the I-78 split). Now, I’ve traveled the entire length of I-81 in Pennsylvania, and also 52 miles in upstate New York. If there’s one thing to be said about I-81 north of Harrisburg, it’s that the views are outstanding. I-81 runs through the mountains, and it’s quite a sight. And just like it does in Virginia, it skirts around every single city, which doesn’t make for the most interesting trip. I prefer when freeways go through the cities like I-95 tends to do, because it gives me something to look forward to, and also keeps me more engaged.
But thankfully, we had this license plate game that Elyse found in a thrift store, so as we spotted different states’ license plates, she turned that state over on the board. The most unusual license plate that we saw was for St. Maarten, at a Sheetz in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. Why a vehicle from St. Maarten was in central Pennsylvania, I don’t know.
Categories: Centralia, Elyse, Friends, Honda HR-V (2018), New York, Pennsylvania, Travel, Urban exploration, Woomy
No, this is not the solution to kids’ getting run over…
5 minute read
November 4, 2018, 2:59 PM
Last night, Elyse shared a photo with me from Facebook depicting a school bus making a stop way out in the middle of the road:
Photo: Dana Shifflett Farrar
The photo was captioned, “With the string of school bus accidents, I loved how this bus driver intentionally placed itself [sic] in the middle this morning. At first I wondered what they were doing, then I realized the kids had to cross the road. Well done, sir.” I don’t know where this specific location is, but considering that the person who posted it is from Shenandoah, Virginia, this likely depicts a location in Shenandoah County, Virginia, and as such is most likely a Shenandoah County school bus. This was likely done in reaction to recent news stories where children have been injured while going to school.
Categories: Honda HR-V (2018), School buses
A visit to Morgantown…
7 minute read
October 24, 2018, 10:00 AM
On October 8, I went out to Morgantown for the day with Elyse, Brian, and Trent. This was a fun little trip, with the intention of exploring the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system and also seeing a few elevators, as the three of them are very much into elevators. I’m not as much into elevators as they are, but I’ve learned a lot from them.
It’s a long drive to Morgantown, that’s for sure. From Montgomery Village to Morgantown took us about four hours, with stops in Frederick, Sideling Hill, Cumberland, and La Vale for various (mostly restroom) needs. I was amazed about how mountainous Interstate 68 was, particularly west of Cumberland. It felt like we were constantly going up a mountain, but the HR-V was killing the hills like a champ. This trip also brought out the roadgeek in all of us. We took I-68 from its eastern terminus in Hancock, and, since we were practically there already, rode 68 to its western terminus at I-79.
Sideling Hill was known territory to everyone. We had all been there before, but the view was still worth a look. However, it was foggy on this particular day:
Categories: Honda HR-V (2018), Transit, West Virginia
A walk down an abandoned road…
11 minute read
May 24, 2018, 5:40 AM
On May 17, 2018, I took a solo trip up to Centralia, Pennsylvania. For those not familiar, Centralia is something of a modern ghost town, having gradually been abandoned due to a coal mine fire that’s been burning uncontrolled beneath the town since 1962, likely caused by deliberate burning of trash in the town’s landfill, which was on top of a former strip mine. As of 2013, the town had only seven residents remaining, and when those remaining residents pass on or otherwise leave the town, their properties will be seized via eminent domain.
I had done some research about the site, but was a bit iffy on whether it was going to be good or not. I was concerned about its being a bust, but it was still intriguing enough to make the trip. And as it turned out, it was pretty cool. The biggest “attraction” at Centralia is an abandoned section of road known as the “Graffiti Highway”. That road came about when Pennsylvania Route 61 began having subsidence and visibility issues due to the coal mine fire. The state built a new alignment for the route on more stable ground in 1993, and the old alignment was abandoned. Since then, many people have come by and left graffiti tags on the road, which gave the road its nickname. Besides the road, there are also several cemeteries in Centralia, as well as one remaining active church, Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
When I went up, I wasn’t quite sure how it would work out. Based on my research, as well as a little Google sightseeing, there were the roads of the former town surrounded by empty land and a few houses, and the possibility of seeing steam from the mine fire rising from the ground. The Graffiti Highway was most intriguing. I’d heard mixed reports about how accessible the Graffiti Highway was, though. When it was still under state ownership, my understanding was that police tended to chase people away on a routine basis. I didn’t want to travel that far just to get chased out. But last fall, the state vacated their easement, i.e. they gave up the right of way, determining that it will never again be used for a road, and ownership of the land reverted back to adjacent property owners. So I believe that the old road is now on privately owned land, and as such, the heavy enforcement went away now that the state no longer owns the land. In any case, no one bothered me on my visit.
Categories: Centralia, Honda HR-V (2018), Roads, Urban exploration
They listed the color as black…
4 minute read
April 2, 2018, 2:23 PM
In the time since the Soul burned a little less than two months ago, Elyse and I had been wondering what happened to it afterward. We knew that it had been taken to Terry’s Body Shop in Purcellville immediately after the fire, and then the insurance company moved it to a facility in Culpeper in order to do their investigation. The sequence of events that I described and the photos of the fire itself pointed to a fuel fire, i.e. that fuel started leaking out near the engine, and then, presumably, once the leaked fuel hit the hot engine, it ignited, and the rest was history. However, the results of the insurance company’s investigation were inconclusive, as the fire had burned everything so thoroughly that their experts were unable to formally determine a specific cause that triggered the whole sequence of events.
Elyse had wondered if the car would end up on one of those auto salvage auction sites, and went hunting online to see if she could find it. Her search came up empty. Then, a few weeks later, I put the Soul’s VIN into Google to see what came up. I didn’t expect to find anything, so I was a bit surprised to hit pay dirt. I found a page from Insurance Auto Auctions with photos of my former car. The listing indicated that the damage was “total burn”, with a black exterior and a black interior. The black interior was correct, though I imagine that they weren’t thinking of the one that I remembered, but rather the one that existed after the fire. The description of the exterior color as “black” amused me, because most of the body was no longer green following the fire. Considering that, it’s pretty hard to argue with that description of the color.
Right front view. I imagine that this side, with its heavy smoke and fire damage, is what led the auction site to list the car’s color as “black” instead of green.
Categories: Kia Soul
Now I’m a Honda driver, but I’m still missing my Soul…
6 minute read
February 26, 2018, 1:56 AM
No one ever told me that losing a car would be so difficult. The car itself is gone, and after about a week in a rental car (a Hyundai Accent), I am now the proud owner of a Honda HR-V, a crossover SUV:
Categories: Honda HR-V (2018), Kia Soul
I guess that I can cross “escape from a burning car” off of my bucket list…
9 minute read
February 13, 2018, 2:40 PM
Sad to say, my 2012 Kia Soul is no more. On the night of February 7, in Lucketts, Virginia, as Elyse and I were on the way back home from a trip around the area with friends, my car caught fire and was destroyed in the resulting inferno. Thankfully, we both escaped without injury.
The day had gone pretty well. We had gotten together with two friends, Trent and Jackson, and we went from Gaithersburg to Rockville to Silver Spring to DC to Alexandria to Annandale seeing various things, with a focus mostly on elevators, as Elyse, Trent, and Jackson are all elevator enthusiasts. I have somewhat of an interest in them, but not nearly as strong as the other three. At the end of our day, we dropped Trent off at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, and then took Jackson up to Dulles Airport to meet up with family members of his that were flying in from out of town. After we left Jackson with his relatives, Elyse and I headed out. We took the Dulles Greenway to Leesburg, and then headed north on Route 15, intending to go over the Point of Rocks Bridge, and then continuing to follow Route 15 until we reached Frederick, after which we would turn south to head home.
However, circumstances would dictate otherwise. As we were going up Route 15, the car suddenly started losing accelerative power, getting it back, losing it again, and so on. The end result was that I was rapidly losing speed. Elyse thought that it was the transmission slipping, and with that in mind, I was trying to see if I could get the car to a safe location in order to stop and call AAA for a tow truck. A transmission problem would be covered under the Kia 100,000 mile powertrain warranty, and so, like the engine replacement that I had a couple of months ago, I would take it to the dealer to get it fixed, and everything would be fine.
Categories: Elyse, Friends, Kia Soul, Loudoun County
I suppose that this is why you buy a Kia…
6 minute read
December 4, 2017, 2:59 PM
I suppose that what happened to me recently is exactly why you buy a Kia. My car had been making some funny noises for a while, but since the check engine light had not come on yet, I figured that I had time to deal with it, and put it off until later. This past Monday, the noises got noticeably worse, and the “check engine” light finally came on. That’s when I scheduled a repair with a Kia dealer (since I suspected it might be covered by the warranty) and booked a rental car for the upcoming repair. Then the car finally quit on me on the way to work, i.e. it just cut off in the middle of Georgia Avenue in Olney. Thankfully, I was able to coast to a safe location to call for a tow truck.
The car ended up riding on the back of a tow truck from Olney directly to the dealer, and then I took the bus the rest of the way to work. Then the next day, Elyse and I took a bus down to Rockville to pick up the rental car and talk to the people working on my real car. I decided to kill two birds with one stone on that one, because I had planned a trip to IKEA during that time anyway, so I rented a truck. So for a few days, I went from a Kia Soul – a compact – to a Ram 1500 pickup truck. That thing was massive:
Snowzilla!
5 minute read
January 24, 2016, 10:55 PM
So the “Snowzilla” (as named by The Washington Post) storm has come and gone, and it left a large pile of snow in its wake – enough to kill part of the roof of the Safeway in Bel Air, Maryland, and the roof of Wayne Lanes in Waynesboro, Virginia. Thankfully, I came through this storm just fine, and it was just a matter of digging out. This storm dropped light, powdery snow (as compared to wet, heavy snow), and there was a lot of it. I got more snow on my balcony in this storm than I did in 2009 and 2010’s major winter storms, for one. Check this out:
Categories: Kia Soul, Winter weather
How stupid do they think that I am?
2 minute read
March 31, 2015, 1:08 AM
I recently received an envelope in the mail that looked like this:
I saw this envelope, with just an address and what appeared to be a handwritten address, and thought “bill”, since this is how I’ve seen some smaller doctors’ offices do billing.
Categories: Companies, Kia Soul, Some people