Day 9: Hiding from winter

After a roughly a week on the road, I've retreated to East Tennessee to see family, do a little laundry, and hide from the weather. A second cold snap has descended on the eastern US and my choices were clear: head _way_ south, Miami or farther, or find a garage. I'm a big wimp and I don't drive the Lotus in the snow -- at least not with summer tires.

Brrr....

Coming from Charleston, I hit the 10,000 mile mark. It's nothing for a daily driver, but is a lot for a car that I have rarely driven in the past year. It also means I probably have a good idea on how the car will be for the next 100K miles. The Toyota drivetrain is likely to last a long, long time.

A couple days of normality gives me the chance to look at routes for the next couple of weeks of driving. The best multiroute map optimizer I could find was http://www.gebweb.net/optimap/. It essentially brute forces a solution to the traveling salesman problem using data from google maps. I find the interface a little tedious and I wish there were ways to insert additional constraints. There's also an extension to the problem where you are trying to optimize both time and distance at the same time. I haven't found anything to do that. Here's a sample route to a handful of places:


View Larger Map

Day 6-7: Charleston SC

Your fearless narrator, thinking revolutionary thoughts

In search of warm weather this week, I came out to the coast of South Carolina. This is not simple chance. Charleston is the largest US city (metro area) that I have never visited, outside of Hawaii. It's a shame I only have a few days to see things; there is so much history here. 60 degree temps in January -- gotta love it.

Evora, at home on Rainbow Row

As a good vacationer should, I'm living meal to meal. The highlights include seafood at the bank-become-bar Ordinary, amazing cocktails at the Gin Joint, and an equally stunning brunch at Stars.

Obligatory coastal awesome

Day 4: Packing assessment

After a few days living hauling around the essential must-haves in my life, I'm taking a look at my packing job. As I mentioned a few days ago, I will spend the next 10 weeks with a couple of duffel bags and a couple of backpacks. My packing goals were/are:

• Maintain the rear and side visibility, which is already limited 
• Keep use of the passenger seat
• Everything must be packed tightly and unable to shift left/right/fore/aft.
• As must of the weight as possible must be close the the center of gravity

Here is a visual inventory of everything that I am carrying; yes, I included a helmet.

Life, made simple

It is an astonishingly small pile of things, but is a tight fit in the trunk and backseats of the Evora.

All my work, reading, and writing material

The two duffels, hanging clothes, and helmet then fill the space behind the front seats. I considered using roller board bags because they are easy to carry around, but the rigid shape doesn't lend itself to cramped spaces. The wheels and hard edges would also cause damage to the interior with repeated packing and unpacking. The duffels contain only clothes, so they mold to fit the very small backseats. That meets all of my requirements.  

Day 2: Lotus Fortunes

The first stop of the trip is Clemson, SC to see friends and eat BBQ. Actually, I've never had BBQ in South Carolina, but I hear it is worth stopping for. It is a short jaunt from Charlotte and good chance to shake down my packing job, a topic for the next post.

The Lotus Evora is a peculiar car for an extended roadtrip through semi-homelessness. Most places, it is impossible to pass unnoticed. Anyone who has owns a rare car gets used to to some rubber-necking, but it is strange to experience it away from home. However, this trip is less about style and more about the experience behind the wheel.

My work schedule didn't allow me to drive the car more than a few miles in the last several months and it dimmed my memories of the driving experience. The first 150 miles reminded me that the Evora may be one of the most underrated cars on sale. Critics love to write glowing reviews, but they don't sell very well. At least in the USA, people aren't buying them. It's a shame. Whenever I show the the car to a gearhead, or let them drive it, the response is always surprise and elation. As I will prove in the next few months, you really can live with it every day.

Cosmic confirmation at lunch

Buy one!

Day 1: Escape Velocity

To start the new year, I resigned my position in professional racing. It was a suprise to some, but seemed long overdue to others. An excellent experience in what started as a dream job, that career had run its course. I have taken to calling NASCAR my post-doc: lots of domain experience, lots of hairpulling, and a limited engagement.

A headhunter put me in touch with a very exciting tech/finance company in NYC. The process of meeting company->company meeting me->offer->acceptance happened very quickly. There will be more on this later, but the opportunity is comparable with the most successful small companies in Silicon Valley. Of course, this necessitated a move to New York.

Like most change, the difficult part was getting the ball rolling. Once I announced my decision, only ten days of work remained. Without a job in North Carolina, there was no reason to stay in Charlotte, so I ended my lease as well. My sparsely furnished, small apartment was a good indication that I didn't intend to make racing permanent.  NYC would be a big change from Charlotte. A plan hatched in my mind.

I have moved across the country several times. NYC would put a premium on space. The floor space for a desk or couch would be hundreds of dollars per month. I remembered how the moves will filter out waste in life, if you can just decide to leave the baggage behind. In this case, I decided to take it to the extreme -- get my life down to what I can fit in my car.

"That's not such a big deal", you might say. "Lots of people own only a car's worth of junk." *cough* college students *cough*  The thing is, I drive a Lotus.  It may be the roomiest, most practical Lotus that you can buy. However, it's still a very small car by US standards. Things will need to get very, very simple.

I shipped off some very personal, but non-essential, items for my family to keep (books, pictures). Next, I sold every piece of furniture that I owned. I kept nothing that wouldn't fit under my arm. Couches, chairs, tables, TVs, and appliances made their way to craigslist. I donated what I couldn't promptly sell. I had to borrow a bigger car to go to goodwill. After two weeks, my apartment had become two backpacks, two duffel bags, and a handful of hanging clothes.

All the furniture I wanted to keep

At this point, things got very interesting. My numerous moves had taught me two unassailable truths. First, it sucks to leave a job on Monday and start the next on Tuesday. There is never enough time to get comfortable and make the transition smooth. Second, NYC is freaking cold in January. Avoiding these, a happy Donour makes. Using careful consideration (and 365-sided die), I pushed my job's start date to the beginning of April.

Now that my life is distilled to luggage that I could fit on a southwest flight at no charge and an exotic sports car, I have roughly 80 days of vacation and nowhere to live. I do have:

1. small personal savings that will allow me to eat, occasionally
2. one of the most fun to drive cars ever made
3. residence in the world's most drivable country
4. unsuspecting friends and family

Until I get to NYC at the end of March, I will be living almost exclusively out of the Lotus. No,  I won't be sleeping in it. There will be no camping or filling glovebox with hotel shampoo bottles. However, I am hauling all that I have chosen to keep around with me -- four bags and an an undiluted driving experience.

All the clothes I really needed