Little late posting.
Last weekend 9th March. I took the mx5 to goodwood to join the GRRC organised regional drive around South Downs.
Amazing weather roof down. 120 circular route around some cracking B roads through great scenery. Convoy of like minded peeps in everything from classic Ferraris, a mclaren, alpines and lotuses to my mx5 and a 124 arbarth. It was a great day 500miles including getting to goodwood and back
Pic of my 5 in the pit sheds as arrived
Had a blast around Curborough sprint. The silver Eunos with oversized tyres was fouling the wheel arch. It improved when we found out he was running 18 psi all round.
And there’s always the life’s too short argument.
In the first two years I used it more ‘as a car’ and as long as it was dry, I didn’t mind. I’d hose the underneath about once a week. The underside of my ND still looks decent.
Frosty start for a long way round run over the moors to the MOT station , finished with a sunny drive back over the moors with a clean pass 
Couple of days away in the Yorkshire Dales. Weather pretty much perfect - hopfully tomorrow to be the same for homeward journey via Hartside Pass. Pics of Aysgarth falls (not a lot of water in the river) and my NC on Buttertubs, plus an old Reliant Robin in Reeth.
Had a short scamper about today. Keep forgetting to take a pic of my new exhaust which really beefs up the rear end look. Still can’t decide on the sound, but the look is a no-brainer👍
Had a particularly fine day of driving today. Just a couple of hours but all the white van man that take the shortest road home and most of the tiny roads were absent from our Cornish blind bends so I had a blast.
I can’t get over how much the skinny MX allows so much more latitude to drive as you wish. Everyone expects you to be fatter than you are. It’s a bit like my motorbike days when you could do most things without anyone getting vexed
Few dashcam pics from our journey back from Yorkshire Dales on Friday - Buttertubs, upper Swaledale and Hartside pass.
A fun drive in the sun down the coast road from Aberdeen to the Howe of the Mearns, taking in the winding roads of the Garvock hill from Inverbervie. Stopped at the top above Laurencekirk for the views - a bit hazy but still great!
Just a fairly local half-hour trundle today, but a joy to do it in the MX5. I’m doing a “Taster session” tomorrow for someone who is thinking of joining the local RoSPA advanced drivers course. So I needed to scout out a suitable route on local roads.
Glorious weather today for March so trip down A68 into Northumberland and off to Bellingham and the Fountain Cottage Cafe for lunch - then past Kielder reservoir and back via Bonchester Bridge, Denholm. Very little traffic so a pleasant run.
Started 3 months of gardening leave by going for a drive! The viaduct at Chapel in Essex is pretty great backing for a photo of two!
Best way to start a gardening job! 
Nice pics👍
I’m sure I looked like a right plonker running back to lean on the car in time!
Houston Miata Club had our monthly run last weekend and this one was around Galveston Bay with a stop for some seafood. It was a great spring day for a drive.
Nice turnout of (I think) 21 cars with probably 25-30 attendees. We met on the east side of Houston.
Houston and the surrounding area is pretty flat and basically 100 feet or less above sea level, so the roads aren’t the greatest for fun twists and turns. This run was more about enjoying the fresh air and seeing the beach along the Gulf and enjoying fresh seafood with friends.
We took off from the service station along the highway and headed east through Anahuac, a small town with a couple of National Wildlife Refuges. Houston, Galveston and the Gulf coast are prime destinations for migratory birds. Birders travel from all over the world to see a variety of cranes, spoonbills, herons, egrets, and all sorts of others that I know very little about. 
We didn’t stop to see any birds along the way since that wasn’t our focus, but I’ve been before by myself and had a great time.
The cows were unimpressed.
As we turned south towards the coast, the lone bridge over the intracoastal waterway was the lone high spot on the road.
This took us into High Island, so called because it sits on a salt dome that’s 38 feet above sea level. The salt dome is also the site of some of the earliest oil wells in Texas and you still see them pumping today. The town of 500 also contains 4 bird sanctuaries.
And about 1 minute after entering High Island, you’re through the other side and you start down hill (all of 38 feet) to the Gulf coast. (BTW, it will always be the Gulf of Mexico to me, just like it’s been for the past 500 years. If I was going to call it something else just to stroke an ego, it would be the “Gulf of Russ”. 
)
This area is called the Bolivar Peninsula and the beach road ends here at High Island after it was washed away years ago in one of the frequent Gulf storms. We’re now driving back southwest towards Galveston.
After lunch, everyone chose a different way home. I live in southeast Houston just up from Galveston so I continued southwest towards Galveston and the ferry across the ship channel. But first, I stopped to see a few sights and take pictures. Fort Travis was a fort/coastal fortification built in 1899 and closed after WW2. It’s now a local park/historic site where you can picnic and watch ship traffic.
Before boarding the ferry, I stopped at a local inn to see about a room, but no one seemed around.
Now it was time to get in line for the free Galveston ferry. The wait wasn’t too long (~20 minutes?) as sometimes during peak tourist season it can be an hour or more.
Once off the ferry, I was in Galveston, one of my favorite places. I lived there when I first moved to Texas and enjoyed the combination of history (for the US - remember, we’re still a wee babe) and beach living. Galveston was once the major city of Texas and financial capital, but the Great Storm of 1900, and the follow up in 1915 pretty much took care of that and commerce moved inland to Houston. However, Galveston still has some beautiful Victorian homes on the island and does a good job of maintaining their history.
Just a few more shots of Galveston before turning north to head home. This took me through miles of refineries.
Back in Houston, I drove by Space Center Houston, the visitor’s center for the NASA Johnson Space Center.
Back in our neighborhood, someone had a sign welcoming home astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. Suni is our neighbor and we were happy to have her home after her unexpected 9 month stay at the International Space Station. (In case you’re wondering, they both largely enjoyed the extra time in space as that’s what they train for and both thought they weren’t going to get another opportunity like this. So while it was a little more of a strain on the family, the astronauts really enjoyed the bonus space mission.)
As I was driving in, I heard a click and couldn’t figure it out until I stopped and saw this:
Oh well, it gave me a chance to use my new tire plug kit. So far, the plug is holding but I’ll go ahead and swap the tires before my big drive to Michigan and back this summer (~3000 miles).
If you made it this far, you are quite the trooper! Hope you enjoyed it.
A brilliant write up, Russ. Thank you so much for sharing your day’s experience with us. I think in our circles, you would definitely be regarded as a literary heavyweight - and a keen photographer as well.
Thanks for that Russ, i feel as if i actually did that run myself! 
Drive out around the Vale of Pewsey and called into a local farm shop cafe for refreshments, whilst we were there it was feeding time for one of the triplets as mum can only deal with the other two. Never saw another 5 apart from one parked up in Devizes.
