Bringing it home.

Saturday morning - my new Miata backs out of its old home for the last time.

“At DFW airport waiting for my flight to board. Should be in the next 10 minutes.”

That’s the first post in my build thread on ClubRoadster.net regarding my journey to bring this car home. Soon after sending Randy a deposit for the car, I booked a one-way ticket on American from DFW International to Tampa.

The flight was mostly uneventful. Typically I sleep on planes. Ever since I was a little kid in the back seat of my parent’s Buick Regal, falling asleep as a passenger in any moving vehicle has been my favorite thing to do. It comes easy to me. Not this time, though. The anticipation of getting a new Roadster and immediately driving it halfway across the country was too great.

I arrived in Tampa and took the Super Shuttle to the La Quinta Inn that I had a reservation at. LQ is one of my largest clients and this was the first time in almost 4 years working with them that I’d actually stayed at one.

“Had a tough time sleeping last night. Between being away from the family, the excitement of getting the Miata, being in a strange hotel with an a/c unit as loud as the engine room on a cruise ship…..and the kids who decided to pull the fire alarm at 2am…I probably got about 5 hours of “Z”s.”

Thank goodness for the free breakfast.

I pounded the surprisingly good coffee and waited for Randy to show up. I parked my ass in a seat with a plain sightline to the porte cochere and poked around CR.net via Tapatalk on my phone. Not too much time elapsed before I saw a white NA rocking 4×4 status on R-package hollow spokes….with the lights up.

I tried to keep my cool. On the inside I jumped out of my chair, left my bags where they were, burst through the door and jumped in the driver’s seat. On the outside I stood up calmly, pocketed my phone, picked up my bags and strolled out the front door of the hotel like it was something I did every day.

Then I met Randy for the first time. There is a certain class of Miata folk I’ve met over the years. It’s a short list of top-notch guys. He immediately qualified himself in that group.

From there it was a whirlwind of getting ready for the All Florida State Meet that Randy was organizing. After a bunch of running around we ended up at the meet location and I enjoyed seeing a huge batch of Miatas filling the parking lot. There were vendors, raffles, giveaways and lots of CR.net folks that I got to meet in person for the first time.

Sunday evening - pulling into its new home near Dallas, TX for the first time.

When 4:30pm came around I decided that I should probably be on my way back to Texas. I had one overnight stop in Pensacola and I would be home by around 5pm the next day. And that is exactly what happened. The only downside to the drive home was that the car has no cigarette lighter because of the cool Pivot push-to-start button that lives in its old spot. So my phone’s battery needed to be conserved. (Evo 4G battery life sucks.) Other than that, the car drove like I had just driven it off the dealer lot in 1996. And I loved every minute of it.

Once I got it home…that’s when the fun began. I had a pile of parts ready to be installed. But that’s a story for another day.