We tried to make it to Skyline Drive in Shenandoah Nation Park in time for the sunset on Saturday, but we ran out of time and ended up instead seeing it from the northern end of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was still pretty cool!
Check out the elevation, seems like only yesterday we were at sea level...
That Bald Ridge Overlook sign turned out to be a good camera stand:
We were getting cold again, so the T-tops went back in as soon as we were done snapping the pics.
We started up the road again and just a short time later, the sky lit up with bright colors from the sunset. So we found a pull off and snapped some more pics!
That was basically the last time my camera came out, since it got really dark pretty quickly.
In Waynesboro we stopped for a tank of gas and fresh Mt Dew, then pulled up to Skyline Drive around 9:30PM Saturday night. The toll booth was closed and a sign said to pay as you leave. No problem. We pulled on through and headed north up the road. Along the way we saw a total of 6 on-coming cars throughout the entire 105 mile drive
We also saw around 2 dozen skunks, a possum, 2 raccoons and 177 deer!
(what do you want, it was dark and the overlooks didn't show much, so we counted what crossed the headlights!
)
As we came to the end of Skyline around 1:10AM Sunday morning, we pulled up to the toll booth and it said the same thing as the last one: Closed, pay as you leave. But there was nowhere to pay! No courtesy box or even a slot in the door! So we pulled on through and caught what might have heat lightning out the corner of our eyes, but it also might have been a camera snapping our license plate! Then we realized that it was Zig's plate, so we had no worries! LOL!!!
(Zig, if they send you a bill, let me know, I'll pay it!
)
From then on, it was just our usual route home up 522 and 70 through Breezewood, then the PA turnpike home. We rolled in about 4:30AM sunday morning, unloaded the X and dragged ourselves inside the house. I sent a quick message to Zig so he would know we made it safe and sound, then we turned in and slept as long as we could until work in the afternoon....
Everywhere I stopped, I had just about everyone looking at the X, doing double-takes and such and occasionally I would have people come up and ask me what it was. Some of them thought it was either a Civic Del Sol with big tires or a Rav4 2 door. Just about everybody was surprized to hear it was a Zuki, even though it says Suzuki on the trunk lid, as well as having the "S" on the grille.
As for how it did on the trip, I can't complain at all. At the first gas stop in Florida I found it low a quart of oil, so I put some in, but it never used any more oil the whole trip. It's still full. I also found out what the X likes to drive on: It got the best mileage along the beach just tooling along and also up in the mountains. Both places it got 28mpg. It doesn't seem to like the interstates much, though. It was totally quiet and fast and capable of doing it no problem, but the mileage dropped to 22mpg on the interstate. I attribute this to trying to maintain 70+mph for extended periods of time with a taller vehicle that while more aerodynamic than say a Track/kick or a sammy, is much less aerodynamic than say a Neon or Civic.
The Calmini 2"suspension lift and wheel spacers Zig had added turned out to be a really nice feature. The extra width and suspension stiffness allowed this little trucklet to corner fantastically well on the winding mountain roads. I dare say it cornered better than any car I've driven. The flipside to the suspension stiffness was being kinda harsh over bumps, but the handling advantages greatly outweighed the ride stiffness in my book! The only other potential downer was the leather seats. They were comfy at first, but are covered in a very thick leather that wasn't very forgiving. Plus I think they had recently been armor-alled because they were slippery! LOL! I'm thinking about swapping out the leather seats for a pair of red/black cloth race seats, but I plan to keep the leather seats in storage so I can revert the car back to original if I want to later.
If I had to compare the X-90's ride to a Track/kick, it would be a difficult comparison to make. While the cockpit is totally familiar to a kick, as well as the sitting position and view of the road, the ride is much tighter, like a sports car. The thing had little to no body roll on even the tightest curves and the acceleration was nothing like a track/kick. Plus the wind noise was much less than a kick, even with the roof open.
The trip took 42 hours in total and like I said above, what should have been a 1020 mile journey became 1316 miles due to "sight-seeing". But it was well worth it and I plan on taking this little rig(and my g/f, too!
) on many more adventures in the future. Maybe not quite this long, but long enough to get away for a couple days.
And Zig, next time we catch a deal on airfare again, lookout! we might just show up on your doorstep! LOL!
