Joe mentioned Mark or Scott. I must say I was impressed with what I saw. Very clean, large, modern shop. I told the front desk the specifications I wanted. REAR: 1/16 toe in each side, 1.5 degrees negative camber, FRONT: 1/32 degrees toe in each side, 1 degree negative camber, 4 degrees caster. I did not even have to ask whether I could sit in the car; the guy took a look at me and told me that I could go in when they put in the car.

The first bad news was that I did not get the specification I wanted. The shop could not get more than about 0.5 degrees negative camber up front. (The amount you can get depends on your particular Miata, even if you do not have Konis like me.) More importantly, rear toe ended up at zero. I forgot to tell them to set the toe first. I will probably pass by there again on the way back to get the rear toe as I want it.

The other bad news is that the shop that did my alignment before Butler destroyed the off-centric alignment washers in the rear. The mechanic figured that the previous shop must have put a gun on the nuts. Easy to figure out who is responsible; the only place that has ever done an alignment on my car (twice) earlier is Custom Alignments in Mountain View, California. Custom Alignments is widely recommended by San Francisco Bay Area Miata Association members. (Though I went there before receiving any recommendations.) I am glad Discount Tire in Tallahassee does not do alignments, otherwise I would have probably blamed them unfairly.

The good news is that Butler charged me only $59 for the alignment. Custom Alignment charged me twice as much to destroy my washers. So I can go to Butler a second time to fix up the toe and still come out ahead.

After the alignment on to Deal's Gap. A great day, but I did come out of a couple of turns in less than perfect control. Thinking you are OK until you hear your tires protest can be tricky with Re 71s. I did manage to prevent a full scale spin in each case: it appears that the alignment and Re 71 tires are a fairly forgiving combination, at least.

I continued through Great Smoky Mountains National Park on to Cherokee, start of the Blue Ridge Parkway. I got a room at the Wig Wam Hotel and had dinner at Ponderosa.

WARNING: Do not drive through Deal's Gap relying on your Garmin GPS III plus to keep a track of your trip. The GPS ran out of track points on Deal's Gap! It stores a way point after every so many degrees direction change: with all the curves of 129, that was too many points. So, unlike you seem to see below, I really did start the day in Atlanta:

For the record, my motions were: I 75 north, I 575 north, GA 5 north, US 76 east, GA 75 / NC 175 north, US 64 west, US 129 north, Foothills Parkway east, US 321 east, road 73 east, US 441 south. I have changed the options on the GPS to store a point every half mile, instead of after every small direction change.

Pictures (click for larger size):