I left the Northeast just over 11 years ago, a one-year teaching contract in the South that wasn't going to renew. After ten months at the University of Georgia, I'd return north, to family, friends and weekends on back roads. 

Things change, though - more than a decade later, I'm firmly ensconced in a great community, with supportive colleagues and phenomenal students. Really, the kids are that good. 

But that leaves weekends without purposeful wanderings, it leaves gravel roads unswept and time to run by itself, unbent by speed and distance. 

For the first few years, I headed north a couple times of year to run with my partner, Frank Beyer. We'd appear for the Winter Challenge, the Pine Barrens Express or the SCR24, then I'd head home and Frank would pick up someone else to run with until the constraints of work and family would free me again. Time grew between events, a few months, then a few years. 

There isn't much rallying here in the Southeast (though, stay tuned, that will change in 2017), I didn't have a local group to generate new stories with or retell old ones. The guys at the monthly Coffee & Cars are great, but they split into racers and restorers - I've dabbled in both, but in between ... that's where I like to live. 

A year or more ago, Frank reminded me the 50th running of the Covered Bridge Rally was coming up. Having run it a bunch of times, and always having a good time, I made the commitment to fly up. The only Rallymaster in its history, Ted Goddard, was someone everyone knew well - he had a wry sense of humor, a devious smile and a way with a route that made you wonder what was he thinking. If you didn't pay attention, he'd catch you with a little timing error that would send you plummeting down the scoresheet. 

My flight was already booked when the news came that Ted wouldn't make it to CB50. My heart broke as much as everyone else's - characters are all around us, but few persist like he did. 

Rally morning, I hopped in the driver's seat of Frank's Subaru, set the clock and we were ready to go. The routine came back easily - reader board on top of the center stack, the Alfa display strapped into the storage compartment and angled my way. A reminder to not put on my sunglasses or the old LCD display will disappear. 

The odo check went by without a hitch, but as we sat at the out point, watching the few cars ahead of us roll off at one-minute intervals, the nerves set in. It had been two years since we'd run an event, and three years before that. Frank has continued to run, blessed by geography and topography. He was calm, I was nervous. 

And I don't know why - rallying has never been about the competition for us, it's always been about the adventure. A good story is better than another little plastic trophy. But chasing time, balancing those little arrows on the display, trying to find the right line to match the mileage ... when you've gone 30,000 miles without seeing a checkpoint, you get a little nervous. 

Then the comments from Frank start coming in. Remember on PBX when we were blasting music at the ETZ? Remember finding the end of a road that was supposed to go through? Remember exploring Salem Road, which, as the little old lady at the end of it explained, isn't a road anymore? 

Our time came up, I slipped the Forester into first and off we went. Left here, right there, down a little, up a little, rock the cradle, rock the cradle, rock the cradle, checkpoint. 

Zero. 

I won't lie, that was a huge confidence builder. Until checkpoint two, a five. Followed by another zero at checkpoint three. And then a five at checkpoint four. 

In Vermont, most of the covered bridges are posted at 5 mph at the entrance, miss that mileage in your computer by a thousandth or two and you can get a lot of points fast - the difference between 33 and 5 is a killer. 

And it's what made Ted's event so special - the course wasn't hard to follow and you tended not to pick up a lot of points if you were reasonably good. But you could spread your scores around pretty easily, putting those in the know into a state of panic. 

Now, the second day of the USRRC, John Buffum's A Bridge Too Far, that had me in a panic a few sentences into the generals. I'm not a trap rally guy, I think I'd run two and the tales of woe I'd heard about them didn't have me looking forward to this. 

But was I ever wrong. Frank and I never argue in the car, but we came close a couple of times. (I'll admit, he was right - always trust your navigator.) 

We started out great on the first leg, not falling for two traps (the first based on if you're on an unpaved road, paved roads don't exist, so the first crossroad we were to take a right at didn't exist). We did miss a small private road sign and picked up a few points just before checkpoint one, but we were happy with not taking a lot. 

The second leg, though ... way too much thinking in the car. We essentially created our own trap, putting us on a road that had us come into an off course checkpoint from the wrong direction. Since we couldn't turn around, we had to do a massive loop and chewed up nearly all 19.50 minutes of our morning TA allowance in one shot. On leg two. 

I'd say it got better, and at points it did though the scores may not prove that, but I had way more fun than I expected. And John's little trap, buried in a line from the generals that said all roads were in Vermont, forcing us off a paved road at a small state line marker ... that was brilliant. 

Once we'd turned in our scorecard, I had to race back to Boston to catch a flight, so I missed the debrief and the chance to say goodbye to a lot of folks I had just gotten to say hello to. 

It's time, though, to get back behind the wheel. In October, I met with the SCCA's Atlanta Region Board and they are fully behind launching a rally program, look for our first event in early April. Maybe you should watch out for county line signs.