Monday /Tuesday 15/16 October 2018
We spent a leisure Monday morning with Ruth and Jay as well as their son Ben who came to visit. So good of him to have come over yesterday and to catch up with him. Anyway after having joined Ruth for a brisk walk in her neighbourhood ( and it was all up and down hill!) we had a healthy breakfast of scrambled eggs prepared by Ben, cheese on toast and Greek yoghurt with fresh berries.
Ben took the men for a spin in his new Audi S4 while Ruth and I spent time together – well we didn’t realise they were away for a long time but apparently the boys stopped for an ice cream – and I wasn’t there to take a picture of Gerry with his ice……. mind you he has been good on this trip and not having ice cream every day…..
Before Ben left, we took some family pictures and hopefully we won’t wait 9 years to meet up with The whole family once more!
We then drove down town and had lunch at a Lebanese restaurant- Tassi – and by the time we got back to the house it was time to get ourselves packed for our trip to the airport.
Meeting up with my friends, Carolyn and Aad in Nashville and Ruth and Jay in Raleigh was a change I put into our itenarary . By staying one night in Memphis instead of the planned two nights and staying with Carolyn and Aad for one night in Nashville, Imwas able to smuggle the weekend in Raleigh. I just could not come on this road trip in the southern states and not visit with my good friends…….
We had an hour’s delay which meant that our whole plan to start driving once we got to Nashville might not go through depending on Gerry being fit to do so and me being wide awake to act as co navigator…… anyway we did drive that same evening starting off with a packed snack bag and coffee to go,prepared by Carolyn and hence we made it to Gatlinburg at 3am …..
Once we arrived at our destination – River Terrace Resort, we were lucky to get an extension on our check out time till noon. However by 11 am we were back on the road again – this time for a mammoth drive through the Smoky Mountains through to Charleston- 340 miles taking up more than 5 hours.
It was quite an exciting route, first driving through narrow roads in the country side where we saw some trailer camps and an old dumps for broken down cars – didn’t really feel safe driving through this area but luckily we were quickly on the high way and that was a different excitement. The roads had lots of curves, elevations and filled with loads of lorries overtaking each other.
After 5 hours and a couple of stops to have our brunch at Waffle House and then to fill up the car, we arrived in Charleston just before 6pm.
Charleston is such a picturesque city and we are looking forward to exploring more of it Tomorrow as tonight we only had time to take the shuttle from our hotel across the river and go into town for dinner at Hyman’s seafood restaurant – super delicious – and finally we had sea tasting oysters…..
After such a great dinner, we walked down Market street and were just in time to take the shuttle back to the Holiday Inn – we will be back tomorrow to have a proper look around before continuing our trip to Savannah.
