Today the breakfast included sausage (both link and patty) and scrambled eggs, cereals, bagels, toast, croissants (chocolate and plain), danishes, yogurts and a waffle making machine. There were three types of fruit juice and a selection of coffee (regular, decaf and 'bold') I opted for orange juice, sausage and egg with bold coffee (it wasn't) while Drew had sausage and egg with cranberry juice and regular coffee. Then went back for a raspberry danish and then a blueberry danish.
We went back to the room, packed and left the Comfort Inn at 9.00 am. Today we are travelling to Charleston, South Carolina. Why Charleston? Well looking for somewhere in South Carolina it seemed to make sense to visit one of the two places I had heard of, more about the other tomorrow. The fact that I had only heard of it because of the dance named after it made no difference.
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The route we took, again not the shortest, took us south via the I95 to Lumberton where we turned off and headed towards Conway and along the coast to Charleston.
The route went along the NC41 through Fairmont and across the state line to South Carolina (yes that's two of the six) onto the SC41 which led into Lake View, this town may have been prosperous in the past as it had six petrol stations (or filling stations) as they are called over here) but the past is past and they are now all closed and derelict, like the White Rose Filling Station in the Toby Keith song.
The next set of towns had a similar feel. Lovely houses, lots of vegetables being farmed, long lawns, but towns which have little left. It is also noticeable that the soil has got drier as we have come south. In Virginia and North Carolina the soil was rich and loamy but as we have come further south so it is drier and dustier.
At 11.30 we arrived at Conway, a busting town with lots of shops and restaurants. We stopped at CVS pharmacy and picked up some washing powder tabs, plus some ointment my sister had asked us to pick up and, as there was a 2 for 1 sale on, we got two of them and bought aspirins for home. For those who don't know it is always worth buying aspirins in the US not only are they a fraction (1/16) of the price of the UK, but you can buy them in 1000 packs, not the 32 max of the UK. While I don't use them often I hate being limited to 2.5 days supply when shopping at home. If I have a cold it is always for longer than 3 days (End of rant!).
Given the comfort of air-conditioning in the car we had not realised the temperature had been increasing as we came south. It was in the high 70's in Fayetteville but 87 here.
Leaving Conway we continued on the NC17 past Georgetown and the wilderness reserve, we stopped for lunch at a chain we had not tried before called Bojangles - its claim to fame is its Chicken and Biscuits. So we both tried them. For Drew it was 4 pieces of chicken with biscuits and coleslaw and for me it was two legs, biscuit and Cajun pinto beans. Unusual to eat a savoury scone (even if it is called a biscuit with chicken, but it was OK as a lunchtime snack.
As we came closer to Charleston we travelled over a fantastic bridge which leads into the City, see the picture above.
Soon after, at 2.30, we arrived at the Comfort Inn in Charleston. On getting out of the car we found it had warmed up further. It was now 93 Fahrenheit so instead of our initial plan of checking in and going downtown, we decided we would do the laundry (in the hotel's laundry facilities) and stay in while it got a little cooler.
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