Welcome to the South Y'all

Day 1: After a night in Richmond,VA Wal-mart, we started to drive further south to North Carolina following the I95. 

We arrived in North Carolina around lunch and stopped at the visitor center for a bite to eat. Once in NC we turned off the I95 and started heading east to get to the coast. On the way we nearly ran out of petrol again. We were off the major highway so there were not as many petrol stations around (as in none). It was a stressful 30km before we finally drove past an exit to a small town we were hoping had a gas station as Hank was running on fumes. We pulled into the small town, luckily we made it to the pump and avoided a long walk.

After another hour or so we had finally reached a town called ‘New Burn’ and Highway 17 that we were going to follow along the east coast. Along highway 17 we started to see a lot more damage from Hurricane Irene with debris on the side of the road, fallen trees (some completely uprooted), ripped billboard signs and some damaged houses. So happy we stayed back in Washington DC for the storm to pass. On the way we stopped off at yet another Harley Davidson store in Jacksonville, NC. The people were super nice you have to love the southern hospitality.

By late afternoon we had driven all the way down NC and were now in South Carolina so stoped at another Visitor Centre for some dinner before we headed into Myrtle Beach.

We arrived at North Myrtle Beach after dark, so could not really see the beach but looked around at the old school beach carnival before we decided to go and find a Wal-Mart to stay for the night. There was one just near the 'Tanger' outlet mall just down the road so we decided to camp there. The drive along the US1 was really amusing with hundreds of huge discount beach stores and mini golf, it was crazy. When we made it to the mall we took a wrong turn and somehow ended up on an expressway going in the complete wrong direction to where we wanted to be, the detour took us about 15 min to get back to the right turn, so stupid! That night we setup camp at Wal-mart again our new home.

Day 2: In the morning we made our way into Myrtle Beach. We parked a little bit back from the main beach, then ran up the beach to check everything out, it was about a 5km run in total. Both Marc and I ran in bare feet it felt pretty good except for the blisters on our toes from the sand. 

Myrtle beach was full of high-rise condos and another beachfront carnival. The beach was still super straight and there were loads of people out enjoying the sun. After our run we went for a swim it was a ruff swim with loads of waves and a steep drop from the shore but it was really refreshing. Beaches are great because after the swim we had a free ‘Beach’ shower, we wanted to break out the soap but decided against it :)

 

All clean we made a move for Savannah our next destination. On the drive out of Myrtle beach we stopped off at Myrtle Beach Harley Davidson to get dad yet another pin for his collection. The SC costal drive was very similar to the NC drive just with no damage from the hurricane. For lunch we stopped in at a picnic area that also had a farmers market. We did not look at the market just stopped to make some sandwiches. While we were there one of the workers came up and had a little chat with us. We told him where we were from, what we were doing and he was in ore. He asked loads of questions about Australia, listed off some famous aussies and said that he always wanted to go but it’s only a dream at this stage. After talking to this guy it really made us stop and think about just how lucky we were to be on this amazing trip.

After lunch we continued down the coast passing through Charleston, SC stopping only for petrol. At the petrol station I got haggled by a homeless guy for some change. He welcomed me to Charleston and opened my car door for me, he knew that I had change from the petrol and there was nothing I could do god dammit.

Before we left SC we stopped off at the ‘Carolina Cider Company’ a shack on the side of the road. It was a great place to stop as we got loads of free samples of their cider, condiments and boiled peanuts. Everything was tasty, so of course we walked away with our own; a bottle of peach and cherry cider, jar of horse radish mustard, cherry jam and a small pecan pie mmm.

We arrived in Savannah, Georgia by late afternoon and stopped off at a visitor information centre and booked ourselves onto some tours. A Ghost Tour as Savannah was the most haunted city in the US and a Paula Deen Tour (food Network celebrity chef), as we liked her southern style of food. 

That evening we were booked onto the ghost tour so we parked our car and walked down to River Street that run right along the river for a look. Savannah was beautiful, full of old parks and streets lined with big oak trees covered in Spanish moss it was very picturesque. River street was lined with renovated warehouses that now housed restaurants, bars, souvenir and gift shops. It was a very busy place.

8:45pm we were on our ghost tour, much to our disappointment our tour guide was a drama student and instead of telling us the ghost stories ended up loosing us in the explanation of the different sad events that had occurred. Savannah was very beautiful at night and a little creepy so not a total loss. The tour ended on a high note when we were taken to a creepy warehouse, another actor did a much better job explaining one of the sad stories and trying to freak us out.

After the tour we made our way out to another wal-mart for the night about 10min out of town.   

Day 3: Ah Wal-mart you did it again, it was a little hot but a good night. After some breakfast we made our way back into Savannah for the Paula Deen tour.

 Paula Deen is famous for her southern cooking. The start of the tour was a little slow as we just drove around Savannah for a bit listening to bits and pieces about her life, and how she got into cooking. We passed her famous restaurant ‘Lady and Sons’ then went about 15 min out of town to Wilmington Island, Paula’s brother bubba’s restaurant ‘Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House’. The food really was awesome it was a buffet style but nothing like a normal buffet as it was done on a much smaller scale. Everything was so delicious but my favourite dishes were the mash, green beans and desert ‘Gooey cake’. I loved the food so much I even purchased a copy of Paula's first cookbook so I can try and reproduce the food back at home. On the way back to Savannah the tour guide raffled off a small goody bag and much to our surprise we won (out of 7 people).

 Next we made our way back to River Street and picked up a couple of souvenirs (including another Harley store) and had a better look around. Mid afternoon we stopped in at the ‘Moon River Brewery’ for a couple of local beers, then last but not least we had a quick drive around Savannah following the tour route looking at all the beautiful old houses, parks and the cemetery, before we were back on the road and heading for Florida.