Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Road Trip America

Right, got the van with a mattress in the back, a tent, an esky (cooler for the local folks, chully ben for the kiwis and I don’t think the poms need one for warm beer) full of food and bevvies and a plan! We’re off to see 6000 miles of East Coast America and Canadia! Head south down the I95, turn right to Louisiana, north to Memphis, up to Wisconsin across the border to Canada across to Quebec and down through Maine, NY, DC and the Carolinas. We’re gonna see it all, Graceland, Corvette Factory, Manhattan, the Smithsonians – the lot. Everything that pops up in popular novels is on the list.

So we get about 10 miles out of town at the junction of the I95 and stop for petrol (gas for the local folks) and it is still bloody hot – over 100F and we muse – “do we really want to head south in this heat??” A quick show of hands and our plan has gone out the window – that’s the driver’s side window as it is the only window that opens on the van – and we decide to turn right on the I95 and reverse our trip. Now this won’t surprise anyone who knows us or has been following the blog, but really 10miles out of 6000 – that’s 0.16%???!!! But if we had of stuck with a plan we would have turned left in the St Vincent Strait into the Med 5 years ago!

We bypassed Savannah (been there, done that) and headed straight for the Carolinas –first stop Hilton Head Island SC, a resort island with long beaches and a nice village. So nice beach, hot chicks



 ... but when you are greeted on the beach by a sign like this, we didn’t feel like staying (notice it doesn’t say no fire arms).



So we took off in search of more gas and ended up staying our first night in Hardeeville SC in a Cleanstay USA which was anything but. Fortunately $30 is not much to pay for grime.

Things started looking up on day 2 as we headed into Beaufort (pronounced Boofort) SC, not to be confused with Beaufort (pronounced Beaufort) NC. This is a pretty little Southern town with history surrounding you, with cast signs indicating when went on when. The old houses, some dating from around 1810 seemingly inviting you onto the porch for an iced tea – although I ended up paying for mine in a cafe in town.



Of particular interest was St Helena’s Church which was established in 1712, but suffered badly in a Yamassee Indian attack in 1715 (now we are talking – Indians!) and was rebuilt in 1724. It was then used by the British as a stable in the Revolutionary War and a hospital in the Civil War and the graveyard houses 2 British officers and 3 American Generals. Indeed in the graveyard you see American and Confederate flags flying side by side on the graves.(American’s history seems dominated by wars... )



From Beaufort we continued heading north and set up camp just south of Charleston, trying out the tent we had bought with us from Aus, which still seemed to be waterproof and yes - that is Karen in the wilderness on the internet.



We spent a day wandering around Charleston – so much history and grand houses, it was amazing. We toured 2 of the houses, The Rhett-Aitken house (c1820) and one other. There truly are so many sights that in the end they all melded into one and I can’t recall the name of the house we saw, but it did have a nice garden if that is a clue to anyone. In fact I can’t even recall lunch or what beer I had with it – but I am sure that happened too. No wait, we went to an Irish pub in town and had some great fish and chips (fush & chups to the Kiwis) and of course a pint or two of Guinness – well Karen had a Sav Blanc actually.



The Rhett house was in pretty much original condition (i.e. it had not been renovated so we saw potential) and came complete with stable and a lady’s and a gentleman’s buggy and reasonably intact slaves quarters, so it gave a reasonable impression on how the other half lives in the day.

We wandered the waterfront and took the free bus rides and were fairly tired by the time we made it back to the campsite (via Wal-Mart to buy a fan as it was still stinking hot). But of course no day would be complete without a game of Mexican Train Dominos!

Well our strategy of heading north to get cooler wasn’t working so we took to the hills. The Smokey Mountains in fact. It was a long drive up the hills from Charleston to Cherokee, but one that did achieve the aim – cooler weather. Cherokee is on the western end of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and an interesting town for a boy who grew up on F Troop, Dan’l Boon, Tonto and Kimosabi (apparently meaning “chicken shit” is some Indian language I am lead to believe) but not really knowing a Cherokee from a Sioux. This really was an enlightening place – the home of the Cherokee. Now what I knew from TV looked like this...



... and there were a couple of guys dressed like this singing and drumming for the tourists (sorry about the quality of the photo). And I wanted one of these to fight the Indians...



... the holster, not the beer gut. Although it doesn’t look right with boardies and thongs (flip flops for the locals, Jandels for the Kiwis and from my experience the Poms only wear sandals and socks) although the beer gut does sort of fit in. But here in Cherokee we learnt about the “Trail of Tears” when the Cherokee Indians were marched (displaced) to the plains and about Sequoyah, the Cherokee that developed the Cherokee alphabet  which if I am correct is one of the few, if not the only written First Nation Languages in existence.



We also saw the modern side of Cherokee, visiting Harrah’s Cherokee Casino and Resort where Kenny Rogers still performs...



By this stage we are following one of Lonely Planet’s “USA’s Best Trips” and since were so close, we should take a trip through the National Park to Tennessee and visit a must see town of Gatlinburg “where Heidi meets Hillbilly” and “Dollywood” and at least see the sign (as I couldn’t convince Karen that we really needed to go there). We visited the town, couldn’t find a park, and couldn’t see what the fuss about a fake looking Alpine town in the middle of America was so headed onto Pigeon Forge for Dollywood. We went up Dollywood Ln, Dollywood Blvd, past the Dollywood Express (steam train) and found the Dollywood car park but alas no sign, so it was back to the caravan park.

Unfortunately, we learnt a couple of other things in Cherokee that were not really so much fun. Firstly our tent, carried from Australia and stored on the boat for 5 years and despite several coats of silicone spray, did in fact leak... a lot... no a real lot. Secondly Karen and Matt were the names of our seemly unusual camping neighbour’s “mortal enemies” – her words not ours... a little bit kooky, a little bit spooky... Time to move on we thought – and probably stay in a hotel to dry out the tent.

Before we left, I did something I had not had to do since I owned my first new car – a Seat Cordoba no less – and that was to check under the bonnet (hood for the locals and I have no idea what the Kiwis call it) and bugger me (don’t know if the locals have a term for that or if I just made them blush, the Kiwis will understand it and I think the Poms invented it) the coolant expansion cap had gone walkabout (not there for the locals, gone to Bondi for the Kiwis) so it was off in search of a wrecker (junk yard for the locals and “the backyard for the Kiwis – boy am I gonna be in trouble if I ever stop in NZ) to replace it. But apparently, since the cash for clunker program, these are a bit rare so we had to head to Ashville to try and find one. In my second unsuccessful visit, I noticed that they had a full set of Australian number plates (tags for the locals) 1 from each State including the ACT. Now I was impressed and asked Karen to go back in and take a photo for me. But Karen was more impressed by the Taxidermy and this is what I ended up with.



So our first week on the road ends up at the beginning of our Blue Ridge adventure in a Dodge dealer, buying an expensive coolant cap, trying to convince them that we don’t need a complete service on our 1999 Dodge Grand Caravan (complete with mattress is the back and close to 200k miles on the clock).