Showing posts with label North Carolina. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North Carolina. Show all posts

Friday, August 6, 2010

Day 355 (Savannah)

It's a dark and stormy night. And yes, I appreciate the irony that I have just gotten back to a flea-bag motel after a ghost tour in the most haunted city in the United States. (As confirmed through extensive research by the Discovery Channel's Ghost Hunter team.)

(BTW, the rain is practically coming in sideways and the thunder has set off car alarms several times.)

As the memory of the tour guide's descriptions of the American Revolution and public executions linger in my mind, threatening to hinder my sleep, not to mention the fact that Savannah is basically built on top of one enormous cemetery, I think back to the events that have brought me here.

Today started out like any other day. I woke up in a hotel in North Carolina, woken up by the pathetic scratchings of what was supposed to be music escaping from the alarm clock on the night stand. I got up, made myself a waffle, then walked over to the sassy broad behind the counter to fix a problem I had discovered the night before with the room charge.

It was entirely my fault, I hadn't been keeping track of my expenses, and 3 unexpected hotel nights and a Toyota bill later, I had run out of cash. If the charge went through on that card, I was gonna be hit with an overdraft fee. So, I ask her if she can charge it to another one. No problem, she says, and swipes the card, her red fingernails clicking the plastic as she waits for it to process. She hands the card back to me. There is a problem, she says. The bank's gonna hold the funds on the first card for 15 days. Of well, I says, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

So, my moms and I are driving to Charleston...




And, it's as hot as we've seen so far on this trip of ours. When we get there, it's time for lunch, so we stop at Martha Lou's Kitchen, a small out-of-the-way joint serving "soul food."


When we get inside, a quartet of black women is singing gospel music so pretty it's enough to make you cry. We figures they're practicin' fer sumthin' and we sit down to enjoy the show.

We get fried chicken, whiting, red rice, lima beans and corn bread, all the while listenin' to that gospel music. After that, we left for Georgia, where the peaches grow.

I decided that the best way to see the city in the time we had, was to do the Trolley Ghost Tour. This is a picture of the competitor.


Apparently, if you die on the tour, you're all set.

Here's some pictures of the tour. I'll leave out the gory stories...













After the tour, we had dinner. I picked sushi cuz my mom wanted rice and I didn't want to spend the whole night looking for a Chinese restaurant.



It was a pretty sweet restaurant too! This is the yakinku beef that my mom got, complete with wasabi mashed potatoes!


And, I got the Forest Gump Roll! (See the rainbow colored fish eggs on top!)



As we headed towards the car, small flashes of lightning kept shooting across the sky, and while on the road back to the hotel, it started to rain a little. By the time we got back, it was pouring and the lightning strikes were becoming pretty regular. The lighting seems to have spent itself now, but it's still raining pretty hard. Hopefully Hammie will be clean tomorrow!


PICTURE OF THE DAY:


Thursday, August 5, 2010

Day 354 (Island Hopping)

Oops! I forgot to put this picture in yesterday! It a picture of the different levels that the water rose to during different hurricanes.



Not much to show today cuz we were mostly traveling. We started with a 2.5 hour ferry ride from Ocracoke to Cedar Island, Here's Hammie waiting in line to get on the Ferry:


Goodbye Ocracoke!





Some pictures of the ferry ride...



A picture of Hammie from inside the passenger lounge...


The approach to Cedar Island...





This is us waiting inside of Hammie for our turn to drive off the ferry:


Some pictures of the drive...







As far as I know, we are still somewhere in the Outer Banks Islands. They may run along entire coast of North Carolina, I don't know, I'm not from here. Well, that's it for today!

PICTURE OF THE DAY: Don't you like Hammie's new red shoes! (I they put them on to prevent him from sliding around during the trip to Cedar Island.)


Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Day 353 (Ocracoke)

Wow! I just realized I am getting dangerously close to a year's worth of blogs!

Anywho, my mom and I left Tom today and headed for the Outer Banks, the long thin islands along North Carolina's coast. A highway runs along most of it, but there are certain parts that require you to take a ferry, which I didn't tell my mom about because I wanted it to be a surprise for her.

Goodbye Hatteras Island!




Hammie's first ferry ride!



You can tell he's really excited about it!


Some pictures from the ride:








We passed ferries going in the other direction along the way...







Hello Ocracoke!



I booked us an night at Thurston House Inn, a pretty pricey bed and breakfast, because I was kind of getting desperate. I kept looking for places to stay and they were either booked up or had a 2 night minimum. What's up with that?!?!?! Besides, I did want to stay at a B&B at least once on the trip cuz I hadn't done it before. This is our monster bed!


Look! It practically takes up the whole room!


As you can probably see, it's actually 2 twin beds pushed next to each other with a king-size memory foam pad on top. (Well, you probably weren't able to make out that foam pad part.) We decided to do away with the foam pad and separate the beds because bother my mother and I move a lot in our sleep, which effectively prevents either one of us from falling asleep.

Bedroom situated, we left to go see a local production about the local color, only to discover the tickets had been sold out! Drat! I really wanted to see that! Since we couldn't to that, we decided to go to the beach and try to find shells in the dark.


We had a great time; the Atlantic Ocean is SOOOOO much warmer than the Pacific!!! (Coincidentally, this was my first time touching the Atlantic Ocean! XD

Tomorrow morning, we will get to experience what was described as an "authentic Southern breakfast" and then we will take the next leg of our journey, another ferry ride, this time 2.5 hours, back to the mainland and cover as much distance as we can to Charleston.

Good night!


PICTURE OF THE DAY: This lady was feeding her sandwich to her tiny puppy. (I hope she didn't finish what was left!)