I have arrived in my new home state! As I write this blog post I am on South Carolina soil where I will begin the next chapter of my life. The bouncing from state to state that has characterized the past several days is over.
But I am not quite in Myrtle Beach…yet. Although in last night’s blog post I hinted at the possibility of arriving at our ultimate destination a whole day early my dad and I made the call to complete the odyssey tomorrow morning. We didn’t make this decision because we are wimps and couldn’t go on for a couple more hours but rather we did it for practical reasons. My apartment community does not open for business until 10 a.m. tomorrow. Getting settled in my new home is priority number one and since we are both early risers we didn’t want to wait around doing nothing for a few hours. Thus, to help us get in Myrtle Beach right when my apartment becomes available and to allow us to get off the road at a reasonable hour tonight, we pulled off into a town called Camden. We are 120 miles from Myrtle Beach.
While yesterday could be characterized as the most exciting day on the road, today was definitely the most beautiful. I thought that the previous few days all showed great glimpses of beauty but today definitely took the cake. Hills covered in large full green trees that looked to stretch for miles while also seemingly reaching out to our U-Haul on the road dominated the landscape the whole way. Throw in the fact that we drove under blue skies on a brilliantly sunny day and you can see how we were treated to a very scenic 10 hour drive.
We woke up in Paducah, Kentucky, and hit the road at 6:30 a.m. once again. Soon we crossed into Tennessee. We drove past Nashville and I got to see the stadium of the Tennessee Titans, LP Field. We then gassed up in Volunteer Country in Knoxville. Next we crossed the North Carolina border and we navigated through the windy and hilly roads until we got dumped into my new home state. Once in South Carolina we drove south to Columbia before heading east on the road that will pretty much lead us to Myrtle Beach. But the conclusion of that route will come tomorrow. This evening we are at the Holiday Inn of Camden for the evening and we are hungry.
Here are the stats from today:
Total Mileage Today: 611 miles
Total Mileage for Trip: 2,475 miles
Number of States Visited Today: 4 – Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina.
Number of Stops Today: 4 – Middle of Nowhere, TN (bathroom break), Knoxville, TN (gas and lunch), Border of SC (bathroom break), Camden, SC (ending point of the day).
Food Consumed During Today’s Drive: Convenient store chicken sandwich, convenient store corn dog, 1 pack of Frito Lay’s Flaming Hot Peanuts, 1 Reese’s Peanut Butter Easter Egg.
Drinks Consumed During Today’s Drive: Nothing.
Tomorrow this fun, expansive, and special road trip will come to an end. Because I won’t have internet set up at my new until at least a couple more days you might not see a blog post. But please follow me on Twitter (@BrentReser) for full updates and don’t be shy to tweet at me using the #BrentCoastToCoast hashtag. Thanks to all of you for keeping tabs on me during my travels, I have enjoyed sharing my experiences with you. I just want to offer up one fact with you before I turn this computer off and we go get dinner….my dad is absolutely AWESOME. Don’t Blink.
Ooh, green leaves on the trees! It’s still blustery here today and almost May! Your trip is making me think I just might want to retire to the South some day! (My dad would always ask me when was I moving south every time we spoke!)
KUDOS to your dad for being such a great guy and road buddy. I’m sure he’s enjoying the trip too!