2009 USA Tour : March 15th, from Alabama to Saluda SC

Descending From The Clouds

It was a bit disappointing waking up on the highest point of Alabama hoping to catch the views but all that greeted us was thick fog and constant rain. I did not know such a combination could exist. As we descended from Cheaha mountain we soon found out that we had spent the night in a cloud.  Once below the cloud the view was magnificent despite being very cloudy. We did buy postcards and fridge magnets to show what the view would have been on a fine day.

Battle Of Atlanta  

From near Cheaha into Gerogia and to Atlanta our journey was all freeway, quite relaxing and quite nice rolling hills and mixed vegetation scenery, and then we approached Atlanta.

I had heard Atlanta roads were a nightmare to drive, but I believed as this was Sunday there was nothing to worry about. Wrong!  LA is much easier !!!

Atlanta is full of winding multi lane highways and a dazzle of criss-cross overpasses and underpasses often very badly signed. On top of that our SAT-NAV GPS could not handle it with the wee car image going into a spin and all the roads lighting up as being part of our destination along with its voice yelling, left, right, u-turn, over and over again. I don’t know how I did it but managed to guess, score and keep on the right roads right through without a scrape.

Good Ol’ Southern Style

At the other side of Atlanta, off the freeway and onto a country road heading for South Carolina we found and stopped at a good ol’ southern diner, which are sadly getting scarce now. Claire went for the bbq chicken and cornbread and I had the works of catfish, hush puppies, okra, corn bread, coleslaw and what must have been half gallon of iced tea due to the auto instant refills.  Tempted to also go for sweet potato pie noticed time was moving on due to an unscheduled drop from central to eastern time zone.

Once crossed into the South Carolina border the rain returned. After chugging along lovely country roads through tiny olde worlde pioneering style towns we found our campsite for the next 2 nights in the woods beside the beach of a beautiful lake not far from Saluda

Our Name In Lights

Arriving in Saluda there we were for the town to see, “Two Worlds Theater from Ireland” beaming in neon from the town’s theatre marquee. I wanted to include a photo with this blog but left my camera at the theatre.

Tommie gave as a tour of this remarkable restored old theatre and we worked out some details, then his wonderful wife Cindy served us a lovely southern supper within the Theatre’s gift shop.

The rain stopped long enough to safely unload the harp to transfer it to its new home for a couple of days.

After supper we left for our campsite, again in the rain, excited about the concert in Saluda to happen the next day.