On the road

Thanks to the time difference and a general air of excitement, we were up and about bang on time at 5am (the more socially-acceptable 10am on UK time). We waited patiently for the first hourly shuttle bus of the day, we weren’t going to miss that baby and face the wrath of an NY cab driver on a short fare again, to take us to the JetBlue terminal in time for our 7am flight to Charlotte, North Carolina. We boarded the plane after enjoying a quick (and so cheap!) breakfast in the terminal. Anyone who knows me, knows how much I hate airports, hate leaving for the airport, hate waiting at the airport etc, and it went like a dream for once. JetBlue was amazing, we got to watch real time actual live telly! How does that work? Why can’t they put it in trains or other people’s planes. JetBlue should start transatlantic flights, I’d never fly with anyone else ever again. At the time, the airline was also sponsoring the Simpsons movie, so we spent the flight flicking between the dedicated Simpsons channel (with loads of ‘new to us’ episodes) and MTV for the truly atrocious and utterly addictive My Super Sweet Sixteen.

After only 2 hours, we landed at Charlotte, picked up the first of many souvenirs at the airport gift shop, reclaimed our luggage and hopped on board the Hertz courtesy bus to go and pick up our shiny new car. We were expecting a Toyota Corolla (I drive an Aygo at home), and were shocked to find a big shiny gold Mazda 6. Luxury! Having only driven without instruction about 10 times, the shine of the lovely car was slightly dulled by an abject terror of driving. Thank goodness for SatNav and Jo keeping me on the straight and narrow, one less thing for me to worry about while we were on the road. So after kind of getting lost on the outskirts of Charlotte (which was not an unpleasant experience, except for when I did about five miles with the handbrake on), we pointed the car in the direction of Chimney Rock and went for it! As the suburbs turned into the wilds of North Carolina, we had plenty to look at outside the car, and not just the sheer drop on either side of the winding roads.

We stopped off at Chimney Rock for a spot of hiking, but between readjusting my legs to drive without a clutch pedal and doing a fair old climb up to the top of Chimney Rock, my legs were aching and a wee bit shaky when we got back to the car. No time for malingerers though, we had a luxury log cabin to get to! It wasn’t quite lunchtime and already we felt like we’d achieved loads. Next stop was Bat Cave (what a name!) and an unscheduled pitstop at Lake Lure for some lunch, a look at the beach, and the local wildlife. En route to Cosby, TN, we had our first taste of freeway driving, including along a stretch sponsored by Al Gore, and quickly learned that nobody BUT NOBODY sticks to the speed limit! You get beeped at by other motorists until you break the law. Things had gone like clockwork all day, but just as we were almost at our rental in Cosby, we took one turn too far on a road which was a little too inaccessible for my newbie driver status and ended up having to call out a recovery service while night started to fall around us. Thank goodness we could get reception on my mobile! Anything less than a 4WD wasn’t going to get up that dirt path, and I ended up wedging the car across the road with the back end in a tree and the front end pointed at the murky drop to the river. I know when I’m beaten, and our knight in shining headlights, Sonny, turned up and got us out of that particular tight spot! Not only that, but he also offered to escort us up to the cabin in his monster truck (no chance, I wasn’t sure how I was going to drive back down again) and instead found us somewhere a little more accessible to stay right on the main road. This one still had a hot tub, and as we hadn’t bought any groceries, we were more than grateful for the free bags of microwave popcorn provided!