Roadtrip to Charlotte, NC

Last week I took a trip to the land of racecars and bananas.

You guessed it! That would be Charlotte, North Carolina.

Even though I lived in North Carolina for eight years, I never did make it to Charlotte.  A good friend moved there last year and I had just filed for unemployment for the first time in my life so it was time to hit the road. I absolutely love to be on the road and listening to music so driving 11 hours straight is exciting to me because my tasks for the day were bullet pointed this way:

·         Montgomery, AL

·         Atlanta, GA

·         Charlotte, NC

But what is more exciting is what comes before, after and in between the bullet points. I was doing about 80 up the interstate so I didn’t get to actually see most of the towns, parks or memorials listed.

A summary of the trip to Charlotte:

The rest of Louisiana heading east out of New Orleans

A bit of Mississippi

Then Alabama:

                                Satsuma

                                Creola

                                The Mobile-Tensaw Delta

                                Georgiana

                                Saraland

                                The Hank Williams Memorial

                  Greenville, Alabama - sunset and dinner at the Cracker Barrel. Lemon pepper rainbow trout  with mashed potatoes, green beans and biscuits.  Here your life choices are “Biscuit or Cawnbread?” and “Fraiiiied or Grilled?” and my server spoke with a genuine country accent.  Food inhaled and back on the road, still have a lot of Alabama, Georgia, some South Carolina and North Carolina to cover before destination is attained.

 

                                Fort Deposit

                                Letohatchee

                                Pintlala

                                Hope Hull

·         Montgomery

To 80 Shorter ½ mile (reads road sign: Shorter is a town)

Tuskegee Airmen National Historic Monument

-          I just recently watched Red Tails which is a movie about the black men who served in the Air Force during WWII. Great movie. That is the monument in their honor.

Just past the Opelika City Limit I found a large orange almost full moon just over the tree line

Huguley

Chattahoochee River

Georgia State Line:

The moon is higher in the sky at this point and obscured by a band of cloud

KIA Assembly Plant

·         Atlanta at night is beautiful and not clogged with unbelievable traffic

Pleasant Hill Road

Sugarloaf Parkway

Old Peachtree Road

Toccoa

Tugaloo State Park

Walhalla

South Carolina State Line:

Fair Play

Savannah River Scenic Highway

Columbia

Greenville, South Carolina

*Note:  if you are from or ever go to a Greenville, you will have to designate the state as there are Greenvilles in Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida, Illinois, Virginia, Indiana, West Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, New York, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Maine, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, California, Oregon, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Missouri. Ok, so maybe it would’ve been easier to list the states without a Greenville.*

Mauldin

Spartanburg

Middle Tyger River

Wellford

North Tyger River

Charlotte-Asheville-Columbia (reads road sign:  again great life choices)

Boiling Springs

Cowpens

Cowpens Battlefield

Thicketty Creek

Sign:  JESUS, I TRUST IN YOU

--one mile later—

Sign:  ADULT STORE EXIT NOW

Buffalo Creek

            York Earl Next Right (reads road sign)

North Carolina State Line:

Kings Mountain National Military Park

Catawba River Basin

Pineville

Huntersville

US National Whitewater Center

·         Charlotte – destination achieved with places, I would otherwise have never heard of, discovered.