It was cold today. Really cold.
The forecast was for a range of 0°C to a maximum of 6°C, and when we woke at about 7.00am, it was already 5°C, so I was feeling hopeful … and then I took some suitcases out to the car and I had a reality check.
Back when I was young, conventional wisdom was that if you sat on a cold surface – like cold concrete – you could get piles.
If you don’t know what piles are you will have to Google it, or ask someone. I’m not explaining it here.
When you get into The Don II and he has been sitting out in the cold all night, you can be pretty certain that the leather seats are going to be cold.
Cold like a concrete floor. Cold like the type of concrete floor that conventional wisdom said would give you piles … and I’m not taking that risk because I don’t even know if piles is a medical condition that is covered under our travel insurance policy!
Now two things have occurred together to ensure that the potential piles crisis is averted.
The first thing that happened is that we discovered The Don II not only has seat warmers (because we knew that in advance), but has an option where we can set the seat warmers to come on when the engine is started.
The other thing that we discovered is that there is a button on The Don II’s remote fob that we have not used before, and we found that it allows us to start the car remotely.
That, my friends, is true technological innovation. I can stand inside the AirBnB, double-click the little button on the remote and watchThe Don II flash his lights, honk his horn, and start the motor … all safe in the knowledge that the seats are warming nicely for when I (and MBW) hop in.
So this morning we started The Don II, waited until the seats were warm, and ventured out into the cold to begin our trip to Charlotte North Carolina.
Those seat warmers are amazing – we hadn’t gone more than a kilometre or two and my buns were nice and toasty 🙂
So I mentioned yesterday that we lucked out with our AirBnB. We stayed with Will and Erica and their 3yo son Hogan. Will is a “golf pro” and I’m not sure what Erica does.
They live in a beautiful house in Marietta Georgia. The only thing that could have made it better is if there had been a few centimetres of snow on the ground.
The AirBnB space is called an “in-law” space. Fully self-contained, roomy, comfortable, everything that we could hope for.
The door on the left in the photo above leads to a private bathroom.
Seriously, if you are staying in Atlanta GA, this is the place to stay. We paid AUD$57 for the night!
So we got The Don II started, got the seats warming, and got on our way.
While I am certain that there are lots of fun things to do in Atlanta GA, we had a bit of an epic trip planned again today so we elected to get on the interstate, still heading east, and a bit north.
It was a bit of a slow start. The weather was a bit gloomy and overcast, and the temperature gauge in the car told us that it was 40° Fahrenheit outside. Now from my rudimentary understanding of the imperial system that I learned up until I was in grade 4 (?) at school, 32° F is freezing, so 40° is not much better.
Google tells me that it converts to just under 4.5° C. Brisk!
Now, please permit me to digress for just a moment. You may have noticed the title of today’s post and wondered if I have lost my mind?
There are a couple of reasons for the song that has been chosen for today’s post.
Firstly, we have been in hillbilly territory for a couple of days now and it seemed like the right time to pull out something appropriate for where we are.
As they say in the Blues Brothers movie, they have both kinds of music here – country and western!
The second reason for the song today is that we have increasingly been referring to our GPS as Jolene. Country and Western music always has a Jolene in there somewhere, and MBW is concerned that Jolene is going to take her man … and in fact Jolene has been very successfully taking not only MBW’s man, but MBW herself all over the south of the United States so far.
We fire up The Don II, give Jolene instructions on where we want to go, and she takes us there. Simple.
So I mentioned that it was a bit of a slow start today. Not The Don II’s fault. Not Jolene’s fault. We encountered the “Monday morning commute”.
Traffic was slow, everybody was going somewhere … so we sat in traffic and puddled along as best we could until Jolene found us a better way to go.
The trip from Atlanta GA to Charlotte NC was expected to take about 4.5 hours; more with stops.
After a couple of hours travelling, my bladder was sending urgent messages to my brain and then MBW saw those two little words that make her go weak at the knees – “Outlet shopping”. Yay!
Tanger Outlet is in the middle of nowhere near a place called Commerce GA (ironic, I know).
This outlet is like DFO on steroids. Seriously.
To get the whole centre in I needed to either take three photos, or do a panorama. I think that there was parking for like a bazillion cars … The Don II is out there somewhere waiting patiently for us 🙁
So we finished our shopping, MBW bought a vest (no surprises there), we used their restrooms, and got back onto the I-85 to continue our journey.
Today was another three state epic journey. Georgia, through South Carolina and into North Carolina.
Thanks Henry McMaster for your hospitality, but we are only passing through.
We did contribute to the economic prosperity of South Carolina because we stopped at the Welcome Walmart Supercenter (Welcome is a place, BTW) and bought some things for lunch – bread rolls, turkey and cheese, plus some more dairy products for coffee and breakfast – and headed on a little further to Greenville SC to stop and have a picnic lunch.
We actually stopped at a park for lunch in residential Greenville SC.
So here is a question – do you know why there are no children enjoying the park?
A: IT WAS TOO COLD!
The Don II was reporting that the weather had gone to a relatively balmy 50°F by this time (10°C) but if you take the wind chill factor into consideration it was about freezing.
Needless to say it was a quick and refreshing lunch.
Back into The Don II, new instructions for Jolene, and we were back on our way to Charlotte NC.
We crossed into North Carolina about 3.00pm and stopped at the visitor centre.
Here is another question: why do you think that MBW is sitting the way that she is?
A: It was really cold and the metal seat was super cold. No toasty buns there, but the remote start and the automatic seat warmers fixed that!
We arrived at Charlotte around 4.00pm and visited the Billy Graham library – a museum dedicated to the life and work of Billy Graham.
They had a live nativity scene going there, starting tonight, so we stopped and had a look.
When they learned that we are from Australia, they were very excited to tell us that they had a kangaroo in the lineup of animals in the stable … like we have never seen a kangaroo before!
By this time the temperature had dropped back down to about 6°C and it was time to head for home.
I have to say that all of those Christmas songs make a lot more sense now, when you are cold 🙂
Tomorrow is a relatively short run over towards Asheville, and a bit of a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
We will have a bit of a poke around Charlotte NC before we head off … but that will be tomorrow’s news.
Today’s journey looked like this – 291 miles or 466km:
So to finish off, put your hands up all of you Dolly Parton fans … here is Dolly singing today’s song: Jolene (Dolly Parton).
There’s not a lot of people who can wear that outfit and make it look good 🙂
PS Google tells me that Asheville – home for tomorrow night – has a low of -2°C, so you can expect further commentary on the cold.
Ciao
#G&KTAKEUSA2019