One of the most interesting features of road tripping down the East coast has been watching the environments change – a change that can only be appreciated by watching it whiz past you on the highway.
The further south we drove after leaving Durham, North Carolina, the more apparent the change of scenery became. The green belt that runs the length of the highway became thicker and thicker as if the trees were shuffling closer together and everything seemed to be strangled by ivy and weeds. Then sure enough, after crossing the border into South Carolina, the trees became covered in Spanish moss, a pale green moss that looks like old man’s beard and dangles limply from the tree bends. Everywhere you looked, these massive trees sporting long low branches were heavy with strings of moss, like they’d gone un-dusted and were now covered in spider web. I can see why with the South’s ghostly heritage and thick forests covered in Spanish moss, it gives everyone the spooks. I definitely felt like an extra from True Blood.
Two hours south-east of Durham is Charleston, where we stopped for lunch and a shop. The main street of Charleston is King Street, a cute cobblestone street which sports expensive couture boutiques and just plain expensive chain stores. There’s a good selection of eat-outs though and we had a nice ‘southern’ lunch at a pulled pork cafe, before wandering around King Street and admiring the things we couldn’t afford.
From Charleston we drove further south again, crossing the border into Georgia where we stopped twice – once to get some home-grown peaches and peach cider (a Georgia tradition) and once to get a speeding ticket. It seems I’m leading Caitlin’s squeaky clean record astray.
If speeding down the highway didn’t provide me with enough Spanish moss, our stop-over in Savannah, Georgia certainly did. If Charleston was a prissy, perfect school-girl, Savannah would be her secretive sister with a wicked smile. On the outside, Savannah is a gorgeous city made of Southern plantation homes, Spanish moss and cute light-up fountains which the kids run about in. But once the sun go down, she strips out of her Sunday best and goes partying.
Ironically, Savannah is as mischievous as she is expensive. We had a difficult time finding a last-minute motel or inn to stay at which wouldn’t cost us a fortune and our first-born. We wanted to keep well away from the divey-motel we passed on the way into the city, but as it sported the ‘best rates in town’ our last resort ended up being the resort we resorted to.
The Thunderbird Inn turned out to be a diamond in the rough. From the outside it looked questionable, but once we got into our room we found cable, a modern bathroom and the biggest, most comfortable beds we could have hoped for. We even managed to bat our eyelashes into scoring another double room, leaving each of us to have our own king-sized bed (which after a night of bar-hopping lulled us into a sleep-in and a late check out).
The streets of Downtown run parallel to the Savannah River and everything is within easy walking distance – a feature of town planning I’ve found consistent in America. After accidently ordering a Pedicab (a bicycle-drawn carriage ridden by very desperate employees who get pissed off when you cancel your order because you were after a ‘real’ cab), we had a light late dinner at the Half Moon Brewery and Grill where I had my first serving of fried green tomatoes. (I thought of you, Mum). I’ve taken quite fondly to southern cuisine, but all that deep frying is certainly leaving me with a little more weight to carry around than just my backpack.
Around the corner was Congress St which is full of bars, clubs and dives and a steady stream of tourists, under-age teenagers and students from the Savannah College of Art and Design moving from bouncer to bouncer. We found some live music, but the real discovery was the bar with a free Mrs. Pac Man machine which became a source of much amusement.
From Savannah, we headed onto Gainsville, Florida – a short 4 hour drive which after the night we had, felt like an eternity. Gainsville is a bit of a hole in the middle of nowhere with the only thing of interest being the University of Florida. An old friend of Caitlin’s went to school there and was kind enough to put us up for the night with her gorgeous westie terrier, Bucky. The University of Florida is one of the major state universities in America and with school having recently gone back, the town was crawling in the morning with college kids riding their scooters to class. The university is also home to the UF Gators, the universities representative football and basketball teams who are greatly esteemed by Gainsville and its surrounds. Unfortunately, I only just missed out on attending a game and seeing the town explode with blue and orange. But it was comforting to know the college sporting stereotype (ala One Tree Hill) is not so far from the truth.
Gainsville was the last stop-over on Caitlin and Kristen’s East Coast Road Trip and as I write this, we are cruising (but not too fast) down the turnpike to Miami.
Can’t wait to get me a deep breathe of that Florida humidity.
Ciao for now. xo
