Travels with Sasha Day 4

 Jonesville, North Carolina is left at 7:45 a.m. The temperature is 41 degrees and the skies gray. Gas cost $2.17 gallon; prices were below $2 at places passed yesterday, but I don’t want to search further.

Traffic moves right along at 70 mph on I-81. One goal for today is not to be tense while driving. My spirits about the trip are picking up when it starts to rain. And here I was thinking that the sun hadn’t risen yet! Visibility diminishes, but the vehicles don’t slow. There are more trees along the highway which block the view of the farmlands – not that I can look around in this traffic.

A ways before Charlotte, the speed limit drops to 60 mph. Traffic bunches, becomes stop and go, bumper to bumper for miles. There goes reaching Charleston by noon and being relaxed while driving. Fifteen minutes later, three cars on the left side of the road are passed and there are a couple of pieces of debris in the road. Traffic picks back up.

Was this it! This caused the slow down? Humph! On and on with the traffic ebbing and flowing, sometimes I’m passing and other times I’m being passed. Charlotte is scary to drive through. I concentrate on the vehicle in front of me. A stretch of road is reached that is cement and the spray coming off all the vehicles creates a fog, which add to the nervousness.

South Carolina is reached at 9:45 a.m. and I pull into the VIC. The lady says it’s four hours to Charleston. She calls the Holiday Inn Riverview and books me in for three nights and I’m again on the road. There are 13 exits for Columbia and I’m through the city and begin to think I missed the exit for I-26. Then I remember the lady said that I-77 ends at I-26.

I-26 is a rougher surfaced road. For entertainment, I try to calculate the distance to Charleston with the speed I’m traveling. Most of the time, it’s 70 mph, but sometimes drops to 60; not that many people do.

At one point, there’s a whole section (miles) where they’ve cut down all the trees in the meridian. (The meridian here is at least four lanes wide.) All the trees are piled like a row of pointy mountains. It’s ugly. Those poor trees; why have they done that? The meridian with trees was nice. Maybe they will be widening the highway.

I reach the hotel at 12:37 and I’m assigned room 1106. There’s a beautiful view of the Ashley River. The luggage is hauled in, the trolley returned to the lobby, and it’s time for lunch. I take the elevator to the 15^th floor and enjoy a nice buffet, a delicious mai tai, and enjoy a most spectacular view looking towards Charleston Harbor.

Tomorrow I might bring my laptop up there to work.