Day 8 – Fly drive

As I was writing up my blog entry last night, feeling tired and low, we got chatting to a group of travellers in the hostel lounge. We shared a few stories and got some good advise.

We managed to get away with sleeping in the hostel foyer by dozing and moving around. We set off early to O’Hare through the torrential rain that hurricane Ike has sent North. The rain was so heavy that there were leaks all over the airport terminal.

The rain inevitably delayed the flight leading to us not arriving in Atlanta until late afternoon. We keep crossing the eastern and central time zones which is really confusing me. On the upside time doesn’t really matter that much; in fact I don’t know what day it is half the time.

Arriving in Atlanta we were blown away by the size of the airport. It has a train to get from the gate to baggage claim! Next it was onto sorting out a car. Fun fun fun! After getting quotes from all of them we eventually plumbed for a Nissan with an, obsurdly large engine (or compact as they call it), from Avis. The nice lady let us have an extra driver for free and gave us some advice on hiring our next car. Online is the way forward and between the hours of 12 and 3am apparently gets you the best deals.

We hit the road early evening and after the initial few miles I soon got used to driving an automatic in six lanes of traffic with cars under and over taking me :-S I was glad to get off the big interstate an on the smaller i985. We manage to cover 80 miles on our way to the Smokey Mountains. We stopped in a place called Gainesville and found a lovely Motel. Big beds, clean every thing – I’m in heaven.

After some top nosh at a place called Oodles I did a b it of shopping. I’ve bought myself a miniature laptop. The lack of internet cafe’s has been a real pain but there are wireless hot spots everywhere. Now we can access the internet and books cars, flights and research areas as we stop off as well as upload pics and email people. We’re already set to save $400 on flights to LA over the prices quoted by the airline at the airport.

First week higlight photo’s now online: http://www.flickr.com/photos/robford/sets/72157606693159100/