Road Trip: New Orleans to Charleston, SC

  Date        Stop   Odometer    Location                                      Time

6/24/2013	0	212179	Leaving New Orleans	8:00 AM
6/24/2013	1	212264	Biloxi Beach, MS	10:45 AM
6/24/2013	2	212437	Greenville, AL	1:57 PM
6/24/2013	3	212777	North Augusta, SC	8:45 PM
6/24/2013	4	212780	Baymont Inn Augusta, GA	9:00 PM
6/25/2013	0	212780	Leaving Augusta, GA	8:47 AM
6/25/2013	1	212920	Rodeway Inn Mt. Pleasant, SC

From Sara's travel journal:

We left New Orleans first thing in the morning on Monday. It was a little bit tricky getting out of town—the traffic wasn’t too bad, but I missed the entrance for the interstate and had to back track on one-way downtown roads. It was a little bit frustrating, but we were able to get on the road relatively on schedule. Once we had gotten through New Orleans, we stopped in a suburb on I-10 to try out a Waffle House for breakfast. We had a really friendly server at the bar, and we both ordered pretty sizeable meals and chose grits over hash browns. This surprised our server, who said “You both want grits? Where are you from, up north?” We answered in the affirmative and he said “I see, you can’t get grits up there.” I guess southern folks don’t go for grits on a regular basis at Waffle House. The rest of the day was devoted to driving, but we stopped in Biloxi, Mississippi to dip our toes in the Gulf of Mexico. Biloxi seemed like a pretty great resort town from our cursory view of it. Other than that stop, we did not take too many breaks on the road. We ended up in Augusta, Georgia for the night at a Baymont Hotel, where we had a very chatty and quirky front desk clerk check us in. We told her a little bit about our trip and she was very excited and told us about something similar she did as a child with her family. She had visited all of the national parks and we discussed our favorite places. 

Frog took a little swim in the Gulf of Mexico

 

We drove into Charleston, South Carolina the next morning. Our route across the state took smaller highways passing through several small towns. We arrived in Charleston around noon and parked at the visitor’s center. The center was a great place to start because it had plenty of helpful attendants to answer questions and a desk where you could get book a hotel room. We had the attendant reserve a room at the Rodeway Inn in Mount Pleasant, which was outside of Charleston and not too far from the Sullivan’s Island beach. Walking to the historic district of Charleston, we we stopped for lunch at a café inside of an old house that had sandwiches and some southern style food. Cory had a pork tenderloin BLT and I had an open-faced turkey sandwich with 4 cheese macaroni and cheese on the side. We then walked to the parks along the harbor. The day was extremely hot and humid, so the breeze coming off the water felt fabulous. We went through an art market (where I found my magnet) and we also took some time walking around the old neighborhoods to take in the architecture. Before we drove to the hotel, we went to a coffee shop/bar and got some pecan pie a la mode. I took the opportunity to try some sweet tea, which I did not enjoy because it was WAY too sugary for me. Cory had some Italian soda, which he liked a lot better. We also drank a good amount of water—we were extremely dehydrated because of how much we were sweating in the hot sun. 

Charleston's famous Rainbow Row

We went to the hotel with the intention of taking a quick break and then going to the beach. We ended up completely crashing instead, though. We cranked the A/C to the max and watched several episodes of Chopped instead. I guess the hot weather was taking it out of us more than we realized. We decided to go to the beach first thing in the morning instead before driving north. We went to a gas station to grab dinner supplies—Easy Mac for me and a giant pickle and plain tortilla chips for Cory. Fancy (and healthy!), I know.