USA 2014: 12/28/14

Greetings from Charlotte, North Carolina, famous for it's warm hospitality and iced tea.

Today was another transit day, this time between Nashville, Tennessee and Charlotte, North Carolina, travelling eastwards a distance of 437 miles / 704 km and around six hours and forty minutes of driving or just slightly shorter than day 16's travel distance and time. The drive has us passing through the famous Great Smokey and probably more famous (to John Denver fans) Blue Ridge Mountains which are both situated on the lower part of the giant Appalachian Mountain Range.

The drive took us eastwards north of Chattanooga, but I didn't spot any silent cats (let me know if you get it), then through Knoxville, Tennessee where we head southwards and then easterly into Charlotte.

Note the Appalachian Mountains on the East side of the USA

The drive (as usual) was fairly uneventful with a number of stops for food, fuel and "comfort breaks", but the first 2/3rds of the drive was through relatively heavy rain. One of those "Comfort Breaks" took place on the North Carolina Tourist Information site of the State border. We also encountered a short (around 10 minute) traffic jam near Hoopers Creek, North Carolina due to roadworks and merging into a single lane. We adopted a front passenger seat-buddy rotation policy as we did for the travel between Pensacola and Nashville.

In the end, we paced ourselves to ensure lots of rest breaks and a relatively relaxed trip and arrived in the late afternoon. After checking into our Hotel (The Country Inn and Suites, Matthews) situated to the south-east of the city we headed to Red Lobster for Dinner. As per our previous experiences in past trips the meals were awesome.

So all-in-all, not much to report, but we have planned a very busy tomorrow to ensure we get as much out of our single full day in Charlotte as possible. Here's some pics from today: