Somebody shoot me! Another slow and torturous day through residential areas! I can’t forget to mention the clammers and the fisherman in the skiffs. You have to slow down for each and every one of them. Some of them even fish in the channel. It’s gloomy outside and chilly due to the front but at least we are moving I guess. The landscape is beautiful. Walt and I compare it to a mix between a rugged Cape Cod and a soft islandy FL (which I guess would make sense since it’s about half way down) but the point is that’s it’s [View Full Entry]

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It rained all night last night. From about 7pm to at least 2 or 3 a.m. It got a littlewindy but nothing to complain about. I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Charleston!!! Traveling here was perfect, beautiful, few residential areas, few clammers, few fisherman, few sailboats in the way, fast traveling cruising at about 25 knots, and the landscape is gorgeous! Cypress trees growing directly out of the water all along the Waccamaw river. Loves it! We passed through the 20 mile long undeveloped barrier island of the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge including sand dunes, salt marshes, beach, maritime fore [View Full Entry]

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After being dropped off at the greyhound station by a friendly fellow travellor from the hostel we made our way to Myrtle Beach where we were picked up by our host Stevanna and her dogs. Other than the fine weather and nice beaches the rest of the town was quiet frankly one of the worst tacky tourist towns ever. We reckon it was designed to rob you of your money and sanity and to transport you to a place resembling a carnival from hell. The downtown experience came complete with an abundance of pitifully cheap T-shirts and souveneir shops, video game [View Full Entry]

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Philadelphia was the only place we were going to on our round the world trip that we had already been to before. Our friends live just outside Philadelphia in a town called Plymouth Meeting, and as we were driving in, Elaine started to remember places she had been many times and it was all a kind of coming home feeling! We spent a long weekend in Plymouth Meeting, enjoying spending time with our friends talking about our adventures so far. It was great to be in a home again, and simple things like enjoying a home cooked meal and watching the [View Full Entry]

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We took the Amtrak train to Charleston and unfortunately our host fell through so we booked ourselves into the Notso Hostel for the two nights. It was an unusually laid out and run hostel with check in for only a couple of hours in the evening and only 2 showers and toilets to service everyone but it served the purpose of accomodation. The next day we walked into the downtown area from our hostel and passed a farmer’s market on the way with plenty of cute stall etc. Downtown area was a stark contrast to the neighbouring residential areas with it’s [View Full Entry]

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This morning has been wonderful so far. I got up and had breakfast with Aaron before he left for school. And Whitney was up just in time to see me get on the road too. I think they got a significant amount of rain last night, so hopefully it washed off some of the bugs that are on the front of my bike. I don’t even try to keep the bike looking clean and shiny, especially with frequent rain riding and storms at night. I found out I was their first visitor to their place since their wedding. I found a [View Full Entry]

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Danger, danger danger......thats right triple danger......there were not one, not two but three matthews' in the grand old USA at once. For ten days no less which to be honest was no where near enough but what can you do! And in keeping with the triple theme there are three pages of photos to this blog so be sure to scroll through to all three of them!!!! Rach took time out from her "im going to take 9 months off and enjoy europe and the world" trip to accompany mum who herself decied to take a refreshing 6 weeks off and [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008 The Reunion Today was the ultimate climax to our adventure. We had great fun in Europe and driving there was an adventure. But spending the day in Greenville at the BMW Performance School was a top thrill for me and Jackie. As I reported yesterday, we drove from Atlanta to Greenville, SC and spent the night at the Marriott. The drive was about two hours, about 100 miles. After our endurance driving in Europe, this was nothing. We drove up in my Toyota Highlander, with Ursula at the GPS. After a nice breakfast, we followed a van [View Full Entry]

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Monday, August 18, 2008 Hello family and friends, Did you think that our journey was over? No way. There is still one important last step. It is time to re-acquaint ourselves with our new, or almost new, BMW. We had bonded with our new car in Europe and now really miss seeing and driving her. We have been back to the USA since Saturday, June 28th. Tomorrow we will spend the day at the BMW factory in Greenville, SC. There is a complete day planned for us. We start at 8:00am and finish at 3:00pm. It should be great fun touring [View Full Entry]

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Location: Lake Jocassee in the Cherokee Foothills about an hour or so west of Spartanburg, SC There's nothing like a large, blue, glistening lake to bring out the fish in us all. This past weekend, after "X-files Friday" (which the movie was good, lots of Mulder and Scully but sadly not 'x-filish' enough for this x-philer...yes, I'm pathetic, I know the lingo and it just wasn't the same without The Lone Gunmen and the Cigarette-Smoking Man) I tried to unwind and get a good night's sleep Friday night. On Saturday morning, I showered and got out of here around 10:30am or [View Full Entry]

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