At 7:06 on Sunday night, JTH and I hit the road to Cherry Grove Beach in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to participate in PCR's wedding. Our late start was due to JTH being in JPJ's wedding at 4 pm in Lenoir City.
The "plan" was for us to go as far as we could on Sunday night and complete the trip on Monday morning. We ended up making the entire trip in one night.
We talked through the first leg of the trip until we realized that Colleen's Classic Country USA was playing in the background. JTH brought CDs so we listened to the high quality vocal stylings of Hilary Duff for the remainder of the trip. We heard her self-titled album, Metamorphosis, and Most Wanted, and many times over. (That is not the least bit unmasculine...) Well, I did anyway. JTH had been up with ALK to 4 am the previous night. He dozed in and out of consciousness after 9 pm.
My favorite part of the discussion came when JTH shared a recent conversation with his father, CEH (aka "Homer"), regarding what to call ALK. He wrote it down for posterity.
Homer: "Does she go by Mandy or Amanda?"
JTH: "Amanda, but you can call her Mandy if you want. "
Homer: "I'll call her @$$hole if I want to."
Can you see why I love Homer so much? Guess what ALK's new nickname is? Actually I call her "Sweet Bart".
We broke the trip up at the "Hot Spot" convenience store in Enoree, South Carolina at 10 pm. I got gas and some burgers from Hardees. I rarely eat fast food and hadn't eaten at a Hardees in years. My grandparents would have been proud.
JTH also got food at the rest stop. His OCD got the better of him and he needed to wash hands. Unfortunately, he could not find the napkins he had brought for such an occasion. He then informed me he was about to perform one of the stupidest acts he had ever committed. I seriously doubted this but he then proceeded to take a water bottle and wash his hands in the freezing wind outside. This worked far better than either of us anticipated though if he gets sick on this trip, we will know why. Shortly after this, he found the napkins.
The trip went smoothly until the last leg. In fact, we were making such good time that I made the executive decision to complete the journey in one night. Then, all Chan broke loose. First, we missed a turn as my navigator was texting his girlfriend. (I am not blaming him though...) This one missed turn cost us nearly half an hour, negating most of the time we had saved. There was simply nowhere to U-Turn and our trusty Garmin had us make a U-Turn involving three different highways!
When we got to Cherry Grove, we struggled to find lodging. Actually, we struggled to choose lodging and when we did the aforementioned Garmin gave us convoluted routes that involved difficult to read loops. I was driving "efficiently" when a police officer noticed my mad skills. He U-turned and then proceeded to tailgate for several minutes that seemed like an eternity. Thankfully, he did not pull us over.
We finally checked into the Hampton Inn Harbourgate in North Myrtle Beach at 1:57 am. We are in room 121 if you need to reach us. JTH has vowed to turn off his cell phone for the remainder of the trip leaving me responsible for all communication. Does this seem unwise to anyone else?
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