Tuesday, May 26th

Mountains

The morning news were full of reports from the floods in Oklahoma and Texas. I received them from a TV mounted into the pump at the petrol station, interrupted frequently by advertising. One more space of quiet contemplation gone from American life. Eventually all fuelled up, I returned to the motorway. It was still rather busy, even had acquired an armada of trucks. But at least for now the rain had stopped.

The view was spectacular. Ahead was a series of mountains ranges, stacked nicely one after another. Their forests were shrouded in morning mist, clouds wandering above cast in an eerie light by the sun they tried to hide.

The fast motorway quickly arrived at the first layer of mountains. It climbed up, forced trucks into a mandatory inspection area, and ran down again in a long descent full of warning signs and gravel runaway truck lanes. At the bottom, the Tennessee River had formed a lake, Nickajack Lake, or, more likely, had been coerced to do so. The motorway, not shy, crossed it at its widest spot. After, up into mountains again.

There were huge fireworks stores at each exit. Perhaps their sale was forbidden in the neighbouring states for their were plenty of state borders nearby. Indeed, the motorway soon crossed into Georgia and into Eastern Time. It did so only to swallow up another motorway, before returning to Tennessee. This little excursion seemed enough to warrant yet another Welcome Centre.

Traffic now was really heavy. It provided a vivid demonstration, why the German iron rules to stay in the rightmost lane and never ever to overtake on the right was sensible. Here, faster drivers had to swirl around a lot to pass slower cars stacked in all lanes. Often, drivers with similar speeds carelessly blocked two lanes by driving closely behind each other. All this happened at speeds of around 70 mph or 110 kph and also involved huge trucks.

Why on earth do Americans think the German motorways are death traps? Clearly, this here was a death trap. I couldn’t get off of it quickly enough.

First I had to cross through Chattanooga, though, and return southbound into Georgia. Another twenty-five miles and at the first exit for Dalton left the motorway to turn east again. There were mountains, again, in that direction, their peaks sticking into the low clouds. The road headed straight into them. To prepare, I made a quick rest stop at a supermarket. This seemed more like it: it was bigger and brighter and cleaner and the people appeared to be at least a little more happy.

‘Winding road 22 miles’ the sign warned before I was swallowed whole by dense green deciduous forests. Up and up it went, quickly into the clouds. They were hanging between the trees, wafting ghostly across the pavement. A series of lookouts offered itself, but with visibility down to a few dozen metres, they were of no use today. The road passed by Fort Mountain State Park before reaching the top at another viewless lookout. It descended towards Ellijay, a very pretty mountain town with lots of red brick everywhere.

The mountain road fun ended after Ellijay, back on the main road. Conveniently, it had been extended to four lanes since the mountains had far from ended. This was the southern beginning of the Blue Ridge, the main range of the Appalachian Mountains, extending north east from here all the way into Canada. The main range safely crossed, a plateau with a number of unremarkable villages and towns followed. After Blairsville, the four-lane fun ended and the road returned to a normal arrangement as it started to climb into the next range of mist-covered mountains and acquired the name Southern Highroads Trail.

A white school bus, complete with flashing light on top, hindered progress. Mysteriously, it was labelled ‘Activity Bus.’ Luckily, it turned off soon, to chase whatever activity it was looking for.

This mountain range was a pretty collection of narrow, green valleys with trees overhanging streams and old wooden barns, lakes that attracted lodges and resorts, and half-hearted charges into the mountains. At one of these, all the way up to a pass, it crossed the Appalachian Trail that started perhaps fifty miles south-west from here and, much like the mountains it followed, went all the way to Canada. As if ordered it started raining and I decided not to hike it but instead keep driving.

After Clayton, next town, the valley floor had been abused for a golf course. Its creator had pulled all registers. The water hazard even featured a fountain. Up in the mountains again, rafting was being proposed. My first thought was that this rain wasn’t quite the weather for that, but then it occurred to me that you’d get wet anyway, so how did it matter?

Down again into the valley of the Chattooga River which marked the crossing into the seventh state I’d be driving through on this trip: South Carolina. It started with three waterfalls, none of which I would stop for.

Perhaps I should have, though, as an endless urban sprawl was next: Seneca, Clemson, and Anderson. The latter provided at least for a bit of entertainment by constantly pronouncing its name in a Matrix-y way. The map showed the whole area in light orange, which should have been a warning sign. Traffic was heavy, lights were always red. The towns themselves were quite pretty, though. Clemson seemed to be a University town—easily identified by having a Starbucks by a busy intersection—and was engulfed in trees. Anderson had a long nice downtown with shops and parking and people milling about. It seemed I had to revise my statement about American towns. Down South they were quite pretty. Perhaps I should have stopped for a walk, but I wanted to cover as much eastbound ground as possible before it got too late.

Thankfully, after Anderson, things finally quieted down again. I drove through some nameless town for they don’t seem to have town signs in South Carolina, and then out into a land of forests and farming. But it wasn’t only town signs that were missing. I had chosen this southerly route to avoid North Carolina where I had gotten lost many a time on a previous trip thanks to their ill-considered and often missing road signage. Sadly, the southern cousin was the same. The map would suggest that the highway was crossing another road. In reality, I came up onto a T intersection with no indication whether to continue I had to turn left or right.

Luckily, I guessed right for once and soon arrived in yet another urban sprawl, that of the two towns of Laurens and Clinton. A left turn in the latter required crossing a railway line just a train approached and enforced an extra break. Clinton’s town centre was on the other side of the line, too, and had turned into a giant traffic jam by the time the coal train’s many, many cars had finally gone by.

Back into lonely country after. The two towns of Chester and Lancaster, both considered as possible overnight destinations, were both poor and dusty and lacking of motels. One final sprint, then, towards Monroe that seemed to lie on a main south-eastern artery out of Charlotte and surely had plenty of accommodation. On the way there, I suddenly and unexpectedly crossed into North Carolina.

Monroe indeed was busy. The main highway, four lanes each direction, was choked with trucks. I dashed about, eventually finding a decent motel. Across the street was a roadhouse-style restaurant where I ended the day with close-captioned ESPN on the TV and country music in the air. Only Sam’s rather excellent IPA didn’t quite fit. But that was fine with me.