American Adventure (1): "Planes, trains and automobiles...."

It's 5:17am  in Georgia, 10:17am in the UK and my body is tired but confused. I wish I still posessed the teenager's ability to sleep for hours anytime, any place, anywhere but it's just one of many things that the passage of time robs from you, so I'm sat in my motel room writing my first update.

Yesterday was about the unglamorous side of travel.: more aimless waiting around than in "session" carp fishing, with 9 and a half hours spent on planes, 6 hours in airport lounges and 2 and a half hours driving, not to mention a couple of unexpected trips on a "train", more of which in a minute.

The first surprise was the plane. I'd expected something a bit more substantial than a Boeing 757 for a transatlantic flight (I've been on bigger planes on short hops to Spain or France!), but I figured that they "know what they're doing" and the fuel tank really would be big enough for the journey, and settled into a long, but comfortable flight.

After a perfect landing and three hours of people watching at New York I got onto a small jet (basically a sardine tin with wings) for a rather "bumpy" internal flight of a couple of hours, which touched down in Atlanta at around 5 o'clock. However, it was to take another hour to get out of the Airport! Atlanta Airport is about the scale of a medium sized English village, and after a walk of about a mile I had to get on a train just to get to the baggage reclaim, then onto another train to get to the hire car centre.

 

The hire car is a delight- not the rather boring Citreon Aveo I was expecting, but a VW Bug for no extra dosh. It's a bit of a "hairdresser's car", but not as girly as the modern Beetle's with  their ridiculous plant pot on the dashboard, looks fun and is fun to drive. I've christened her (not literally) "The Bugle", and I think we're going to get along great. I made a couple of wrong turns just outside the airport, but pretty soon the car, the Sat Nav and I agreed to "work together" and I enjoyed a pleasant drive ( car temperature reading 90 degrees) with the air con on listening to Country and Western (it felt "right") and then a couple of Christian channels. I had a bit of a "discussion" with the motel manager, who tried to charge me again for a room I'd already paid for on the internet (I won), which was surprising especially as it's a motel owned by "The Man" and not a "Mom n' Pop" owned motel, but it's a comfortable enough room to not be able to sleep in!

 

 Today, I'm off to South Carolina, first to Columbia ( only 147 miles- which by this journey's standards is like popping to the shops in the UK!) to meet an outdoor's ministry guy called Patrick, then on to Charleston where I'll be staying with a family, having a couple of meetings and going fishing. I'll see y'all later!