Day 14: Greenville, SC NC-TN-VA-WV-MD to Carlisle, PA

When we were in Florida Christopher told us about the “Waffle House Index”.

The Waffle House is a restaurant chain with 2,100+ locations mostly in the South where the chain is a regional cultural icon. The Waffle House Index is used by FEMA to determine how much assistance is required for disaster recovery.  The index has three levels:

• Green: the restaurant is serving a full menu, indicating the restaurant has power and damage is limited.
• Yellow: the restaurant is serving a limited menu, indicating power or food supplies may be low.
• Red: the restaurant is closed, indicating severe damage.

So every time we saw a Waffle House, which was frequently, one of us would ask “Are the lights on?” and the other would answer “Yes…we are safe!”.

In keeping with our global travel guideline of always tasting the “specialty of the region”, we decided that before we left the South we would have to have a Waffle House breakfast. Tom ordered the All-Star Special with pecan waffles. The coffee was good.

Tom’s sister is Sondra, her husband is Jody, his sister is Kay, who lives in Philadelphia, PA. When we told Kay that we would be driving from South Carolina to Pennsylvania she advised “Avoid the City of Swamp Creatures. Friday traffic on I-95 is terrible”. So instead of going North-East through the cities of Charlotte-Burlington-Richmond-DC-Baltimore we headed due North into the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

For hours we enjoyed the breathtaking scenery as we rolled through hours of densely forested hills and gorgeous sky. We took loads of pictures but it’s impossible to capture the grandeur or this place.

It was a long but enjoyable day. We wanted to get as close to Kay as possible so we kept driving till 1:00 am and finally stopped (at a nice hotel) in Carlisle, PA. We drove through South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. That feels strange because the same distance would only traverse half of California. 

Friday retrospective:

Stop doing:

• Stop taking so long to blog.
• Stop collecting postcards

Keep doing:

• Keep blogging.
• Keep walking (10,000+ steps every day).
• Keep collecting magnets.

Start Doing:

• Start blogging every night and stay up to date (stretch goal).

[Note: Since we are posting this 11 days late…we did not meet this goal]

Trip Stats:

Today: 609 mi  176.8 kWh  290 Wh/mi

TOTAL:  3997 mi  1247.6 kWh  312 Wh/mi