so glad Auntie Sarah gave us insect repellant!

Yesterday we had planned to go to Memphis. However the draw of the hostel atmosphere was too great and ashamedly, perhaps, our need for visiting Graceland could not match it. What can we say? We just weren’t born in the right decade! 

It was another boiling hot day in Nashville and about all we could manage was a lazy morning sitting out in the sun chatting and saying our goodbyes. We took a trip to Subway in one of the girls’ car we had met because Ollie just couldn’t miss out on the $5 footlong offer! But eventually it was time to leave and both of us tried to ignore the thought that maybe we should stay just one more night. We both knew however that it wouldn’t be just ‘one more’ and that we had to get a move on. There was still so much to see...

We boarded our coach and set off on our 17hr journey. We each took it in turns to finish the book we had been reading. At Heathrow Ollie had decided he wanted to buy a book. This was a complete first for him! We chose him a murder mystery and I wondered just how far he would get before he gave up. However I don’t know if it’s the totally empty time spent on the buses or a new passion for the written word but Ollie has actually finished the book in under two weeks! Intrigued to know what I was missing, and my own book proving mind boggling to read, I started reading the book a few chapters behind him. O.k so it wasn’t the greatest literary classic but it certainly was an entertaining soap opera! Ollie loved having the upper hand, knowing things I didn’t, and for the first time in our relationship we have had conversations about a book! Who would have thought? This trip is certainly throwing up some surprises...he even wants to read another one!

Anyway I digress. The journey was the usual uneventful ride complete with annoying lay overs in the middle of the night and passengers that felt the need to talk to us at every inappropriate moment about something neither of us had a clue. There’s only so many times you can smile, nod and answer ‘Yes I am English and that’s my real accent’ before things get a little tedious!

* * *

We arrived in Charleston, South Carolina this morning to more beautiful weather. This was the only part of the trip so far that I had organised on my own; accommodation and transportation. Naturally I was eager to prove to Ollie that he wasn’t the only one who could take control of our plans. Well. Things didn’t exactly work out the way I’d planned. Firstly I had no idea which direction ‘downtown’ was so had no idea of which side of the street to catch the bus from. Had I been on my own I would have just waited until one came along, asked if it was the right bus and then acted accordingly. I should know better by now though; that isn’t the way Ollie operates. He remained quiet as we waited to find our bus but I could tell from the ‘Why didn’t you write it down like I do?’ and ‘We’ve already been here 20 minutes’ that he wasn’t impressed. Eventually we caught a bus going in the right direction and I was doubly pleased when it stopped right at our next bus stop. Jumping off happily I felt sure Ollie was coming over to my way of doing things. 

After an hour and fifteen minutes our next bus was still a no show. We had seen one no.31 but I had said it was going in the wrong direction so we didn’t take it. By this time Ollie was steaming, sweat dripping down his forehead, knee shaking vigorously. I was in trouble. He had had enough. When the umpteenth no.10 bus pulled up Ollie stormed over and asked the driver when the next 31 would be along. Another fifteen minutes. He sat back down and commented that the first bus we’d seen was the correct one and that we’d have been at the campsite hours ago if only I had either written down the information we needed or just let him organise it in the first place. I had tried my best but clearly my skills don’t lie in the area of ‘trip organising’. For me I was perfectly happy to wait around and somehow figure out the next move; that’s how I always do things! So I told Ollie that maybe he should stick to what he was good at and that I would stick to what I was good at from now on. To which he replied ‘So what are you good at Amy?!’

* * *

We arrived at James Island Park (No wonder we couldn’t find the right bus I’d been calling it St James Park all morning) and walked to the campsite that was situated right at the back. It would have been a lovely walk around the lake, through the woods and across the playing fields had it not been a million degrees! Soaked through we finally made it to the registration office and received a lovely amount of information from an old man, very intrigued by our appearance. We (well Ollie. I was just allowed to check the pegs were in correctly) put up our tent for the first time without any complications and I was very impressed by the actual size of it and so was Moomin. After a shower to cool down we took a walk around some of the 700 acre park. It is so nice to be away from the cities for a day. The tranquility of this place is just wonderful and all you can hear is the insects, birds and a few people walking their dogs. It’s so different from anywhere we’ve been so far on our trip and we have taken the opportunity today to just relax and forget about the rush and roar.