One man and his dog. A road trip. Part II

It was an eventful drive today. 470 miles most of it in rain, some of it pretty bad on a predominantly a two-lane interstate which made the South Circular look sexy.

We didn’t think much of Richmond, Virginia especially the part we stayed in which was in the middle of the vast Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) campus just on the outskirts of downtown. We took a long walk last night and other than the student laden Monroe Park it was pretty grey and sketchy.

We slept well and was up and in the car much earlier this morning and it was a pretty boring drive, the coastal run down North and South Carolina would have been a million times nicer. Internally these states offer little except nondescript towns and MAGA and Jesus Lives billboards.

Fortunately Rolo appeared to agree with me that nothing was worth stopping for and we made good work of what would have been an almost eight-hour straight run.

We did stop for a pee each at a place called Lumberton in North Carolina. Starbucks was the only appeal, but I have never seen so many beaten up pick up trucks and people with no teeth in one drive-thru in my life.

We both relieved ourselves, me inside, and then strolled a bit to get the legs moving. Then out of nowhere hurtling towards us was a rabid looking dog, who’s owner had let his grip on his lead slip.

The dog jumped on Rolo, jaws open and I ended up kicking the dog off him whilst rolling around on the grass. I gave the owner a mouthful and we skipped away with fortunately me more shaken than Rolo.

Back in the car the weather deteriorated, we had another stop at a very oppressive South Carolina town called Manning, and in driving rain finally made it to Savannah in Georgia – Rolo’s 8th state of the tour – around 6pm.

I could have kissed the bloke at the hotel reception when we checked in after he told us our room was on the ground floor!