In Penn station we've bought a "Sub" some "Chips" and some water for the journey.  Our Amtrak train is wonderfully comfy and clean and we start to barrel through the New York and District of Columbia countryside.

Our good Pal Bob has reccomended that rather than stay in DC (Freaking expensive) we hed toward  a district called Alexandria.  By chatting up the guard on the train we actually get to stay 2 stops past Union station and are dropped pretty much on the tracks at Alexandris, the guards have to jump from the train and pull out little step extensions to get us from the train to "platform" level, the station is all but deserted, after the hustle and bustle of New York it's like a breath of air.  Ubered to our Holiday inn we set out to explore.

Alexandria is stunning! Olde Towne America! a complete pleasure to walk around.  The high street stretches the length of twon down to a beautiful marina area with shops bars and restaraunts with views across to DC.  In an Irish Bar (are they f*cking everywher?) they have great live music, a happy hour, an Irish stew on special plus salt beef with boiled cabbage and mustard gravy.....we are in Hawg Heaven!

We're sitting in our room watching ther early morning weather and Hurricane Florence pretty much bugger our plans for the next few weeks. We're in SW Virginia and although it's most  likley to hit North Virgina the areas we meant to visit face manditory evacuation orders.  We book another couple of days here so we can watch where we need to avoid, we also need to book a hire car.  Our shuttle to the airport is fruitless as no hire companies located there have any interest in talking to us unless we've booked. On line we go and Kim finds us a good deal with budget, we'll pick the car up in a few days, so we occupy ourselves with Aexandria.

The water front really is lovely, Oyster bars are the thing herefood in general is really good quality. We have a couple of nice lunches when wines are half price and we get to watch the locals clear the bottom of the street from the nightly flood.  High tides are being added to by the initial "press" of hurricane Flo. 

A quiet hour down by the marina is only ruined by the arrival of a harp playing busker.  My dislike for the harmonica is legendary but, on this occassion I do mean a actual bloody harp.  Played by what looked like an Umpalumpa, complete with scannable "donation tag" on her harp case so you could tip her via your mobile..  What is the world coming to.  

Our Mate Bob is out here and we manage to hook up for a couple of beers one evening and then with Bob and a mate (Dirty great big black girl she was!) {It was a bloke and his name is Steve....Kim} we go for amazing steaks the back to murphys for some Oirish music and a few nightcaps.  Truth to say Bob has to fly home tonmorrow but we don't want the evening to end so great is it to see a friend from home albeit we've only been away a week! Crazy!  It's a great night, thanks to Bob and Steve.

Into DC via the metro, which is very clean, tidy and efficient by the way!  We've gone straight to themain event and the National Mall, it's all here, the Lincoln, the national, the Capitol, the Wight House, the war memorial, an amazing day seeing stuff I never expected to see in my life. The scale of everything here is a little overwhelming and we're glad at the end of the day to make our way back to Alexandria and relative normality for a plate of ribs 'n' salad at the Union Street Pub. 

Unusually for us, we're sitting at a bar, next to us are two women.  In the UK of course we'd drink our beers, have a pack of crisps and bugger off, in America, we talk! They intoduce them selves as "Pepper" and Kay.  I Lie, they introduce them selves as Kay and Pepper.......... I start to giggle Kay'n'pepper?? They just don't get it.  To be honest Kay is so utterly pissed I don't think she'd get it if I wrote it on a shovel and hit her on the head with it.

"scusshe me, gotta go" she says.

"what are you driving"

"AHar har har....schumflers .....narce to met you-all" and out she goes.

While Kim and I wait for some ceasar salad and shrimp Pepper kindly writes a mist of advice for our travels toward Nashville.  We like Americans, very friendly, open people, but....very loud!     

We've worked out that we can take a free airport shuttle from our hotel to the airport where we can get a direct metro line to Washington DC downtown where we can pick up our car.  Doing it this way saves the best part of a thousand bucks! due to not having to pay airport duties etc.  The trip goes well and we're introduced to our wheels for the next two months.  We've plotted aroute out of Washington Downtown to Charlottsville and proud to say we make it onto the highway without a missed turn.

The road passes through what sounds like a history of the American Civil war. Manassas, Fredriksburg, Lynchburg, Wayneboro, Culpepper, Charlottsville.  Lovely billboard at the roadside advertising a funeral home.  "Don't Drink and Drive.........We can wait!"

Charlottsville is another of those picture perfect Virginia towns pumped full of character, very expensive and the rain belt off of Hurricane Flo has arrived and we have periodic downpours.  There's no way it's worth us staying in town so we head back to the outskirts and a Days Inn which is a walk from a strip mall with some restaurants and bars. 

The hastily made plan from here to avoid the worst of hurricane flo was to take to the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge park way across The Blue Ridge Mountains (Of Virginia) We have been practicing the song all day, it's a short drive from Charlottsville to pick up the route. First thing in the morning we check traffic, both roads are closed anticipating damage from the storm!

Another hasty re-route, we'll head toward Knoxville in Tennessee which will be a good staging point for Nashville (Y'all)

Part way along the little town of Wytheville is beckoning and so there we head.  We go into "town", there's a visitor centre,

"Hi, We're a little tired are there any motels local?"

"Sure, we got a ton of them"

She spends five minutes ringing a coule of dozen motels she's happy to reccomend and a few she doesn't.

"Wow, that's a lot of motels for such a small town, what's the big draw"

"I do not have a single idea honey"

We leave "tourist information" with a list of roosts and A Red Roof motel is our chosen resort for the night, the only entertainment locally, a Chinese restaraunt, Tangs.  Having negotiated the highway, grasping our umby against the belting rain we enter Tangs and encounter te single daftest waitress we've ever had to negotiate.

"Har, ma names Nancy 'n' arm yor waitress, arl git ya'all some warder 'n' come back, take yor order.  Ha y'all, here's yer warder you got any questions?"

"Yes, this beer on the menu, steamhead what is it?"

"It's beer"

"Yes but what sort"

"It's beer"

"Yes but is it a lager or an IPA"

"I don't drank beer"

"Could I see a bottle"

"We aint got none"

If I had an hour I could detail the conversation around ordering Kung Pao beef with Fried rice.  What I will say is the food was bloody lovely.

All packed next  morning we sit in a coffee room with another guest.  She's from Carolina, and she knows her home has been hit hard by the Hurricane.  She's from one of tyhe mandatory evacuation areas on a "Barrier Island", she's not optimistic about what she'll find when she gets home but she knows she can't consider going back for another week or so.  The Red Roof have been kind  and given a good rate given her circumstances but she can't stay here any longer and is going to stay with friends "upstate".  It's an odd feeling being shoved up against the human cost of this huge event.

Lucky for us we decide on a short side trip out to a Rocky Mountain visitor centre.  As we leave Charlottsville, the blue ridge mountains look stunning.  A great backbone of a ridge covered in Pine, plumes of steam avaporating from the forests like a thousand Indian campfires.

Detouring off the interstate we come to a tiny village, a church, a barn a couple of houses and a visitor centre filled with crafts.  The lady there advises we head to Gatlinburg\Pidgeon Forge and Sievresville.  Don't try 'n' cross country though, ya'll 'll git lowst fer sure, me I dow-nt drive 'n; I caint read a map.

We plot a route on the phone and drive across country.  It's a stunning drive.  Beautiful rolling hills and meadows fading into forests and rising up into the rocky mountains, huge, wide open spaces.  Small community after small community, each with at least 3 churches and a barbeque pit, apart from that, pretty much nothing but farming to fill your time. 

So what has Sevieresville ever done for us?

Absolutely nothing! .....except for Dolly Parton that is.