I can see the ocean!

The day started out pretty normal as my alarm clock screamed in an attempt to wake me up. It was unsuccessful at first, but finally on the third try I got up. I scrambled around getting ready for work and getting last minute things together for the trip. Work was kind of a waste as I only got a few things done before my meeting with the owners of Sparkfly. I did, however, get a chance to meet with Dave and sift through the pile of requests to avoid any additional build-up of work while I am gone to Charleston. We met with the owners of Sparkfly to discuss some more in-depth involvement we could do to promote each other and grow our businesses. My involvement in the meeting was only supposed to be introductions and a quick over view of their company and our history with them. Unfortunately it was much more than that. I ended up staying for the entire meeting which lasted about an hour and a half! This put me that much behind schedule in my departure for Knoxville to meet up with Hickey and Chan to begin our journey. I rapidly ran back to the apartment, changed, and then hit the road in the downpour that had begun when I left work. I was making pretty good time and thought I might be able to make up some of my deficit and we wouldn’t have to leave so late. I thought that until I got just outside Chattanooga. That is when the traffic on the interstate stopped. Not crawled slowly or slowed down. It just stopped dead. I found out after going about 2 miles in 45 minutes, that they had shut down the entire north bound side of I-75. They opened it up just before I was forced to exit and try to navigate my way to Knoxville by way of back roads. I followed the road side assistance vehicles until they moved aside and let everyone get back to a normal speed instead of following them like a pace car at 20 mph. I finally made it into Knoxville at 5:00pm which means that it took about 4 hours to get up here instead of the usual 2 hours 45 minutes.

Once I arrived in Knoxville I drove to Chan’s house where we unloaded his car from a trip to MaKay’s and we loaded my stuff. We hit the road, but not to Charleston. We first made a stop off at the Great American Steak & Buffet (or GASB to the veterans of this establishment). We ate dinner with one of Hickey’s friends and then we hit the road for real this time. The weather was good to begin with, but we soon found ourselves being blown around on the interstate and hammered with lots of rain. (perhaps I could bottle some of this and give it to my fellow Georgians to do my part in bringing an end to the drought). We spent the first three hours of our trip listening to “Under Pressure” by Queen featuring David Bowie. Chan and I also spent some time talking about life, love, and loss. (Hickey was passed out asleep for this so he missed out). The rest of the tip was hit or miss on the rain. It was either nothing at all or a mini typhoon surrounding our vehicle. We rolled in to Charleston at 12:51am and it was very, very windy. It also was raining and there were no places within a mile of the hotel to park so we ran and only got mildly soaked. We got into our room and Hickey discovered a strange beeping noise that instantly drove him insane. He wouldn’t let it rest so he went down to the front desk to have them check it out. They responded rather quickly (no doubt due to Hickey’s distressed expression on his face) and sent security up to investigate. They discovered it was nothing more than the alarm clock in the room next door and promptly deactivated it. Problem solved, case closed. Hickey and I were very impressed with Chan's hair and uncanny resemblance to Noah from the Old Testament. (see picture for proof). We decided to crash for the night so we could be refreshed for the morning.