Day 2: Charlotte, NC to Orlando, FL

Another long day, but an enjoyable one. The route can be seen here (click on Day 2). It has been colder than expected so no top off driving as of yet. We passed 1000 miles of driving as we got to Daytona beach. The next few days will be shorter distances, perhaps half as long as we have been driving, so more stopping and visiting places.

From 2007 USA Elises

We left Jared's place in Charlotte this morning, three bright Elises each with a number of little modifications so them. A nice touch about the Elise (and therefore Elise owners) is that they are all different the moment they roll off the dealership floor. We have three different exhausts: Quicksilver, Stage II and Larini. Wait for some ChaseCam clips with those three roaring. Then there are HID kits, LED lights, painted diffusers, petrol caps and shift knobs, audio and video recording hook-ups, carbon fiber mirrors, different rear view mirrors, upgraded stereos and speakers, Sector111 goodies a plenty, the list goes on...

From 2007 USA Elises

After a quick sprint we met Dave, a good friend of mine, for lunch in Columbia, South Carolina. By sprint I mean about two hours; but distance and time has a bit of a distorted scale when one is driving 8000 miles over the course of a month! South Carolina was nice as it had the first Palm trees. Being a Northener (and a Brit) it's one of those little things that gets you excited. Well it got me excited; the others couldn't have cared less.

Then we went straight through South Carolina and Georgia without too much drama. We met a friendly bloke at a rest stop who was a guitar player on his way to a gig in Savannah, Georgia. He convoyed with us for 50 miles or so in his white pick up truck. He did pretty well in keeping up! With my rubbish mind though I forgot he was going to tag along and for a while was a little confused as to why this white pickup had raced up and leeched onto us.

Next we headed down into Florida, our 8th state of the trip already. Dave was right; as soon as you get to Florida people drive a good 20 miles and hour faster. I decided to step up our speed when a 90 year old granny cruised past us in a beaten up Honda at about 90 miles an hour.

From 2007 USA Elises

We stopped off in Daytona at the enormous Harley dealership. They had a festival thingy going on outside which we milled around in for a while. I like the Harley crowd; we often exchange waves on the highway and they are always a good laugh to chat with.

We have decided to have some kind of hotel plan before getting to a city. We tried to ad-lib it in Orlando and ended up in, let's be kind here, a bit of a slum. See the GPS route where we doubled back. We capped the day off with a steak dinner and a Yuengling; was a bit of a treat to have Philly beer down here.

Off to Universal Studios tomorrow to go play then off to Miami!
** Update ** Cory is feeling unwell so sod it; I am going to go to Kennedy Space Center and dream about being an astronaut when I grow up.

Some numbers so far:

• 1050 miles traveled
  
• 8 states visited
• 12 tanks of fuel used between us all
  
• 1 cars seen flipped over