Atlanta

Oh my God the drive into Atlanta was horrific, Laura had tears in her eyes! We're talking 9 lanes joining on the left and having to be in the right lane in 500 yards to come off at a junction! Even Tim the satnav had a breakdown!! I'm sure at one point he started yelling at Laura 'GO RIGHT GO RIGHT'. 

The Atlanta skyline taken from Piedmont Park. A huge park had everything you could think of in there puts Cannon Hill to shame! 

A lake in the park, we sat on a bench hanging from a tree overlooking the lake, I read a paper while Laura messed around with her camera for half hour trying to find a good setting. It's never been the same since.

 You can't get more American than a drive in movie! We Saw 21 Jump Street which was hilarious, and loved being able to sit in the car and watch it  #crazylazy

                                         

The first of hopefully many restaurants we first heard about on Man Vs Food. Had one of their 'famous' burgers which was pretty tasty I must say. I think I've had a burger every other meal. Have to say I'm craving a Toby Carvery.The next day we went to 'Gladys Knights Chicken and Waffles', which Adam from MVF said was one of the best meals he had. Now, it was tasty but at the end of the day, it was just chicken and waffles. 

In Dennys Diner you can build your own pancakes, so I had that for dinner :) Chocolate chips in the pancakes, with hot fudge and strawberries. I don't recommend that much sugar for dinner, major sugar low, had to go straight to bed.

 This is Laura, our waitress from Dennys. She was lovely, and maybe a little crazy. Kept asking us to say her name because she loved our accents. 

We went on the coca cola tour, considering Laura has only ever drank diet coke it was quite emosh, here she is shooting the breeze with the chap who made Coke!

We also went to the CNN tour which was just over the road not as fun as coke but interesting all the same.

Lauras Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich! I hated it, but Laura seemed to enjoy. Think she's trying out everything American, I wonder whats next.

I know this is a man in a costume but he was soooooooo cute! 

Theres an underground shopping centre in Atlanta which used to be a rail line back in the 1800's. Was interesting to walk around, UNTIL a man walked into me and his cigarette fell out of his hand and he yelled at us and made Laura pick it up off the floor! I'm still shook up from it, he looked genuinely mental.

Savannah

Oh Savannah you are lovely, our favourite place so far.

This little shop was on the way between Charleston and Savannah, bought myself some cherry cider and foolishly an apple pie forgetting the Americans shove cinnamon in anything. HATE cinnamon. 

Wasn't sure about the cider either. Its not alcoholic, don't be fooled.

Leanne bought a buttermilk pie and ate the lot, she loved it. I waited until she'd finished to tell her it was just an egg custard under a different name. Something she would never try at home!! HA 

 A market on the waterfront  had some lovely things in here leanne treated herself to a nice ring. Thought I was having a heart attack here but turns out the bag was just heavy.

Statue of the Waving Lady. She waved in every ship for 50 years incase her boyfriend returned one of them.

Leanne getting some fruit in her diet.

Savannah has 24 squares spaced around the main area, we managed to walk around 16 of them. Each of them are different, most have monuments in them, some fountains, some restaurants, people playing instruments. This was one of the squares although I couldn't tell you which one!

Horse and carriage going around the squares on a tour. We managed to listen to some walking tours while looking in the opposite direction trying to look inconspicuous.

Leanne being as morbid as ever

A Savannah street, I thought it looked pretty

This is the Chippawa Square which is where the bench scenes from Forrest Gump were filmed. Unfortunately the bench isn't there anymore :(

At the end of all the squares is Forsyth Park where this huge fountain sits. Leanne looks like she's reflecting but she's just trying to get a tan on her face!

A man asked us to take a picture of him in front of the fountain then offered to take one of us, Leanne thought it might of been a plot to steal the camera so in the picture you can see she's ready for a sprint, I look awful though so you won't be seeing it!

Charleston

1000 miles under our belts and we arrive at Charleston...

We noticed by this point as we were getting more south people seemed much friendlier. People who lived around here who you'd think would be annoyed with all the tourists wondering around taking pictures of their houses were saying hello to us in the street, I thought behaviour like this stopped during the 60's but apparently British people are just antisocial!!!!

They call this Rainbow Row as all the houses are painted different colours. Its apparently where all the prostitutes were! We know this as we walked at the same speed as the horse and carriage tour, thats $60 saved!

This lovely house used to be the British Headquarters. The houses around this area are amazing, we've got so many pictures of the houses, wouldn't want to bore you with them though. The houses with the cobbled streets, the harbour and the palm trees, such a lovely feel to it.

April 9th...Only in America!

Everything is peanut butter!!

We went on a ghost tour of this jail apparently they used it for their version of Most Haunted season finale. It was really interesting to learn about the conditions of the jail but everyone was more interested in the ghost stories. At one point Leanne was begging strangers to let her out of the room first. 

Leanne tells me now that she could see a face behind some bars and it was in the top two scariest times of her life, she didn't have her glasses on and looking back at the photos its clear its a bottle of cleaner of some sort just hanging off a bar.

 Leanne on the bandstand in White Point park. She'd spent most of the time looking at the cannons and cannonballs that surround the park with the children, BORING!

I do like a panoramic picture! This is White Point park the seas to the left and Rainbow Row to the right

Myrtle Beach

This is one of the many things we see whilst travelling from place to place. Managed to take this while we were driving over a bridge on the way to Mrtyle Beach.

The boardwalk. Got chatting to someone from london whilst I waiting to buy ice creams, and she noticed my brummie accent straight away and laughed saying she hadn't heard it in a long time. She'd been living in America for 50 years!

View of the pier from the beach

View from the end of the pier. We stayed here to have a drink and could see jellyfish from over the side.

Just an example of the crap that is sold in the shops! Who would buy that?!?! They do love their dogs over here, seriously every other person has one, and seen so many different breeds. Makes me broody for a puppy!! 

Wilmington

This was just a place to spend the night to break up a long journey so its not well known. Its Easter Sunday so most things were closed fortunately it was a lovely day so we spent it on the beach.

Ive never seen so many churches in all my days. We must of seen about 30 churches on our drive through quite apt for the day!

Of course McDonalds was open! So we had our first maccys of the trip. Leannes is the little one although she ate half of mine too!! I should of known when I ordered pancakes, piggy narnar. Never seen so many carbs together.

Finally got to the beach to work on the base tans for florida! I was sleepy from all the driving so I lay about reading and leanne couldn't keep still so she was pacing the beach trying to pluck up courage to speak to a family that had two labrador puppies that were gorgeous. 

All along the front are these beach houses like in the photo on stilts to protect them from storms and the other side of the road theres a lake for fishing. Its a lovely little town just north of Wilmington seems like theres miles of beaches.

We went out for an italian on the evening. This picture is from the restaurant, I'm throwing it in as we're short of pics and I normally hate the pics of me but this ones alright!

Virginia Beach

 This is the beach.

This is a statue of Neptune that was on the beach.

This is me after i dropped my salt water taffy on the floor :( 

Lauras new favourite meal, chocolate covered pretzels.

This was all that was at Virginia Beach, shops full of tat. Once you've seen one, you've seen them all. This didn't stop Laura wanting to go in every single one.

This is me trying to entertain myself in one of those shops.

This is a sandcastle that I'm pretending I built.

There wasn't much here, it was like a warmer version of Weston. We didn't have much time, but we did get to see where the plane crashed the day before.

Richmond

Next stop is Richmond! Everyone is very cool looking here, all sporting at least one tattoo. We went to a great little place called City Dogs, and had amazing burgers. Everyone was watching the news because a plane had just crashed into some apartments in Virginia Beach which wasn't too far away, in fact it was our next stop!

Best cupcakes ever ( Lauras words)

Laura loved these cupcakes so much we had to go back the next day for some more and they were BOGOF (get in!)  they call it BOGO here though! Lauras already started saying gas, elevator and bathroom if she starts saying BOGO I'm on the first plane home.

Canal boat tour

Started the day with a canal tour of the Tobacco Row area. This is where all the production of cigarette and tobacco used to be done.  Was nice enough, was stuck with some annoying brats who wouldn't shut up or sit down, highlight of the trip was when they get drenched by a fountain and when the captain crashed the boat and blamed it on the wind (no, not Lauras).

Raphael, Michelangelo, Leonardo, Donatello and family

 Got to see these on the boat trip too, all sunning themselves. Had to push past the kids to get this picture.

Tobacco Row

 This is the old Lucky Strike factory. it used to be the biggest producer of cigarettes, one year they churned out 1 billion cigarettes! Now it's all been converted into apartments.

Canal walk

Laura on our walk around the canal.

Carey Street cinema, showing English films

We walked down Carey Street, which was lovely, had loads of little one off shops like vintage clothing, second hand shops (but not like Shirley!) a stationary shop, chocolate shops, antiques, pet parlours and this old style cinema which happened to be showing English films.